the words

Hitting the Pause Button

2011-08-21T21:29:00.008-05:00

It's been brought to my attention that my wife and I are full of great ideas and good intentions, but that all too often the ideas that we do have are not getting carried out. It's true that my wife and I have carried out a good number of our ideas, many of them becoming successfully competed projects. Our home improvement projects have been successful ones, for example. However, it seems with every good idea that we went forward with there are three more that only stayed in the idea stage and never had any effort applied to them.

Jodi got a revelation last week that led to us committing to stop saying the word "need." It must be extracted from our vocabulary. We've said it hundreds of times. "We really need to (fill in the blank with a great idea)." We would say it over and over again, yet no one ever acted on the declaration.

Saying that you need to do something does a couple of things, neither of them beneficial. For one, it takes the joy out of the proposed action that is being talked about. No one wants to do something that needs to be done. All of a sudden that idea's follow through became a task. We have enough of those. We don't want any more.

The other negative outcome from saying "need" is that it automatically and inherently gives you an excuse not to do what you are "needing to do." The word 'need' implies that it is something that must be done, of course. However, in America, our basic needs are generally met with overflowing abundance. Therefore, when we use the term 'need' we are generally referring to a large list of back-burner tasks that we can start and stop at our leisure. When we say, "I need to go to the DMV and renew my tags," we're really saying, "At some point, maybe even the last minute or even after they have expired, I'm going to find a time that is most convenient for me and I'll renew my tags. And, if I get a ticket in the meantime, I'll complain to everyone I know about how I was wrongfully ticketed since, unlike everyone else, I didn't have time."

Farley Lewis gave the message on Sunday morning and confirmed this change of vocabulary. The sermon was about our time, what we choose to do with it, and how we will be judged on those activities. An analogy was used that really put it into perspective for everyone. Farley and his daughter went to Incredible Pizza, a pizza buffet that has an elaborate arcade room in the back. Money was spent, tickets were acquired, and time was spent deciding on what to "buy" with the acquired tickets. In the end, the daughter was able to trade her tickets for an old-fashioned child's helicopter. It was the kind that is just a wooden stick with a plastic propeller that you spin in your hands and it flies. I didn't catch what exactly was wrong with the helicopter, but it didn't work. Maybe it broke, I'm not sure. Anyway, it doesn't matter. The point is that all this time and money was spent to acquire this worthless piece of garbage.

Farley likened the tickets to our time. If a day were a ticket, we are trading it in for something. But, what is that something? Are we "buying" something with our tickets (time) that in the end will be worthless? It was a great and challenging message, one in which I have taken to heart.

One of the ideas that we have is huge and will take a lot of time, creativity, and mental dedication. So, in order to actually take this idea and turn it into the amazing thing that it should be, I'm going to have to rein in my time spent on other activities, including this blog. I really enjoy writing blogs, but I'll also really enjoy writing for this new project. One holds me back from the other, so I'm choosing the one in which I feel I'm supposed to be dedicated.

I'll still blog every now and again, but they'll be less wordy, less time consuming, less creativity-zapping, less thoughtful, ... less of me.

Civil War Weekend

2011-08-17T08:59:00.002-05:00

Last weekend, I was transported back 150 years in the past to witness the first major battle of the Civil War at Wilson's Creek. From Thursday evening through Sunday afternoon, it was nothing but muskets and cannons for me.

The Battle of Wilson's Creek was an interesting one, to say the least. So many stories and keepsakes have been preserved from this battle and those who fought in it. Even the actual site of the battle has been kept virtually untouched. This August marked the 150th anniversary to that battle.

To commemorate the event and those involved in it, Wilson's Creek Publishing is working on the release of a 144-page coffee table book that will be full of the artistic photography of six local photographers. This book will be published and sold in various markets.

I was honored to be chosen to be one of the six photographers that has contributed to the book. I'm very excited about having my work published. How cool is that? I've had my photography used for some things, but never in a published book to be sold.

I also put the website together that it would be sold on for the reenactors. KY3, one of our local news stations, picked up on it and wrote a short article about the book. They even grabbed a photo I had made of the book for the website and used it in their online article, though they have recently taken that down probably due to someone realizing that you can't just grab someone's artwork. Though, of course, I didn't mind.

The other photographers were, in no particular order, Jeremy Russell, Jenn Russell, Gail Irwin, Shannon Alexander, and Gina Beamish. They all did great and were a lot of fun to work with. I hope book sales go well!

Motorcyles: Enjoyment vs. Risk

2011-08-04T16:52:00.004-05:00

Dustin won the 5 Years & 300 Blogs game that I had on the last post. Congratulations, Dustin! And, happy birthday, too! For his prize of choosing my next blog topic, he sent the following:

How much more dangerous is it to ride a motorcycle than drive a car? Since I ride a lot now, I am constantly getting told, basically, that I am waiting to die. Well, am I? Or is speed, alcohol, and other variables more of a factor?

It's interesting that he chose this topic. Only twelve days ago I attended my step-brother's funeral. Michael died when his motorcycle left a rural highway, struck an embankment, and landed in a field. There were a couple days in between the last time anyone had any contact with him and when he was found. It had to be a closed-casket service. He was only 30.

Michael's funeral was the third funeral that I have attended in my lifetime that was from a motorcycle accident. So, I am familiar with the subject of the dangers of riding motorcycles, though I will do my best to remain unbiased for the remainder of this.

First, let's look at some statistics you may not know. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has lots of reports out there that offer all kinds of statistics. This report shows that 45% of all motorcycle crash fatalities are single-vehicle crashes, meaning no other vehicle was involved. This number seems high to me, though Edgar Snyder reports that of all fatal accidents nationwide (including all forms of motor vehicles) 61% were single-vehicle crashes. I can't conclude anything from these stats, but found them interesting, nonetheless. I figured that most crashes occur when two or more vehicles collide. Apparently, I was wrong. Again, these stats don't answer anything. I just found them particularly curious.

Where the rubber meets the road in this particular debate, that Dustin brings up, is found in Report # DOT HS 811 159 released by the NHTSA. On page 3 of the report, it has a graph directly comparing the fatality rates between motorcycles and passenger vehicles per miles traveled. That "per miles traveled" is important because fatality rates alone don't tell you anything. A whole lot more people die in passenger vehicle crashes every year compared to the same with motorcycles, but that's not comparing apples to apples. Motorcycles make up only 3% of all registered vehicles in the U.S. And, they only account for .4% of all miles traveled by registered vehicles in the U.S. So, in order to compare correctly, you have to add in the "per miles traveled" factor.

This graph shows that per vehicle mile traveled in 2007, motorcyclists were about 37 times more likely than passenger car occupants to die in a motor vehicle traffic crash and 9 times more likely to be injured. This answers Dustin's first question. I'll answer his second question without the aid of statistics: No, he's not basically waiting to die. People shouldn't speak curses over him. It would serve him well to break them off of himself. The curses, not the people. I personally told Dustan Hobbs, more than once, that he was "going to die on that thing." I would follow this spoken curse with the usual warnings to be careful and all, and of course, it was said in a jokingly manner. But, regardless, I will forever regret that those words escaped my lips just months before his death at 20 years old. And, I would impress on people not to make the same mistake.

To answer the third and final question, those factors are indeed causes of motorcycle accidents, but they are also factors in passenger vehicle accidents as well. For example, this same report shows that 35% of fatalities from motorcycle accidents involved the motorcycle speeding, but cars had 23% in which to compare. Likewise, the percentages for vehicle riders involved in fatal crashes who had a blood alcohol level above the legal limit were 29% for motorcycles and 23% for cars.

So, while you can say that your likelihood of dying in a crash on your motorcycle significantly decreases if you refrain from drinking alcohol, speeding, etc., dying in a car crash also decreases significantly from these practices. So, the fatality rate comparison of sober, speed limit aware drivers/riders is still similar to the total fatality rate comparison that shows that motorcyclists are 37 times more likely than passenger car occupants to die in a motor vehicle traffic crash and 9 times more likely to be injured.

In conclusion, a motorcycle may be exhilarating to ride and more fuel efficient among other benefits. However, it unfortunately also has a greater measured risk than most of the alternatives in transportation. And, it ultimately comes down to whether or not the owner or potential owner wants to take that risk. I, for one, love motorcycles. I know the feeling that riding one produces. But, I choose to drive around two tons of steel instead. To each their own.

5 Years & 300 Blogs

2011-08-03T01:45:00.000-05:00

I actually started blogging on MySpace back when MySpace was all the rage. But, in August of 2006, I decided to go pro and get an actual blog site rather than continue to use the blogging option on my social networking page. Not long after that I decided to scrap my MySpace page altogether. I was growing increasingly bored with it.

So, now it's been five years since I moved to Blogger. And, this is the 300th Blogger blog that I've written. I feel like maybe I should celebrate in some way, but I'm not sure what to do. I could give away "the words" T-Shirts to the first 50 people that comment on this blog, but I don't have any "the words" T-Shirts to give away. They don't even exist. I just GIMPed this together.

I'd like to play a blog game of some sort. I did that for my birthday last year. It was a Celebrity Guessing Game full of celebrities who were all my age. You had to name them all just from their head shots. It was sort of fun to make. My brother-in-law, Chris Steward, won that one. I did another just like it a couple years before that when I was turning 29. I used a different set of celebrities that time. My beautiful wife won that game.

So, what game can we play? I've done celebrities twice so it's time for something new. How about the first person to decode some Mad Gab phrases?! That should be fun. If you don't know how to play Mad Gab, don't worry. It's easy. Just read the phrase and decide what phrase it really sounds like. For example: "Sit Jerk Lock" is really "Set Your Clock" and "Shack Each Anne" is really "Jackie Chan." Get it? Let the games begin!

The first person to type all the answers into a comment wins the opportunity to choose my next blog topic. But, don't play unless you will actually pick a blog topic for me. :)

Dawned Hutch Debt Aisle
Arrow Man Tick Calm Eddy
Pen Silly Raise Her
Thug Yet His Burger Dress
Bah Kin These Addle Ache Ken
Shake Key Low Kneel
Lie Fizz Booty Fell
Wheel Fair El
Sent Tom Hanukah
Mike Lion Tis Inner Scent

$5 Lesson & Repurposed Technology

2011-08-01T19:41:00.000-05:00

Last week, I was able to stop in for a few minutes at one of my favorite places to shop, STD Flea Market. Out of all the flea markets in town, STD is my favorite. It has a strange name, I admit, though an innocent one. The acronym stands for Springfield Tool & Die. The story goes that the owner of Springfield Tool & Die retired and turned the two buildings he still owned into flea markets since they weren't much good for anything else.

I love both stores. I've found some really good items over the years for myself and have even resold some items bought there for a quick and nice profit. Jodi had a booth in the downtown location for a brief stint, but it didn't do all that well. After the cost of booth rent, we showed that we were pretty much just breaking even which means we were going to an awful lot of trouble to just give stuff away.

Anyway, back to last week. I stopped in and was eventually drawn like a fly to a booth that was full of electronics. I mean full! There was everything from VCRs to DVD players to computers, to laptops, to digital TV converters, etc. It was cool. I spotted a stash of LCD monitors all of which were priced at $5. Of course, there was no way to test them immediately available, but after a search through the store I found a computer in another booth that had a power cord. I swiped it, grabbed the biggest monitor (a 22-inch), found an outlet, then a ladder to reach the outlet and was finally in business. The monitor powered on and showed a "no signal" message at which I took to be a good sign that the monitor worked fine. I knew, however, that chances were that it had issues that I wouldn't find out till later. I figured $5 was worth the gamble.

Upon fully testing it later, I found that it didn't work. It would come on for about 2 seconds and then the screen would go dark. I did some research online and found it to be a very common problem with LCD monitors. It's just a backlighting issue. I was able to confirm that the LCD part was still functioning from being barely visible when looking very closely. You just can't see it because the lights that light up the screen aren't on.

Usually this is the cause of the inverters going bad. It's so common, in fact, that there are several different companies that sell kits to fix this issue. I took the entire monitor apart and really became acquainted with how they work. I tossed around the idea of buying the replacement parts to fix the monitor at about a cost of $30, but decided that even a 22" LCD monitor wasn't worth $35 to me. And, I shouldn't spend $30 to justify the $5.

It was hardly a total loss, though. I now know how to repair the most common problem found in LCD monitors as well as LCD TVs. That lesson is definitely worth $5. So, I'll keep my eye out for people selling "broken" LCD televisions on Craigslist. I've seen them been given away for this reason. So, maybe I'll be able to find and repair such a score.

Also, rather than toss out the monitor, I had the idea to repurpose it. It's now a $5 picture frame in my office at work. Have you ever bought something that turned out to be junk? Have you ever repurposed junk into something useful or unique?

Ezra Montagne

2011-07-19T21:44:00.004-05:00

I just realized that I've never written a blog announcing the birth of Ezra. So, better late than never, right? Sorry, Ezra. No doubt you will be reading this some day.

As a matter of fact, with that in mind. This blog is addressed to you, Ezra. Everyone else can read this if they please, but it's not for them, to them, or about them. It's about you, for you, and to you, my beautiful daughter.

I love you, Ezra. You are my first and only daughter. I don't know how old you are now (your time, when you are reading this), but I hope that you know that I love you. You are two and a half months old (my time), and I know that even as you grow older, you will never be able to shake that image of you from my mind. You will forever be my little girl.

Having a child is strange by itself. I don't know that any parent fully realizes the enormity of the role. Your oldest brother Jacob is eleven and a half. He's getting close to being a teenager and resembles one even now. You would think that I'd be used to the idea that he is my child and I am his parent and in more ways than not I am used to it. However, when I think about, I'm still shocked on so many levels. How did this happen?! Maybe I'm alone in my thinking. Maybe not, maybe every parent feels this way. I don't know. It's wonderful, exciting, terrifying, beautiful, unsettling, rewarding, etc. Parenting is a roller coaster of emotions.

So, if I'm still getting used to being a parent of two boys who've been around for years, how much greater am I feeling unprepared for you, a daughter, a girl, a woman in the making? I'm scared to be one of two of the most responsible people for you in the world. It holds the potential to frighten me to no end.

That being said, I am also unimaginably thankful for the opportunity to be that person in your life. I'm honored that God would place you in my care and entrust me with such a role. I may know that I am unequipped to raise you and teach you and guide you, but I know without a shadow of a doubt that God is perfectly equipped to do such a job. And, with He as my guide, I will never fail you in any way.

I love you, Ezra. And, I will seek to treasure every moment we have together.

6th Anniversary

2011-07-18T17:40:00.001-05:00

Jodi and I celebrated our sixth anniversary this last weekend. We didn't do anything too special, but had a great time just getting to spend time with each other while we ran around a little and relaxed a little more.

We started out the day with a breakfast of champions. That's right. T-bone steaks and eggs. Mmmmm. We also were very giggly and had some true comic moments. What a wonderful way to start a day. Protein and laughter.

We tried out a new flea market,Springfield Flea Market & Gifts, and checked out one we'd been to before right behind the first one. It was fun and we saw some neat things and bought a few little things. The second one was better than last time, but still not my favorite place to go. They have tons of furniture and I'd say that's their specialty. But, Jodi made a great point about if they would set it up with pieces that went together, they'd probably sell a lot more of it. It's all just crammed in there now with no rhyme or reason.

After just the two flea markets we were ready for a treat. So, to Krispy Kreme we went. For lunch. Hey, don't judge. It was a special day. We stuffed ourselves silly. It was a good thing that we were sitting by the window in the bright sunlight, because I'm sure that the Vitamin D from the sun was the only vitamins we managed to consume while being there. Unless there is such thing as a coffee vitamin. Maybe there should be.

Afterwards, we drove home and just chilled out in the air conditioning and watched some Netflix.

It was a good day. I love my wife. We have fun together.

Just Deserts

2011-07-15T21:38:00.003-05:00

My worst experience with a bank, by far, was with Ozark Bank. They cost me $110, got me arrested, and made me spend a night in jail. I wrote a blog about it already so I won't go into detail, but it was pretty bad, for sure.

A couple years ago, I had another bad experience with a bank. This time it was Bank of America. I had been a B of A customer for 11 years. I wasn't a fan of them and had only stayed with them as long as I had because of the volume of ATMs they had in Springfield. In addition to the ATMs at their branches, they also had them in every Git-N-Go in and around Springfield. I found that to be very convenient so I stuck around as a customer despite disliking their service.

In 2004, however, Git 'n' Go was bought out by Kum & Go who quickly removed all of B of A's ATMs and replaced them with generic ones that would charge every user with a fee for usage. So, overnight, the reason to stay with B of A dissolved.

I didn't get rid of them, though. I should have. I dragged my feet for a few reasons that in retrospect weren't good enough to continue banking somewhere I despised. But, oh well. What's done is done.

So, fast forward through five years of procrastination, and we reach the summer of 2009. I took a photography job in Michigan. A check was written to me for my services. I cashed that check in Springfield three days later. Four days after that I get a notice showing I have had three separate $35 overdraft fees charged to my account.

I immediately go to the bank where I find out that the Michigan check bounced and that they removed the amount of the check from my checking account to make up what they gave me in cash. They could have handled this a thousand ways but the way they handled it was by trying to process the check twice over the course of a couple days, then seizing the money out of my account when it didn't work for them. All of this without contacting me about it. Then when my account balance fell below zero which it eventually would since they just removed hundreds of dollars from my account without notification to me, they happily twisted the knife by charging me $105 in fees.

I had come with cash in hand to make a deposit and repair the issue, but they were unwavering and unsympathetic. The woman I spoke with took my cash and left to deposit it for me. She took it to a teller, despite knowing that had she deposited it in the ATM or directed me to do so that it would have posted that night. Instead, she took the teller route which wouldn't post until midnight the next night, over 24 hours away. So, in that time period, three more pending items came that could have been avoided adding another $105 worth of fees.

So, back to the bank the next day for me. This time I had the bank manager to talk to. After a lot of talk, she reluctantly dismissed the $105 worth of fees that could have been avoided had her employee cared enough to think about it. But, she refused to do anything about the prior fees. She retained the position that the bank was not at fault and was only following policy. She wasn't interested in logic, only following their supposed policy.

But, I know how it works. She is a bank manager and has the power to waive the fees if she wants to. The same way she waived the wees on the other latter set of fees. She just didn't want to do it. Finally, I changed my approach and simply asked her if her bank would pay $105 for an eleven-year customer. She avoided answering the question despite me asking it several times. I knew the answer and so did she. She also knew that refunding me the fees wouldn't keep me as a customer. She knew at that point in our conversation that I was going to close my account regardless of what she did, so she kept the money.

I closed my account finally and have been happily banking at Great Southern ever since.

The day before yesterday, Jodi called me at work to give me the following news that came in the mail for me: Bank of America has agreed to pay a $410 million settlement to those who had a B of A checking account with debit card services who had overdraft fees charged to them between Jan 1, 2001 and May 24, 2011.

Sweet justice. :)

Invention Idea

2011-07-13T20:00:00.011-05:00

Ever have a great idea for an invention or improvement? I've had a few in my day. One that is finally starting to be marketed now is the Bluetooth audio adapter.

I thought of this almost two years ago. It was an invention out of necessity. At the time, I was contemplating how to setup my stereo in my 1959 Ford when I get it back on the road. The doors don't have any locks and I don't know that I actually want to change that about it. I don't want anyone to steal the stereo that I install in it, so I have a dilemma. How do you install a burglar-proof stereo? The answer: you don't install one.

What? Exactly! See? I had an idea to install a small amplifier (that I already own) under the seat somewhere where it could be relatively hidden from view while also being bolted down through the cab. It would take two people to bolt it as well as unbolt it. One would have to be under the truck with a wrench while another in the cab had a wrench on the other end. Too much trouble to remove for an old 45-watt amp. The two speakers would go behind the headliner in the rear corners also out of sight. Then, instead of installing a stereo, simply install a Bluetooth adapter that would pick up the stereo music Bluetooth signal from my phone from under the seat and send the audio signal to the amp via its RCA cable outputs. The power switch for the amp could be easily connected to the manual choke switch on the dash since it won't be necessary with the new engine configuration. So, everything is hidden. To the untrained eye, it would look like it has always looked in the cab: radioless. Simple enough, right?

The only problem is that there wasn't anything on the market like the Bluetooth adapter I described. However, now there are two items that are really close to accomplishing this. Belkin makes a Bluetooth Music Receiver which has the option to send that signal out via RCA or 3.5mm jack. The only reason it wouldn't work for my application is that it is powered with a 110v outlet adapter. It's meant to be used in the home or office. Miccus also makes a Bluetooth Music Receiver. The issue I take with it is that it is charged using a USB port. I would either need to purchase more equipment to get it to charge or I would have to remove it from the truck every other day to charge it. Also, I learned from a review that it does not "remember" a previous Bluetooth pairing which means every time I got in to use it, I would have to reach under the seat to reset the connection.

What I want is something that I can permanently install that I can discreetly turn on the power to from the dash and make a connection from my phone. I don't want to ever need to reach under the seat to reset or remove equipment to charge. And, I want to do it with the least amount of equipment possible. Right now, with these new products, the Belkin best fits my need for it remembers the connection and wouldn't require charging or resetting. The downside is that I would need to find a way to power it which would require me to probably buy a power port and a universal car power adapter to use in place of its provided wall adapter.

Either way, the technology is moving in the right direction, so I'm excited about that. Maybe they will have a solution by the time my truck sees pavement again. Or, maybe I'm the only one who wants to bypass the need for an in-dash car stereo.

Still Pounding Away At It

2011-07-12T17:31:00.001-05:00

I'm not sure what to call this project. I've had a name for every other project in the house, but this one alludes me. Should it be the "outdoor closet" project? "New basement door" project? I'm just not sure. In an earlier post I was referring to it as a small addition, but that sort of denotes living space in my mind. And, I don't intend on anyone living out here. Any suggestions on a name?

Regardless of what we decide to call it, I made some pretty decent progress on it over the weekend. The backbreaking part was the concrete, but it got done. I finished pouring a new top step to the staircase, one that isn't a fatal trip hazard. And, I managed to dig out and pour about a 3 1/2" thick slab inside the closet. I'm so glad that it's over. When it was all said and done, I had mixed 960 lbs. of concrete. This was the part of the project that I looked forward to the least. However, with my newly gained experience pouring concrete in Haiti back in March, I was able to confidently get to work on it and see it through.

In the next couple of evenings, I hope to be able to devote a little more time to it. My next steps are:

Relocate the dirt pile
Grade the ground down and away for better water runoff
Connect the wiring into the breaker box
Cover all the outside walls with tar paper
Hang all the metal lathe
Stain the rafter tails
Apply the stucco
Finish the stucco on the garden wall
Build the doors
Hang the doors
Paint all the stucco the desired color

I don't have a time frame for all these steps, but it would sure be cool if I could get it all accomplished while my motivation is in full force.

More Progress

2011-07-06T08:48:00.003-05:00

I failed to get any photos before it got dark outside, but that's okay because it wouldn't be much of a dramatic photo anyway. So, I used a photo from Monday evening and dramatized it up with some funky arrows.

Last night, I accomplished quite a bit for having been at work all day. I started with taking a sledge hammer to the trip hazard at the top of the stairs. This trip hazard served to keep the water out, but also begged to send someone to the bottom of the stairs much faster than they intended. So, it had to go. Besides, the concrete there is already sloped away from the house so it's unnecessary.

I also cut out the now unnecessary overhead hazard at the bottom of the stairs. This served as a plate and support for the previous 45-degree basement door, but now it serves no purpose apart from forcing everyone to bow before entering the basement. I shall not bow before it. So, I cut it out.

I also got up two of the walls. Yay. And braced the framing in preparation for the double doors to go in on the closet side. Then, (spoken with an ominous voice) as darkness fell over the land, I picked up all the scraps and garbage and got them all in the dumpster just in time for trash day.

My next step will be to concrete a flat step in place of the trip hazard that I just busted out. As soon as this is done, I can finish the framing for the round-top basement door and wall in the front of the addition. Then, with the walls all up and in place I can stucco it.

And, somewhere in there (maybe while I'm waiting for concrete to dry) I can wire up the lights and my new outdoor electric receptacle. I'm excited about that. My house doesn't have any outdoor electricity. So, every time I'm doing a project like this I have to run an extension cord into the house. So, inconvenient! So, this will be great for future projects since I'm only beginning on the greater backyard deck and landscaping project.

Addition Progress

2011-07-05T10:32:00.008-05:00

This Independence Day weekend was a good one. Though, we didn't do a whole lot of traditional activities. We did hang out with some friends, grill some steak and see some fireworks, but the bulk of our weekend was spent working on the house.

With some help from the boys, we managed to get most of the drain pipe installed and buried, the framework pretty much done, and the roof completely installed. I missed being able to just hang out with my family, but it was also good to get a chance to do some construction. And, it was good for Jacob. He learned some construction basics and and was excited to get a chance to help.

The photos here show the progress. As always, click on them to enlarge them. There's still a list of work to be done, but I'll keep plugging away at it every chance I get and it'll be complete before we know it.

Small Addition

2011-07-01T20:40:00.003-05:00

We've spent most of our energy renovating the inside of our home over the course of the last four and a half years we've lived here. The outside, though, has seen little more than the necessary maintenance. We have a plan, however. And, using Google Sketchup, I was able to better visualize that plan by building a 3D model of our house and yard. In this photo (click to enlarge), it shows our plan for a large deck, outdoor formal dining room (far left), brick patio with fire pit, and outdoor closet/new basement entrance.

The latter is what I'll be working on this holiday weekend. The photo isn't exactly what we're going for. The wall I built between the house and garage is actually taller than the one in the photo. So, I won't be hipping the roof on the addition down towards the wall. Rather, it will just shoot straight across to the inside of the wall.

The first thing I have to do, though, is dig a trench and bury a drain pipe. There are two gutters that empty right at the corner where the wall meets the house. I'm going to direct both of these into the drain pipe and reroute that water to the rear of the garage. Once that's done, I can dig and create a footing for the wall. Then, once the siding is cut I can start framing. I'll take lots of photos along the way and show the progress.

Though small, this addition will be a really nice and needed asset to the house. It will pretty up the view of our home from the backyard by removing this big ugly hinged basement access door. It will hide both the phone access panel and the sewer clean-out pipe. It will help tie in our garden wall to the house. Also, we'll gain an outdoor closet to put the bikes into. Eventually we can also use this closet to house our designer outdoor furniture cushions. We don't own any now but maybe when our backyard looks like the 3D drawing we will.

The bike storage is a big one. Normally, we keep the bikes in the basement. However, with the nice weather comes more use of them and they wind up in the kitchen so that the boys don't have to go up and down the stairs with them every day. The payment for this convenience for the boys is clutter for us all. We have a nice big kitchen so we can spare the space, but this temporary home for the bikes has long worn out its welcome.

Why am I starting an outdoor home improvement project on the hottest day of the year? I don't know. I guess I like a challenge. Come back VERY soon to see the progress!

Breakthrough

2011-06-21T19:22:00.001-05:00

Moving to Ozark, Missouri at 11 years old turned me somewhat shy. I didn't know anyone there and it took me a while to make some lasting friends. In that six month friendless window, I learned to keep to myself, mostly.

Later, I became a 15-year-old sophomore at Ozark High School for the 1994-1995 school year. Not much had changed over those four years. I still had the same friends and I was still riding their more outgoing social coattails. I still lacked self-confidence.

Along with the rest of the English 2 class, I was assigned to read a book and then do a spoken book report at the podium in front of my classmates. I dreaded it. We were to aim for a five minute report. I'm not sure since I wasn't counting, but I'm willing to bet that I agonized for weeks over what I would be forced to do during those five minutes.

I had no experience speaking in front of a group and I didn't want any. I was just fine sitting slumped in my chair going pretty much unnoticed by virtually everyone around me. Many people have this same fear, so I felt that it was alright to feel this way. Possibly even a desirable quality. After all, I had no interest in speaking in front of a crowd. I didn't plan on becoming a speaker when I grew up. "Why would I ever need to learn this in real life," I wondered to myself.

The teacher, Ms. Lambert, didn't just give the assignment like some teachers would have. She spent a considerable amount of time instructing us how to give a good report. She gave us tips on how to practice it at home. She got us thinking about how a spoken report should be structured. She didn't harp on us about the way it had to be, only made suggestions designed to encourage us to make our reports better.

I took all of her advice, even practicing my speech to my wall at home with a timer. It wasn't like me to prepare so much, but I was desperate to have what I needed to survive the ordeal. So desperate, in fact, that I even took notes on Ms. Lambert's suggestions. The day came and I nervously waited my turn. During the several reports before mine, I noticed that almost no one in the class was paying attention to the one giving their report, anyway. That really took some of the pressure off. At that point, for the first time, I felt like I could do it without vomiting.

My turn came and I gave my report just as I had rehearsed it. About halfway through, I looked around and away from my notes long enough to take notice that I had everyone's attention. My nervousness doubled at that moment. And, just when I thought that I was going to make it. A couple seconds later came "the joke" part of the report. Ms. Lambert had suggested to include a funny part to the story to keep your listeners engaged. I knew it would bomb, but I followed my notes just as I had practiced it in my room. Punchline. Laughter. Wait, laughter?! I did a quick left to right and realized that not only did I have their attention, but they were listening to every word that I was saying. The joke wouldn't have made sense had they not been listening all along.

I finished the last leg of my report without the nervousness that previously had plagued me for weeks. If I remember correctly, Ms. Lambert gave me 110% as my grade for the report. I was proud.

Ironically, I went on to fail Literature of the Bible. Twice! And, I couldn't even finish the first semester of English 3. However, I graduated high school and enjoy writing even today. I still occasionally get nervous at times in front of crowds, but I never let it stop me. Since that report, I have spoken in front of hundreds of people at a time, played guitar and sang for large groups, friends and strangers alike, and I have even presented new work concepts in front of a room full of business executives.

I wouldn't be who I am today if not for Ms. Lambert's care to make sure her students knew the strategies and skills of public speaking. I'm not even sure if all that is on the curriculum, but I know I left her class with it. Thanks, Ms. Lambert.

West Plains Weekend

2011-06-14T08:55:00.006-05:00

This last weekend, Jodi and I took Lyric and Ezra to West Plains to hang out with Jodi's family. Jacob was spending the week in Gulf Shores, Alabama. As always, it was a lot of fun and some good relaxation as well. I also really enjoyed the trip in our new car. We've had it for 6 weeks, but hadn't traveled in it yet. This was breaking it in for us.

There was a car show at the Civic Center on Saturday. And, since Jodi's parents live in town now, we decided just to walk there. Though, it turned out it was two and a half miles one way, Lyric managed to walk it without complaint. I was wondering if I was going to have to carry him. He's getting too big for me to carry more than a short distance.
The car show was great. We saw a lot of beautiful automobiles, and I was really excited to see the 1960 Plymouth Valiant. It's the first Valiant that I've ever seen in a show. My '62 Valiant is the same style as this with a few slight changes.
But, of course, mine looks like a pile of poo in comparison. Some day, it'll be pretty, hopefully.

We took another walk late Saturday night. I took little Ezra along with us, knowing that she would fall asleep fairly quickly. We walked to then around the square in Downtown West Plains. So, we managed to tack on another 5 miles to the day's exercise list.

Sunday was a chill out day. I sat around with Larry and looked up tree species on my phone. We identified several trees around their house. It may sound boring but, it was fun. I learned a lot about trees and even how to identify a few of them.

The bubble pictures below are from Sunday. The girls (ages 26 and 28) were blowing bubbles in the front yard with Lyric. I spotted a really cool effect that they had at a certain angle and tried to capture it with my camera. It's not at all easy to capture a bubble floating on the wind with a lens that has a very narrow depth of field. But, I got some good ones. They were gorgeous by themselves, but I boosted the color in them to really accentuate the array of colors they were refracting. As always, click on the photos to enlarge them.

Global Go Team Deploys to Joplin

2011-06-10T13:03:00.005-05:00

Global Go Team is currently setting up a team to work in Joplin, Missouri on June 18th.

Joplin was devastated by a tornado that cut a path straight through the city on May 22nd. The death toll keeps rising, it seems, with every new article I read. I just read an article from The Baltimore Sun that cited 151 deaths. It's really terrible and this time the need is in our own backyard.

Global Go Team members will get to use their newly acquired training and certification by Greene County CERT (Community Emergency Response Teams). Much work will remain to be done over the course of the next couple of years.

I remember, vividly, the tornado that ripped through Stockton, MO back in 2003. The entire downtown area was flattened with the exception of the bank vault that never budged an inch. It was the first tornado that I tracked with the Internet. I had a game plan to take my then 3-year-old son into the bathroom with a mattress if it came towards us. Instead it traveled north of us. That tornado was an F3 and traveled 86 miles. In contrast, the tornado that hit Joplin only traveled 6 miles, but still managed to make high F4 status due to the sheer devastation of it.

So far, Global Go Team has taken me as far as 1,825 miles to Gressier, Haiti and now will be taking me a short 70 miles to Joplin, Missouri. I look forward to being able to help.

Mobile Site

2011-06-08T11:08:00.002-05:00

As some of you know, I used to keep a mobile version of my blog. I started it in January of last year and even wrote a blog about it. I only started it because I had a non-smart phone but also had unlimited Internet. I realized that people who were in my same situation couldn't read my blog if they wanted. So, I created a duplicate blog but at levifeltonMOBILE.blogspot.com as opposed to just levifelton...

Today, I spotted that Blogger has finally remedied this little inconvenience with a fix. Now I (and everyone else with a Blogger blog) can turn on a mobile version of my (their) blog via the 'Settings' tab. No need for a separate URL.

But, now my situation has changed. I now have a smart phone that displays my blog beautifully. So, I debated a little bit whether or not to turn on the mobile version. Surely, it would help someone out there read my blog, though. But, will it inconvenience my smart phone owning readers in the process. I did find that there is a link to click at the bottom of every page to view the full site, on the other hand. So, anyone with a smart phone can very easily scroll to the bottom and change it to the full version if they want.

I just thought I'd send out a feeler and see if anyone cares to comment. Would you prefer an easier to read mobile version? Or, would you rather see the blog in its full HTML-ness? I've temporarily turned on the mobile version so all you mobile blog readers can see what I'm talking about. I'll decide from your feedback (or lack there of) whether to keep it on or not. Thanks!

Table Renovation

2011-06-07T12:09:00.004-05:00

I was handed down this table from my mom. She was handed down the table from her mom. And, she was handed down the table from her mom. The table was her third husband's who passed away before I was born. In case you're confused, My great-grandmother was married three times. She never divorced. She just outlived them all. Her third husband had some cool old furniture which I somehow managed to wind up with. The picture here is from almost 5 years ago in our last house right after our first go at making sushi. I sometimes kick myself for forgetting to take a "before" photo. Luckily I scrounged up some photos, but not necessarily ideal ones. As always, click on the photo to enlarge it.

The piece that I'm talking about today is our dining room table. We're not sure of it's age, however, I've been told that it dates back to around 1900. My great-grandmother's husband used it for years to do his art on in his workshop. My great-grandmother always loved the table and brought it up out of the basement sometime after he died, cleaned it up, and used it for a kitchen table. I remember sitting at it as a child eating handfuls of raw macaroni. My grandmother knew my brother and I liked it and would keep a jarful on the counter just for us.

It got passed down once a decade after that until it would up in my dining room. Jodi had wanted for a while to refinish it. Due to it's separation of the boards and the natural pitting of the wood, there were plenty of places for food to get stuck. As a result, it was difficult to clean and eventually became a concern to her. This photo was taken last New Year's Eve. We celebrated with sparkling juice and fondue with the boys. You can kind of see the table getting slightly more wear from the previous photo.

During Jodi's nesting period a couple months ago, she took it outside and sanded the top down. I attempted, unsuccessfully, to clamp and wood glue the boards back together. As soon as I took the clamps off 36 hours later, the boards split apart. I suppose wood 100 years old is pretty stubborn. So, I clamped it, screwed in some oak braces underneath, and filled the cracks with wood filler. It sat out there a while until we could finish it the weekend before last. I sanded the rest of it down, Jodi and I stained it, and I shot it with a coat of Lacquer.

Here it is pictured back in its location and looking beautiful. It turned out much better than what I had imagined. I was kind of scared to start messing with it. It has so much character that I was afraid that it might be lost with all that sanding and staining. However, I'm extremely happy with the end result. Turns out, it's super nice and makes the rest of our furniture look like it needs some work.

Chemical Poisoning

2011-06-03T09:43:00.006-05:00

For six days before Memorial day weekend begun, I felt terrible. Every day, at some point in the day I would become tired, my lower back would ache as if I were feverish, and I would have, at minimum, a slight headache. I thought that I was getting sick at first, but it didn't get any worse. Then again, it seemed to not get any better.

Finally, on the sixth day, I had enough of feeling bad and decided to ask my wife what I should do. (I should have started with this, but whatever.) She almost immediately asked, "Have you been eating or drinking anything new lately?" And, it hit me. During this same time frame, I had bought a couple boxes of Propel.

I had bought these before and didn't have any issues with them, but then after looking at them, I realized that I had purchased Propel Zero this time instead of the regular Propel. Oops. I immediately stopped using them in my water and by the end of the night felt better. The next day, I woke up and felt great again.

I was only using the flavor packets because it helped me drink more water. I chose Propel because it was the only water additive packet that used real sugar as opposed to all the others that boasted "no calories" but chose to poison ythe consumer rather than fatten them up a bit. See, I have a bad habit of going for very long periods of time without drinking anything. I'll get a massive headache and then can't remember the last time I drank anything at all. I'm sort of a camel that way, but without the humps of water on my back to actually keep me going in a healthy way.

Since then, we watched the documentary The Beautiful Truth. I enjoy watching good documentaries and this was definitely one of them. Although, I hate to hear that my favorite foods are really loaded with toxins. And, that the reason I like them so much is because of the addictive qualities of their brain cell killing additives. :-(

Still, I recommend that everyone sees this film for the information as well as for the entertainment. Oh and don't drink Propel Zero. It's poison.

Here's the ingredients: MALTODEXTRIN, CITRIC ACID, SODIUM CITRATE, NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR, ASCORBIC ACID (VITAMIN C), SUCRALOSE, SILICON DIOXIDE, NIACINAMIDE (VITAMIN B3), ACESULFAME POTASSIUM, CALCIUM DISODIUM EDTA (TO PROTECT FRESHNESS), CALCIUM PANTOTHENATE (VITAMIN B5), VITAMIN E ACETATE, PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE (VITAMIN B6), CYANOCOBALAMIN (VITAMIN B12).

Interesting Note: Blogger's built-in spell check is assuming that I have spelled nine of these words incorrectly because they don't exist as words in their database. So, I'm not the only one who doesn't recognize them. I wonder how many of these chemicals in the future will be found proven to cause serious health risks.

Ballsy Beverage

2011-05-26T16:43:00.005-05:00

I have a bottle of Orbitz. I bought it in the beginning of 1997 for the purpose of drinking. But, I chose not to drink it after all because I didn't want to lose it's novelty. I now have it for sale on ebay. They've been selling for $30 a bottle. So, time to cash in. The following is two very funny posts I found concerning the drink:

Orbitz was made by Clearly Canadian, who if you'll recall were neck-and-neck with Mistic for jurisdiction over the realm of sodas that posed as fruit-flavored waters. Orbitz was much like regular Clearly Canadian fruit sodas, save for two important differences: It was a lot thicker, and it had tiny candy balls from Jupiter floating around inside it.

Yes, it's that drink -- the one with the balls. While Orbitz drinks would've seemed worlds apart from the competition sheerly on the merits of their oddball flavors (Pineapple Banana Cherry Coconut?), it was the dozens of gelatinous, colored balls floating around each bottle that made it famous. The balls were more or less flavorless, serving only to soak up whatever flavors their liquid homes bore. This was like the kiddy version of the flakes in a bottle of Goldschlager.

I remember buying them in the Woodbridge Mall over in Jersey, for no other reason than the fact that the Woodbridge Mall was the only place around that sold Orbitz. So, I'd buy it, and I'd wander around the mall sucking up piles of Fruit Roll-Up feces with a straw, and only now do I realize what an (edited out) I must've looked like. As the brand boasted screwy flavor varieties that were a real round of Russian Roulette to try, the public refused to push Orbitz past its status on the novelty echelon. It wasn't long before its makers realized that they couldn't survive on the sales of curious five-year-old girls alone.

The drinks weren't carbonated. This and other factors have made Orbitz almost safe to drink if you're still able to find them. Of course, it was hard for me to guzzle down sips of something "Pineapple Banana Cherry Coconut" flavored and not chalk up what I was tasting to an expiration date past, but on the other hand, it didn't kill me. I can't decide if the floating balls look more like pastina or tadpole larva or the end result of trying to grab a piece of Styrofoam out of its container with too much force. There was nothing like Orbitz previous to its debut, and there hasn't been anything like it since. (1996)

The Tasting

To fully appreciate a classy drink like Orbitz, we decided we needed to take "Doggy Style" out of the CD player and put in Schumann's "Kinderszenn op. 15." One amusing side effect of this choice is that like that guy in The Clockwork Orange, we are now programmed to retch whenever we hear classical music.

See

Ah, neutral buoyancy. Suspended in the beverage (or "solution") are little nasty-looking gelatin globules. They're just floating there. Somehow one would expect them to mill around. They're not really orbiting anything. One might also say (as in fact one does say if one is the inside of the Orbitz cap) that they "defy gravity."

Sniff

The tasters are of two minds. Nate smells "legitimate citrus." Paul smells "Robitussin." Paul was unable to smell legitimate citrus, even when he fanned his hand over the drink to waft the scent to his nose, like they do in the movies. Remember, there are no right or wrong perceptions in extinct beverage tasting, but one of the tasters spent several years in the food service industry and one of them is Paul.

Sip

Putting aside the globules for a moment, let's discuss the basic taste of the syrup. You know when your mom makes frozen lemonade and she puts in one can of water too many? It somehow manages to be a nastier experience than drinking lemonade or drinking water. It's not an average of the two as you'd expect. Orbitz is nasty on the same principle, but the base flavor is Pine Sol. You find yourself wishing they put in more Pine Sol because 1) it would taste better and 2) it would kill you.

The globules are no walk in the park either. Let's face it, when we were kids, we all sampled our own boogers. You know how they melt in your mouth? The wizards at Clearly Canadian have recreated this treasured childhood experience, but they have made it more nasty. Because on some deep subconscious level, we know that these boogers don't come from our body.

Savor

It is impossible to savor this drink because after you swallow the fluid, there are little lumps in your mouth that have to be dealt with. Your tongue is too busy trying to push them away... into your stomach, your cheeks... anything to make it another body part's problem.

Another thing about the pellets... they're cold and clammy.

Suffer

The whole experience of drinking Orbitz is deeply gross in an inexplicably Hannibal Lecter-like way. You feel like you're eating something that you have no business to be eating, like somebody's sinus.

The first article was a snippet out of a larger blog called Dead Sodas and Old Soda Pop Cans. It's pretty funny but has the occasional cuss word so beware.

The taste test and review was from a hysterical blog called Extinct Beverage Tasting: Raspberry Citrus Orbitz. There are lots more like it as the author has made it a recurring blog theme. I look forward to reading more of them. And, as far as I can tell, he/she keeps has a cleaner vocabulary so I recommend it.

Friends for a Season

2011-05-19T09:02:00.004-05:00

It's Thursday. Last week was my last week with DEI. It doesn't seem like I worked there for very long, but I suppose that the reason for that is probably due to my having worked at SRC for as long as I did. Comparatively speaking, the last 18 months of working at DEI hasn't been too long at all. But, 18 months?! That's a long time, especially when I started entertaining thoughts and plans of doing something else two months into that.

The only thing that's kind of sad about leaving DEI is the fact that I'll likely never see or talk to most of the people there ever again. These are people that I've spent an average of 48 hours a week with for the last year and a half. I know this to be true because of what happened with SRC, high school, and some of my old churches. It's not just me, either. It's true for everyone.

Whether we want to admit it or not, the only reason that we are "friends" with some of the people we are "friends" with is because we go to the same places. Our relationship is better defined by the term "co-worker", "alumni", and... well... I'm not sure what to call our friends at church other than just that.

Maybe that's just it. Maybe it's all in how we introduce them or talk about them. If someone mentions their "friend at church", "friend at work", or "friend from school" they are probably really meaning how they are (or were) friends with them in those places but not necessarily anywhere else.

If this is true, then the definitive question that separates the friends from the "friends" would be: Do you purposefully hang out with or contact these people outside of the places in which you see them on a regular basis? Because, I have quite a few friends that I hang out with outside of church that I go to church with. And, to my best recollection, I refer to them as "friends", as opposed to "friends at church." Likewise, I have lots of "friends from school" but only a couple of friends that I also went to high school with. Is this making sense?

Is it okay to be friends with people for a season? Do you feel guilty for not contacting certain people? Have you ever been offended by someone because they hadn't contacted you? Was someone ever offended because you failed to contact them? In the meantime, check back soon, because I'm going to come up with a mathematical equation that you can do to let you know how many friends your particular lifestyle can support. It'll be fun! I love math!

Out With The Old, In With The New

2011-05-07T13:30:00.005-05:00

It's spring and newness is in the air. Jodi and I are entering into an entirely new season.

The best new thing is our new beautiful baby girl. She was born last Sunday and weighed in at seven pounds flat. She's been such a joyful addition to our family. The boys have been excited and obviously love their little sister. Today is actually Jodi's due date, but we're glad to be able to say that we're done with all that delivery business and can just sit back and enjoy what Jodi's been cookin' up these last nine months. Her name is Ezra Montagne which means 'God's helper on the Mountain'. Montagne was Jodi's maternal grandmother's maiden name. In French, from which it hails, it means 'mountain'. It was, no doubt, originally pronounced "mon-tan" but when Jodi's family emigrated to the U.S. the name got Americanized, in pronunciation but not in spelling, into "mon-tang". So, to honor the American side of the Montagne family (since they're the only ones we really have ever known anyway), we will be pronouncing her name as "mon-tang".

We also sold the van and bought a new car. A 2006 Mazda 5, to be more specific. I listed the van on Craigslist and watched it pull out of the driveway just under two hours later. Goodbye van. You served us well. On the other hand, we welcome our new car with open arms. It fits our family well and gets us around for a whole lot less gas than we've been burning. It's 12 years newer and about 240,000 miles less driven.

The third new thing is a new job. I'm thankful for the job that I've had at Diesel Exchange for the past year and a half, but I've known all along that it wasn't the place for me. Of course, I'll miss some of the people there, but I couldn't be more ready to leave for good. Next Friday is my last day. Then, it's on to First Degree Fitness. In the old days I would've been too fearful to leave the job I had and too nervous to start over somewhere, but I'm getting a lot better at letting God lead me these days and not giving in to fear. It's comforting to know that I'm not in control of this. I know that that sounds backwards to some people, but it's very much true for me. God is more successful at my career than I am anyway so I don't mind letting Him be the provider.

The last new thing on the list is a new phone. I officially switched over to Verizon, got rid of AT&T for good, upgraded from a dumb phone to a very smart Droid X, am very happy with the change, and am even going to save hundreds of dollars over the course of the next eleven months that I would have been with AT&T had I not paid the early termination fee to get out of my contract. In two months, the savings pay for the termination fee! I'm just glad that I figured this out now. Sometimes I figure out these things after the fact and wish that I would have been smarter and richer because of it later on.

So, what has been new with you? Any new discoveries, new kids, new jobs, new pets etc.?

Somebody's Gotta Say It

2011-05-04T22:52:00.005-05:00

Osama's dead. Everyone's talking about it. The media can't shutup about it. It's somehow the most satisfying news the U.S. has received in 20 years. People are literally singing in the streets.

Really? Am I supposed to feel like justice has been served by this death? Am I to feel more safe? Am I to sing praises to my country's government for this vengence-quenching gift? Am I to feel closure now?

Where are the answers to the questions that have been asked a thousand times? Where is the truth that is being obviously hidden from us all? Sure, there was a time when I was in support of the U.S. hunting down Osama. I, too, once blindly believed the media and our government's immediate and unwavering assessment of the events on 9/11. I, too, needed a scapegoat on which to vent my pent-up emotions. I, too, failed to consider that there may have been much more to the story in which we were all being given.

It all feels like the end of a really good suspense movie. Except that in this film the evil plan gets accomplished, the heroes never got cast, and we are all just the extras in the background along for the ride with no individual faces, personalities, or opinions. We're the lemmings who need a hero because we're too weak, too stupid, and too afraid.

Here are my top questions, though there are thousands more:

1) Was flight 93 shot down? It certainly didn't crash like we were all told. The "crash site" had no plane in it. It had no debris in it, either.

2) Why were we lied to about how the World Trade Center buildings came down? More evidence points to the use of explosives than anything else. There wasn't even anything wrong with WTC building 7 yeet it collapsed into its own footprint at freefall speed. Sorry, folks, nothing but controlled demolition can do that. That's just simple physics. To believe anything else is either willful ignorance or lemming stupidity. Nothing falls toward the earth at freefall speed along the path of most resistance let alone buildings constructed of concrete and steel.

3) For what reason (other than obvious cover-up) did the government haul the remaining pieces of WTC buildings to an undisclosed location only to scrap it all without allowing anyone other than themselves to view it all? Wasn't it all crime scene evidence and therefore illegal to dispose of, tamper with, or remove from the scene for that matter?

4) Why were the families of 9/11 victims given compensation but with the clause that excludes them from being able to raise litigation against or call for any investigation of the government's actions surrounding the events of 9/11? And why did the families of the victims who refused to accept compensation so that they could raise litigation against the government have their cases consolidated into one court case that was simply dismissed?

These are just four questions. There are lots more. None of these questions have been answered by either federal, state, or local governments. They have continued to avoid, distract from, and even silence those who have spoken out on the apparent untruths that our government has relied upon to maintain the secrecy of the events and the truth of how they really occurred.

As far as closure goes, we'll never really have it with 9/11. The death of Osama doesn't even begin to change that. For all the lies that we have been told, what makes us so sure that Osama had anything to do with it at all? Make no mistake, justice will be served. There's no doubt about that. But, it won't be in this life and it won't be by us.

Too Much to Say

2011-04-17T09:30:00.004-05:00

I haven't written a blog in almost two months and I'm feeling a bit ashamed of myself. It's definitely not for any lack of material to write about. If anything, it's because of having too much to report, too much to say, and too much to talk about.

Since my last entry, I've spent a week in Haiti and for the life of me cannot think of where to begin about what I saw, did, or learned there. Also, I've been working hard to completely revamp a warehouse to get it functioning eficiently without me. Lyric started his soccer season. I've been building the garden door finally for the garden wall. We've been shopping for a new car. And, on top of all that, we've been diligently working at getting everything ready for baby Ezra to arrive, which has meant chewing through a list of "to do's" before she gets here.

So, needless to say, I've been a bit busy. But, I still feel bad for not having shared any of my experiences. I've had some really good ones that deserve to be shared.

So, to repair what has been broken, I'll be setting some goals to get caught up. I'm thinking maybe two blogs a week until I'm caught up. And, I'm going to have to learn how to keep them brief and to the point. So, let me know if I start rambling like normal.

Can't write one right now. Gotta get out of this condo by check out time. But I will have one posted in the next couple of days. Later!

Can't Help But Rebel

2011-02-24T19:15:00.005-06:00

I find human nature pretty funny sometimes. I have to choose to laugh at it, though, because otherwise it can annoy me. And, that's never good. I like to stay in control of my mood, impervious to outside influence. After all, what sense does it make to allow anyone and anything to determine whether or not I have a good day? No, thank you.

Concerning the human nature I was speaking of, have you ever shown somebody a good way of doing something and then watched them do it a more difficult, less efficient way despite your well delivered instruction? I've seen this a lot over the years. I know that I've even been guilty of it myself just as often as others have. Something in ourselves just causes us to think that we have it all figured out and so we dismiss the well-intentioned suggestions of others.

What's even funnier to me is when the results of this nature worm their way into our culture. For example, while learning French in junior high, I learned that in French descriptive words are spoken after the noun in which they are describing. This makes perfect sense. So, instead of The White House, the French would say La Maison Blanc (The House White). It may sound strange to you, but think about those times when someone is using too many descriptive words and you are getting impatient because you still don't know what (the noun) they are talking about. (That's kind of funny. "What the noun are you talking about?! That's going to be my new thing.) For example, "I went to this really great, cheap, brand new, in fashion, cutting edge hair salon." In English, we wind up trying to remember all the adjectives so that when we finally find out what is being talked about we can apply those descriptions to the appropriate subject being described. We're left to wonder until the end. In French, they tell you what it is and then describe it, which makes more sense to me.

Similarly, it makes more sense to write the date noting the year first, though we save it for last. I guess, so we can surprise people at the end. "What do you mean you don't remember? This says that you did this just last week. See? February 19th... OHhhh 1998. Sorry. I hadn't seen the year yet."

There is plenty of stuff like this that we just insist on doing a certain way even though the rest of the world does it better. How about Fahrenheit versus Celsius or American Standard versus the Metric system? And what about football? Most of the world assumes you are talking about the sport in which you use your feet, but we've got the market cornered on the term soccer because it's somehow better? How about opening a banana? Ever tried to open it on the other end? Monkeys even get that right. But, since we're not monkeys let's continue to do it the "better" (hard) way.

Global Go Team

2011-02-17T19:30:00.006-06:00

Recently, Jodi and I joined the Global Go Team. They're a missions group made up mostly of young couples from our church. They are a non-profit organization that seeks to help those who couldn't otherwise meet the basic necessities for survival. I won't go into too much detail, since the video and the website do that for me.

Which brings me to my next subject, the video. I was asked to put together a 3 to 5 minute video that summarizes the projects that the team has already accomplished or are in the process of. It was a lot of fun to do, and I feel privileged to be the one that gets to make them. But, as you know, it takes a village. Nate and Cristi Harris, two other Global members, managed to compose the beautiful soundtrack that really carries the feel of the entire video. Esther Hawkins gave it a professional sounding touch with her naturally melodic British accent as the voice over. Deoin Bedell graciously allowed us to invade his recording studio to record both the soundtrack and the voice over. His skill in mastering the audio is nothing short of amazing. And, finally, I wrote the script (with some plagiarism from Global's website), directed and edited the video.

The people that helped the most, though, were the ones who did double-duty and performed both roles of Mom and Dad, while the actual Mom or Dad was preoccupied with the video's creation. These unsung heroes are Jodi Felton, Torrie Bedell, Scott Hawkins, and Nate and Cristi Harris (who took turns recording their respective parts of the soundtrack so that one could be with their children). These people made the video possible just as much as the ones directly involved. Thanks, guys.

So, without further blabbering, here is the much anticipated video. And a link to the website which will have the video on it soon.

Seriously?!

2011-02-02T06:56:00.000-06:00

Wasn't it just 65 degrees?

Time For A Tasty Change

2011-01-21T16:57:00.007-06:00

As a child, I remember disliking cooking shows on television. No doubt, the use of vegetables in every dish turned me off, however there was something deeper still that caused my aversion to them. It was the unknown foods that they cooked. As children, we are all greatly comforted by routine and repetition. We like what we know and are uneasy about the unknown, the undiscovered. This is why children will take pleasure in watching their favorite movie for the 100th time. It's also why they would be content eating just macaroni and cheese for dinner every day.

As mature adults, however, we become more adventurous. Cooking shows make us wish we were cooks and had all the ingredients seen on the program readily available to us in our own kitchens. We are more comfortable in the world in which we reside and take great pleasure in seeing new places, tasting new flavors, meeting new people, hearing new music, and experiencing the "new" to find the "great".

Unfortunately, one stroll around your local grocery store will show that the overwhelming majority they are marketing towards are children or those who eat like one. There are virtually endless varieties of the same boring foods. One can't blame the markets for they're simply selling what sells in the greatest volume. One can't blame the public for they're generally buying what gives them the most quantity for their money, and often looking for what takes the least amount of time to prepare. So, the fault really lies in our accepted culture that is seemingly always short on time while also being habitually convinced that more is better. Individuals, in turn, tend to eat more than they actually crave because they unwisely choose quantity over quality. They continue to eat beyond their hunger because their bland, giant portion doesn't satisfy them.

It's refreshing, then, finding a store that aims to redirect our culture's mistaken values, in regards to cuisine. Devo Olive Oil Company, located in the Battlefield Mall in Springfield, MO. and the Branson Landing in Branson, MO., is home to 50 varieties of extra virgin olive oils and many Balsamic vinegars imported from Italy. All of these are available for you to taste test.

My wife and I had gone into the store with a couple we are friends with and we all really enjoyed our time there. The flavors excite the mind. With every new taste, recipes were being born in my head. After leaving with several bottles, I noticed that we had been in the store for about an hour. I had no idea we'd been in there for so long. It was a great way to spend some time with friends, and we got some really great ingredients to many of our future dishes.

My wife said something a while back that has stuck with me ever since, though I ironically failed to remember her exact wording. She said, "I'm not going to waste stomach space on food that I don't absolutely love." So, I say to you, visit Devo. Get some flavor in your food. Eat something worthwhile that satisfies your hunger and is enjoyable to cook. Shop where you can taste it first. Grow out of your boring childish routines and discover something new. Your stomach will thank you.

The Game Of Their Lives

2011-01-05T05:51:00.003-06:00

I just got done reading an awesome book. It's called "The Game Of Their Lives" and it's written by Geoffery Douglas. I highly recommend it.

The soccer match that the title refers to is arguably the biggest upset in World Cup history, the 1950 match that ended with the United States improbably defeating England. The only country in the world to refuse to take soccer seriously; the only country, to my knowledge to even call it something other than it's more appropriate name: Football. This team of regular guys (two mailmen, a sheet stacker, a hearse driver, two clerks, and a dishwasher to name a few) who mostly played for fun (only one was a professional) managed to beat the country that invented the World Cup, and one of the few highly favored teams in the world.

This book really hits home for me, because the book covers so many things that I take special interest in. I love history, particularly when it's local. I love soccer. I love the World Cup. And, I love a good story. Douglas blended all these obvious loves of his own along with a lot of research and interviews and heart to write this book.

The book covers a single soccer match, but that's hardly what the book is about. Granted, the book would have never been written had the game not been played. However, only someone who has never read the book could say that it is about a soccer match. Rather, the book is about extraordinary greatness being thrust upon a group of ordinary men and going virtually unnoticed. The book explores where these men came from, their culture, and their history.

Never before have I read a book and desired so strongly to see not just the place where the book takes place, but possibly experience just a small taste of the culture of the tight-knit community that produced these players. The author gave delightfully descriptive details of the neighborhood called "the Hill" and it's origin. It was not difficult to see with the mind's eye what it must have been like through the turn of the century there on the Hill in St. Louis. Even though today we have modern conveniences that must make that time seem like the stone age, comparatively speaking, I can't help but harbor an inner desire to abandon life as I know it and take up a life like they had. But, alas, it can't be done. That time is long gone. Some remnant of the culture, no doubt, still exists to some extent, but the complete experience cannot be obtained. It is irretrievably gone.

We can, on the other hand, read about it and enjoy what we read. I did just that with this book and maybe you will, too.

Dream Home

2010-12-30T20:54:00.004-06:00

I've always enjoyed looking at house plans, drawing my own house plans, and even more so, walking around houses looking at their layout. Even as a child, I knew that someday I'd be building a house to live in. It hasn't happened yet, but I know that someday, maybe even soon, it will.

Jodi got me a book of luxury home plans last year for our fifth anniversary and I love it. Not only does it have the floor plans for the houses but since they are all actual homes, they've included photos of them as well so that you can really see how they look completed. I doubt that we'll ever build one of the houses in the book, but I imagine that we will incorporate many of the good ideas in a home that we build.

Lately, we've talked a lot about what we would desire from the ideal home. Some of the things that we've discussed have included a greenhouse, shop, and craft room. Some may say that we dream big, but I don't see any reason why we shouldn't.

Besides, the greenhouse is to grow healthy food for ourselves and depending on the size we build it has the potential to create a partial income from what we produce out of it. The shop serves lots of purposes. For starters, I'll finally have a place to do automotive repairs on our vehicles where I can get them done fast and efficiently. I'll have a place to finally do vehicle flipping like I've dreamed of doing which would be a fun partial income, as well. Aside from automotive space, it will also have a wood shop area that I can use for all types of things instead of using the front yard like I am forced to do now. And, I see the craft room being an amazing space for Jodi to have all her crafty things available without digging and searching. The craft room could also double as a transition room from the house to the greenhouse so that it could have space in it designed to be a good spot to pot plants, store greenhouse and household tools, and perform various other duties that greenhouses require.

So, in the near future, I'll be toying around with my own sketched out plans of what our obtainable dream house would look like. After I achieve a sketch that both Jodi and I like, I'll throw it together using the new Google Sketchup. I'm not sure when Google Sketchup Version 8 was released, but it's a much welcomed advance from Version 7.

In case you are unfamiliar with Google Sketchup, it's an extremely user-friendly, free, 3-D modeling program. It has simple push, pull, and drag tools to create complex 3-dimensional models fast and with ease. The best part about it, though, is the 3-D warehouse. Anyone can upload their own completed models to the warehouse. And, anyone can search the warehouse easily and download any of the models found there right into the project you're working on. Before remodeling our kitchen, I "built" our kitchen plans using Sketchup and it allowed us to see exactly what our new kitchen would look like. This way, we would be able to anticipate any issues that we would have with the layout. It was relatively easy to put together, too, since all of the cabinets that I used were available for download from the warehouse. So, all I did was arrange them in the room that I created. Version 7, though, when you used the orbit function to move 3-dimensionally around your object, it was slow and choppy. Version 8 is instant and smooth, so it makes the 3-D environment even more fun to work with. Check it out. Click this link to be taken to the Google Sketchup download page.

Missing Cat

2010-12-28T06:20:00.003-06:00

Our cat, Tracker, has been missing now for 14 days. Two weeks ago, I let him out while I was getting ready for work. Then, I let him back in as I was leaving. That was the last I saw of him. Jodi let him out later that day and he's never returned. I walked all around the neighborhood, but saw no sign of him anywhere. Jodi went to both the animal shelter and the Humane Society the next day and saw a lot of sad faces but not Tracker's.

I hate to speak of him as if he were gone for good, but it's time I quit looking out the door for him. I keep expecting that sooner or later he'll have climbed the screen door again (which always irritated us) and be sitting in the glass section above the door waiting for us to let him in.

Tonight, I'll make a couple posters to put up around the neighborhood just in case some one around us did take him captive unknowingly. If we don't hear anything by the new year I'll clean out his food bowl and litter box and put them away in the basement. Maybe, it's just as well that he did leave us. With the baby on the way, it's safer not to have a cat. I figure that someone "took him in" not knowing that he had a home to go to. Though we had one for him, we never made him wear a collar or anything so there was nothing other than his perfect health and well-fed body to show that he did have a home.

Who knows? Maybe the posters will work. Or maybe he'll show back up someday. We'll see.

Room Transformation (in progress)

2010-12-24T14:26:00.003-06:00

Last Saturday, Jodi and I started the transformation of Lyric's old bedroom to Ezra's new bedroom. Months ago, Lyric began sleeping in Jacob's room on the top bunk. Neither Jacob nor Lyric would have it any other way. They like being roommates, I guess. And, being the largest room in the house, there's plenty of room for them, though we may have to figure out a better layout. The full drum kit takes up a lot of space.

All the decor in Lyric's room has come down which was sad to us, but the fun has just begun really. We've mudded up the walls to fill in all the holes from past decor, and even filled in and smoothed out a few cracks in the plaster. It's ready for a light sanding, some primer, and a fresh coat of paint. We don't really know exactly how we will decorate it, but rest assured that I'll post more pictures as we get Ezra's decor up and furniture all in.

Another fun part will be rearranging and fixing up the boys' room. A couple months ago, I picked up a really nice dumpster find. It's a bank of 6 lockers; 2 high, 3 wide. Other than being dirty and having some chipping paint, they were in really nice condiiton. All the doors work. There was one dent where the side collapsed in, but it was easily fixed. Jodi and I bought the paint already for them and when we're done they'll make an awesome contribution to the boys' room for both storage and style.

The photos here look like we're transforming the room into a dreadful place, but I assure you that these photos (taken in the dark with my phone) give the room no justice. As a matter of fact, they look so terrible that the only reason I am posting them is to make the photos to come look that much more awesome. Stay tuned.

8 Simple Rules

2010-12-16T22:56:00.006-06:00

I have a wonderful marriage. It's easy for me to say it, too. It's not wishful thinking. It's not hopeful optimism. It's simply true. I'm not comparing my marriage to other marriages, either.

Back on the sixth of this month, Jodi and I had our seventh yeariversary (the anniversary of the day we met). Of those seven years, we've enjoyed 5 years and 5 months of an amazing marriage and I would like to share some marriage basics to the men out there that stand to only improve your marriage (women will surely gain from this advice, too, so keep reading, ladies). The following list is not in any particular order nor is it complete, by any means. I didn't make them all up, but they all did come out of my head. Who knows for certain how they got there?

Say "I'm sorry."

Smile when you reconnect.

Pray for her.

Replace "I deserve..." with "I'm thankful."

Laugh often.

Don't go to bed angry.

Do things together.

Help each other

God created everything and then He "saw that it was good." Then He created man and said, "it is not good for man to be alone." So, He created a wife for man. You all know the story. But, notice, when He saw that it wasn't good for man to be alone, He didn't create a TV, or football, or all-you-can-eat buffets, or bars, or a bad influence of a friend, or four-wheel drives, etc. He created him a wife. Marriage can be such a fulfilling life to you, but you have to follow some rules. Like these here. Rules not to stop you from having fun, but rules set to teach you how to have lasting fun, happiness, and joy until death do you part.

Theft by Deception

2010-12-14T23:41:00.003-06:00

I don't think that I've written a blog this short since I started blogging. I've wanted to write one about this subject for a long time, but what was taking so long was that I knew that it wouldn't be a short one. I'd fill the World Wide Web full of my opinion and rantings and no one would even begin to attempt to read it knowing that they would be bored out of their skull long before they even finished the introduction. Even now, I'm losing some of you. So, being sensitive to my impatient fast-food culture blog readers, I'll keep it very short.

A few years ago, I watched a video online called Theft by Deception. In short, it takes you through step-by-step of how it came to pass that American citizens were expected to pay a tax on the money that they earned. By exploring not just the current tax code and regulations but also the tax code and regulations before revisions were made since the birth of the Income Tax in 1913, it shows you exactly how the federal government imposed an unconstitutional tax on the American people. But, even the federal government knows that it's unconstitutional and therefore illegal. So they made great efforts to conceal the fact that the tax code and regulations themselves don't say anywhere that regular citizens like you or me are required to pay any income tax. Yeah, you heard me correctly. There is no law, code, or regulation that requires an American citizen to pay federal income tax if they live and work with only a domestic income from within the borders of the United States.

Have you ever seen the law that requires you to pay federal income tax? I KNOW that you haven't because it doesn't exist. Don't you think that it's ridiculous that you have probably payed a tax year after year in blind faith that you are required to do so. I bet you have some questions and I'm sure that you have some doubts, but rest assured that all those questions can be answered simply by watching the video. It's long, but very worth it as it helps the regular person better understand how the tax law is constructed, how it functions, its original intent, and its current intended purpose. Watch it.

How I Met Your Mother

2010-12-11T10:27:00.006-06:00

It was December 6th, 2003. I had long hair again. I had grown my hair out over the course of the previous year or better in the same style that I had had through the latter three years of high school. It wasn't too popular of a hair style then, but acceptable nonetheless. It definitely wasn't in style in 2003. Not hardly, but I didn't care.

It was about 1:00 AM if I remember right and I was playing a game of cards called "Spit" with my friend, Gabe, over at Shannon's house. Shannon told us that her friend Jodi was coming over. Then the two of them proceeded to tell me about her not even attempting to conceal the fact that they thought that we would be a good match. Again, I didn't really care.

I had this picture in my head for the future and it was Jacob coming home after school in his car, and I'd be in the garage or yard working on something. Just two guys living their lives. I couldn't fathom anything else, really. So, the prospect of meeting a girl who my friends thought that I would like didn't really interest me.

Then, this girl enters the room. Despite all of what I just told you, she captured my full attention as she walked across the room, found a chair while still talking to Shannon, greeted Gabe, and then finally made eye contact with me. My brain had failed to complete a thought throughout that time. It didn't start working again until after we were introduced. My first thought afterward was, "I really like this girl." The thought immediately following that one, though, was "Yeah, but she's out of my league."

As the night (morning) went on, the four of us had a good time just sitting around talking. Shannon's next door neighbor, Adam, even came over and hung out with us for a while. However, the time finally came when some sleep was going to have to get slept. I had a truck to go buy at 9:00 in Republic, a 1959 Ford F-100, and I was going to have to drag Gabe out of bed to drive me out there so that I could drive it back. I wanted to see Jodi again, but I didn't know how to go about making that happen without being blatantly obvious about it. We were parting ways and I could feel the opportunity slipping from my fingers. To delay, I offered my hand in a formal handshake while telling her that it was nice meeting her. She took my offer and repeated it back to me with a smile. The words we spoke played no role in our communication in that brief moment for it was all in the handshake. A handshake mutually prolonged to let each other know of our interest in the other. Not so delayed to be terribly transparent, just long enough to be unmistakably noticed. Then, with just as much subtlety as the handshake, came the graceful release that included an ever-so-light, almost imperceptible grazing of her fingertips across my palm as our hands separated.

There was no doubt, at that moment, that I would see her again. I didn't know how, when or where. I just knew.

New Favorite

2010-12-06T20:26:00.005-06:00

There was a time (before meeting Jodi and having some accountability) when I ate Chinese food about three times a week on average. And, I do mean on average. There were weeks that I hit five times. I admit it. So, it goes without saying that I really like Chinese food, I think. My wife can attest to the fact that any time someone brings up getting food from somewhere or going out to eat that my mind, by default, goes straight to those deep fried little pieces of sweet sauce covered heaven.

So, imagine my surprise upon finding a restaurant that I like more than Chinese. Or maybe I should be more specific since the restaurant in which I found to be better is technically Chinese as well. HuHot is relatively new to Springfield and the only reason that I hadn't gone before was due to the fact that someone had told me about it and compared it to Nakato. So, I pictured just another "remove your shoes, please" sort of place.

However, it's not like that at all. It's a nice modernly laid out business with all the dramatic lighting you would expect to find in a successful, growing nationwide chain of restaurants. And, your shoes are expected to stay on for the course of the dining experience, so that's nice. But, of course, the food is what makes the place a landmark. It's a huge Mongolian Barbecue. You go through a line that passes a buffet of uncooked food, of which you fill bowls with to your heart's content. Then, you pass a buffet of nothing but sauces and oils, then it's on to the grill. You watch as four or five cooks mechanically, and skillfully cook and plate your food for you in about a minute. It's healthy for you because it's all MSG free, it's mostly vegetables that you wind up with, it's cooked fresh, and it's cooked without the use of oils and grease. It's a welcome healthy alternative to the scores of other restaurants that may taste good, but leave you feeling much larger than you felt before having gone. Also, it's fun to get experimental with the sauces and see what great new tastes you can come up with by mixing the different flavors together. I'm getting a craving for it just writing about it.

It's definitely my new favorite restaurant, replacing New China Buffet. Sorry, old friend, but you're old hat. Maybe, I will visit you every so often when I am feeling nostalgic, but don't leave a place for me at the table.

If you haven't tried HuHot yet, you should. And, If you feel like you can't do it on your own and need a tour guide, I'm available and willing to help you along the way for the low, low price of covering the cost of my meal.

Emerging Poster Boy

2010-11-17T06:26:00.004-06:00

I'm sure that you've noticed, but I added advertisements to my blog a while back to see if there was any monetary incentive to doing so. Predictably, I have seen no kickbacks of any kind and will be removing them from my blog. I knew that I would not like them, but sometimes you just have to step out and do something you know you won't like to prove to yourself that, indeed, you don't like it.

This morning, I saw this ad and got a kick out of it. This, they suppose, is the poster child for the Emerging church. A white male in his late 20's/early 30's, facial hair, multiple facial piercings, earings that appear to be scales, sporting somewhat untamed hair, and let's not overlook that he's not smiling. We get all of this from nothing more than a head shot. This guy probably has a balanced look and has some tattoos, some visible in short sleeves, some not.

What seems to be the obvious interpretation of this ad to me is that they are establishing two ends of a Christian spiritual spectrum and saying that their curriculuum caters to everyone in between much like Centrum's slogan "from A to Zinc." But, if that's true, then being on the opposite end of 'anchored' suggests that you're un-anchored. Is that what the term 'emerging' means? Emerging circles do talk a lot about deconstruction and anti-foundationalism. From my conversations with emerging-thinkers, I would expect that anchored is probably an adjective that they wouldn't like too much in describing themselves. So maybe this is correct.

Or maybe it's not two spectral ends, maybe they are just saying that they're anchored in Christ and that they are also teaching in an emerging format. But, a close look into their website lists many doctrinal statements without being vague at all, which isn't much like the emerging format that leaves very little room, if any at all, for certainty about any knowledge.

From what I can tell from their website, I'd like to think that really what they are attempting to do with the advertisement is to make it known that they are not anti-emerging. They want to reach these so called emerging thinkers, because, like a good Christian organization should be, they value the people and all the good aspects of a typical emerging-minded individual and want to give them a place for training to equip them to do the work of Christ Jesus in any setting whether domestic or abroad.

Regardless of the intent of the ad, I found it funny. I wonder who the poster boy would be for my categorized beliefs and Christian praxis.

Food

2010-11-13T09:15:00.002-06:00

Eating food is such a sensual experience. Probably the only sense you don't use is hearing, although the sound can be a marketing tool (i.e. Rice Krispies, Pop Rocks). Taste obviously plays the biggest role, but smell is tied very closely to taste. And taking in the delicious smells of a meal being prepared is part of what makes us desire the food so much in the first place. Feel also has its role. All good cooks know that texture is a very important part of a meal. Some people don't like certain foods based simply of their texture alone. I, for one, can't stand coconut because of that very thing. And, of course, there's sight. Presentation is king.

What's more is that we all have different preferences in all these categories. What one may find delectable, another may find appalling. And even our own preferences change over time. Have you ever been grossed out by someone's choice of condiment for a particular dish only to find out later that the combination is so tasty that they seem to have been made for each other? Or maybe you witnessed a friend preparing a snack in a peculiar way and then you tried it and altered the way you made the same thing? Has there ever been a food that you just couldn't stand even the smell of that later in life became the centerpiece to all your planned meals?

My tastes have changed remarkably throughout my life. I remember a time when I hated onions with a contempt. It bothered me tremendously that places such as McDonald's were "dumb" enough to put them on hamburgers for kids by default. "Shouldn't they only put them on if you ask them?" I would wonder aloud. However, at age sixteen, I was at an Independence Day party at a house where I didn't really know anyone. One of the hosts, a mother of small children, was nice enough to make me a plate probably knowing that I would decline an offer of food if asked. It was a burger right off the grill "with all the fixin's." Out of habit, I wanted to remove the thick slices of red onion off the top of my burger. But, as I was raised to be a thankful, appreciative boy with good manners, I left them there just as she had prepared it for me. The first bite kind of impressed me. By the second, I was hooked. Never again would I eat another warm, soft, crunch-less burger as long as I lived. Today, there's onion incorporated in almost every dish I make.

Another thing that I would see people do is putting ketchup on their eggs. I never quite got that. Others would use Tabasco Sauce. And, I couldn't figure out why they would want to destroy their sense of taste for the day. However, growing up, when we would have homemade tacos my mom would make a taco sauce by mixing ketchup and Tabasco Sauce. It was just a cheap way of having taco sauce without buying it, I'm sure, but nonetheless I liked it. Every time I make homemade tacos, I recreate the recipe. Since we're Italian, at least in part, I have dubbed it 'Italian Taco Sauce'. I even have Jacob making it now. Anyway, a couple weeks ago, we made breakfast burritos and I made some of the sauce. As I was enjoying eating one, it occurred to me that I was, in essence, adding both Tabasco Sauce and ketchup to my eggs. I had become one of them. How did this happen?

Do you have any similar stories? Any foods that you couldn't stand as a child only to find yourself looking forward to them as adults?

Subverting the Norm OR Making Gods of Ourselves?

2010-10-23T22:51:00.011-05:00

It's 5:23 AM, Monday, October 18th, 2010. I'm seeing this on the display of my phone wondering why I'm awake when my alarm isn't set to go off for another seven minutes. This has been happening to me a lot lately. I get up and gather the few possessions that I need for the day that I've left all together so as not to have to scramble around the room and risk waking my wife who is probably at minimum partially awake despite my best efforts to the contrary. Downstairs, I put on my work uniform for somewhere around the 220th time. I'm buttoning up the literal, not figurative, blue-collar shirt and I have to let out a little laugh as I come to realize the expansive degree of separation between the profession in which I find myself today and the ones in which I was associating myself with during the weekend prior.

The Friday and Saturday before were two very long days for me as I attended a conference at Drury University entitled "Subverting the Norm: The Emerging Church, Postmodernism, & the Future of Christianity". I didn't count heads or anything, but I figured around 250 people attended the conference for at least part of it, although I doubt that there was ever more than 200 people present at one time. Those in attendance fell almost exclusively into one of two categories: theology scholars or church practitioners. Some were both. I'm sure there were exceptions, but none that I met. Everyone I spoke to either came right out of the gate asking me about my educational background or they first assumed I was a student and then, upon finding out that I wasn't, asked me about my educational background. During one of the sessions that I sat in on hosted by Chris Rodkey titled "Satan in the Suburbs: Ordination as Insubordination", Mr. Rodkey suggested since we were only a small group of about eight that we go around the circle and introduce ourselves. I was second in line and merely said, "Hi, my name is Levi and I'm from right here in Springfield, Missouri." I left it at that despite the continuing eye contact I was receiving from Mr. Rodkey who was, no doubt, encouraging me to share more about myself. But, I just politely held his gaze with a smile to let him know that I had no intention of describing myself any further. After several seconds, he moved on to the next person who without hesitation or pause listed his own currently held titles, the degrees he had and were still studying for, and a couple other qualifications that he must have deemed relevant to the conversation and necessary to be mentioned. The gracefulness and almost sing-song quality in which this information was delivered suggested that these verses of self-qualification had been recited to people many times.

That last observation maybe sounded a bit like I am bothered by being surrounded by academics or that I am in some way demeaning someone for their post-high school education and achieved titles. However, rather than delete the sentences and try again in my defense, let me instead just state that I'm merely attempting to paint a picture as to what sort of people I was attending a conference with while also pointing out that stating one's titles and educational background as a means to introducing yourself was not only done but also encouraged by the hosts. This follows right along the social norm here in the West where it is commonplace to identify oneself with one's occupation. I could write an entire blog about my psychoanalysis on this alone, but instead I'll just say without further explanation that this phenomenon of occupation as a means to self-identity is simply our attempt to feel purpose in our lives. But, as a result, since different occupations have varying degrees of levels of their contribution to society, at least in the eyes of society, people consequently are made to feel that they are only as useful, only as important as their respective occupation relates to the general consensus' view of it's role in contributing to the general welfare of society. In layman's terms, the hosts at this conference advocated, whether purposefully or not, the old phrase 'you are what you do.'

There's entirely too much to go over about what I disagreed with at this conference without writing a book about it. Which, who knows, maybe I will do eventually. But, I will say that of all the names of writers, theologians, scholars, and the like being thrown around that weekend, none did I hear so often than those of Jacques Derrida, Thomas Altizer, and John Caputo (who was one of the keynote speakers at the conference). One name I didn't hear save for a few times was that of Friedrich Nietzsche.

Nietzsche's writings, I will say with much conviction, is the launch point of the entire movement in which the conference was being held. Nietzsche's statement, "God is dead", brought into mainstream media by TIME magazine, ushered in a new theology most commonly referred to as 'Death of God Theology.' There was much talk about this theology throughout the entire conference, so much in fact, that at one point I jokingly wondered if I hadn't stumbled into the wrong conference altogether. At the time, I was unaware of what this theology even was and only had a vague understanding, at best, of what Nietzsche had written about all those years ago.

I still have loads of research to do before I can come to any solid conclusions or theories of my own, however in good scientific form I will throw out my hypothesis on the table: Postmodernistic thought was born not out of a study of the Word of God and documented history, but rather came out of a self-negating philosophy that sought self-justification. The emergent church (and most 'emerging' churches, as well) are simply the ecclesiological practices of this theology which may be better defined as atheology. To put it simply, the only thing that I can see that separates these people from atheists is that they claim that there is a God, but they completely and radically redefine what God is into something unknowable. And, thus, create their own God based out of their own desires and cultural standpoint.

Like I said, I won't go into why I believe this hypothesis to be true because I haven't done all the intended research yet and right now I'm only basing this on my own observations. But, for good measure I have opened the door here to any critics (as well as anyone else) to contribute to the ongoing conversation that I am having here. I have no "formal education" that gives me some status, official knowledge level, or title. I just read and research those subjects that I feel God gives me a passion for. So far, in direct relevance to the subject at hand, I have attended the conference that I spoke of here in this blog, a book study on A Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McLaren, and have read the following books:

A Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McLaren
Why We're Not Emergent (By Two Guys Who Should Be) by Kevin DeYoung & Ted Kluck
Becoming Conversant With The Emerging Church by D.A. Carson

PC vs Mac

2010-10-05T06:09:00.004-05:00

The title of this blog, when looking at it in print, brings the game Pac-Man to mind. Not that PacMAn has anything to do with this blog. I'm just saying.

I have been a PC user most of my life. My earliest memory of using a computer was in second grade at Eugene Field Elementary, here in Springfield. The year was 1986. I learned the ins and outs of DOS and then LogoWriter. The years went by but my computer experience never strayed from the PC.

Then came a day many more years down the road when Apple started making fun of PCs in their advertisements making the assumption that Macs were not only more advanced but also more stylish, more laid back, cooler, more popular, etc. While I did find the ads humorous mostly, I also resented Apple for their conceited campaign, much like you would if a chess geek was heckling one of your math club buddies.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. Due to God's good graces, I was able to purchase a Mac off Craigslist from a guy who had bought it new many moons ago. Inside all the well-kept boxes & packaging I found the original invoice from the store with the guy's name on it. He had sold me the entire setup for $30 even though he had paid $3,400 for it! Eeeek!

It's really pretty, aesthetically speaking. It's easy to install software on, and I was really impressed with the simplicity of installing hardware. I installed 4 sticks of RAM, a PCI card that added USB 2.0, and a bluetooth adapter. Of course, the RAM doesn't need a driver, but the latter two would have needed drivers to function properly on a PC. But, when I booted up the Mac it was already using them without a hitch, no drivers necessary.

So, I can see why Mac users like their machines. I don't have enough experience yet with the running of programs to be able to say anything on the subject except that I hear that programs work like they're supposed to without the issues that sometimes plague PCs.

However, so far, my official position takes sides with PCs. The biggest reason is price. Last week, my motherboard got fried mysteriously in my best PC. It was about three years old and had been part of a barebones kit that I bought for somewhere around $130. The kit included the processor, motherboard, case, fan, and power supply. I found a new motherboard on TigerDirect that will allow me to reuse everything and just swap out the old for the new. I won't go into detail, but it's way better than the one that fried and it's only $50.

You just can't do that with a Mac. Parts are very expensive. For example, a replacement motherboard for a G5 Mac that would be similar, yet not quite equivalent, to my computer would cost a whopping $430.

But price isn't the only reason. There are tons more programs available, it seems, for a PC that aren't even available in a Mac compatible format. Mac users may argue with me on this point citing the PC emulator that allows a Mac to run PC programs. But, what does that say for Macs that they would want to emulate a PC?

I will concede that Macs are better quality both in their hardware and software than your average PC. I've had my fair share of issues with PCs. But to be fair, those problems were largely due to my inexperience and naivete. I've learned much over the years, some the hard way. For example, I bought a barebones kit from TigerDirect once that sounded great and was nice and cheap. I had been using a Pentium II 350 Mhz Gateway up to that point, but I was ready, or so I thought, to get into editing more than just the occasional photo. I wanted to edit home movies. So, I got the computer up and running, but it crashed the first time when ripping a CD. It did it again later doing the same thing. I realized that I had some bad RAM and it wasn't dumping the memory properly so it would just get full and then >poof<. New RAM solved the problem. Later, though, I had the same issue when rendering video. I bought some more RAM, at that point thinking that it would solve it, but it didn't. I got really frustrated because this new computer was an AMD 2 Ghz processor and I had 2 GB of RAM. This thing should be able to fly! Upon searching out forums on the subject, I found my answer: Front Side Bus. The FSB was only 100 Mhz. The guy on the forum explained it by saying, "You have an awesome processor that's like 20 semi trucks driving side by side on a 20-lane highway, but to get to the RAM and back the 20-lane highway bottlenecks at your front side bus down to a 1-lane bridge."

I didn't know what front side bus was. TigerDirect had plainly made it known on their site that it was only 100 Mhz, I just didn't know what that meant at the time. You can't just replace your front side bus, either. It's built into your motherboard. All you can do is get a new motherboard, which I did. But, that was the one that just fried. Oh well, it was a great motherboard for 3 years. And I have a better one coming.

Through my mistakes and searching, I now have an amazing collection of programs that work flawlessly. I have hardware that runs all those programs super fast and simultaneously. I have all this and I still haven't spent as much combined in the last 11 years of owning computers as I would have spent on one Mac that would have been long ago obsolete.

Negativity Scene

2010-09-27T21:47:00.004-05:00

Would you agree that you are unhappy? Would the word 'content' ever come to mind when asked to describe yourself? The reason that I ask is because I see a lot of negativity where I work. It's pretty rampant in most workplaces really. But, the workplace isn't the only place, by any means. It just stands out in my own little corner of the world.

It seems as if almost everywhere I go, I see and hear people complaining about anything and everything. It's their job, or spouse, or kids, or family, or bills, or commitments, or school, or one of a thousand other things. What do you talk about with people? What do you focus on?

It's funny. Have you ever noticed that when you're driving and you look off to one side or the other that you subconsciously turn the wheel ever so slightly in the same direction? It's a matter of focus. Our focus leads our direction. This point of truth can be illustrated in countless ways, really. Having been through extensive leadership training throughout the years I also learned that people are many times more likely to accomplish the goals that they set for themselves rather than the ones set for them.

The Bible tells the story of Peter walking out onto the water going out to Jesus (Matthew 14:22-33). Peter was able to walk on water just like Jesus until he took his focus off of Jesus and placed it on the storm and the waves. The passage specifically says that he saw the storm and was afraid. He put his focus on something negative and began to fall into the water in which he was focusing. Like Peter, we live out the reality of what we spend our time focusing on. In other words, we reach the goals that we set for ourselves.

If you think about and talk to others about all the things that you struggle with, you will always struggle with whatever you do. You will find a struggle regardless of the situation. Also, if you focus on your sickness, you'll eventually be perpetually sick. Every ache will be exaggerated into some pain that you will self-diagnose to be the worst possible ailment. Or, if you feel like somebody did you wrong over something and you spend your time focusing your thoughts and feelings towards it you will eventually start to feel victimized over other situations. Next thing you know, you're living life as a victim. You've decided it.

It's ironic, I suppose, to realize that these things happen because you are successful. You focused on something and you obtained it. You set some goals and you successfully hit your targets. Unfortunately, you were looking at negative targets.

I speak for myself, too, here. I'm not immune to losing sight of what I should be focused on. Far from it, really. But, we need to realize the destructive and constructive power of our focus if we intend to change how we think. Every time we start to think about something that's depressing, vengeful, hateful, worrisome, etc. we need to recognize it for what it is: negative thoughts that lead to negative outcomes. And, then we need to replace those thoughts with positive thinking, admirable goals, good memories, etc. Philippians 4:8 says, "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things."

Thanking God for being able to do whatever you are doing at the moment does wonders for your feelings about your current task. Sometimes we just need to slow ourselves down, slow our thinking down, stop thinking about all the things that we could be doing and just be thankful for what you are doing. Be thankful for the health you do have even if it's not perfect. This sounds cheesy but, you cannot change the past nor obtain it again. Likewise, the future will always be outside your grasp. We own nothing in this world, not even time. We cannot make any more of it and we cannot retain any of it. It's God's gift to us what little time we are allowed to experience. That is why it is called 'the present'. We could all stand to be a lot more grateful, don't you think?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Makes Good Point

2010-09-25T01:53:00.006-05:00

On Thursday, Ahmadinejad, President of Iran, gave a speech at the UN. Amongst his many topics, was the attacks on the United States on September 11th, 2001. Reportedly, a bunch of government officials walked out during the speech including the US Representatives. So, I see that many didn't agree with him, nor did they want to hear anymore on that subject or any other. President Obama has already given a statement, condemning Ahmadinejad for his "inexcusable" statements.

Despite what people may think of me for saying this, I have to agree with him about what he said concerning 9/11. He listed three different theories of who was responsible for the attacks. In a nutshell they are: some foreign terrorists did it (our government's official version), our own government did it, and lastly that foreign terrorists did it but our government saw them coming and took advantage of the situation.

The UN Representatives for the United States walked out during the second theory. Many other country's representatives left, as well. One reporter called what Ahmadinejad said "vile conspiracy theories" and, of course, Obama was acting very offended as if Ahmadinejad was insinuating that Obama himself had orchestrated the whole thing.

But, everyone is missing the point here due to our preconceptions of the man giving the speech. I don't agree with most of what Ahmadinejad said, but the things he said concerning 9/11 were right on. He only called a spade a spade and mentioned that there are multiple accounts for what happened that day, evidence that points to people other than the officially accused, and questions that have not been answered nor had honest attempts of aptly answering them by our government. He further suggests that the UN put together a fact finding team, to answer these questions.

If you think about it, he's properly using a democratic process. The US government has had 9 years to find and provide answers to the obvious 'who', 'why', and 'how' questions. Instead, it only took them hours to point a finger. Despite the ridiculous amount of new evidence that would implicate more involvement from others, this finger has never stopped pointing at the initial suspects and has turned a deaf ear to any suggestion that the event had co-conspirators other than those already named.

This deaf ear, continues today with the walkout of our government at the mere mention of theories that have been sparked, not by Ahmadinejad, but by unanswered questions and intentional government cover-ups.

Ahmadinejad's reason for bringing up 9/11 was to point out that the United States government's leading of the UN in bringing punishment to Iran for their "lack of transparency" surrounding their nuclear program couldn't be more ironic. It might be difficult to find a better example of the pot calling the kettle black.

How can I relate the two, you might ask? The United States used 9/11 as a springboard to invade two countries, and completely overthrow the government of one of them. Several thousand people did die on 9/11, but several hundred thousand have died in the United States' mission to avenge the supposed responsible parties. The United States' military force driven by a government that needs no solid evidence to choose a target is, in and of itself, a weapon of mass destruction. However, the US government feels no need to further investigate nor answer any questions. On the contrary, they get upset and leave just by the mere mention of the subject. Which only leaves us to believe that they're avoiding discussion on the subject because there is something to hide.

Volition

2010-09-22T00:59:00.004-05:00

Around a week ago, I followed a link posted by a friend on facebook to a short film. Somewhere it had said, "preview the movie." So, I thought it would be a normal movie preview and be a couple of minutes long. It turned out to be 15 minutes long. It wasn't a movie preview. It was a short film. It's called Volition.

It was very powerful. I recommend that everyone watch it. I was so moved by it, in fact, that I didn't hesitate in purchasing a copy.

Later that evening, I received a personal e-mail from a couple thanking me for purchasing the movie and supporting their cause. The movie arrived at the end of last week and we've already watched it again. The movie was professionally packaged complete with artwork. The packaging to ship the movie to me, on the other hand, was a simple bubble mailer that had both my and the return addresses hand-written. It's neat that we bought a movie straight from the people who made it rather than some large corporation that only sold it for another corporation.

On the DVD were some bonus features that included the original promotional video advertising a video contest. Apparently, Volition was one of the finalists in the 2008 contest. The prizes consisted of dollar amounts to go out to the finalists to go towards their next film. It was really awesome. Also in the bonus features were the 10 movie trailers for the 10 finalists of 2008.

What an awesome concept! It's called the Doorpost Film Project. Their website can be found here. But, most importantly, the short film ,Volition, can be be viewed for free right here. Watch it!

9/11 Conspiracy?

2010-09-18T16:51:00.004-05:00

After writing the last blog, Jodi and I watched the movie World Trade Center starring Nicholas Cage. It was, of course, a sad movie. Even more so since we remember watching these events as they unfolded on our TV screens nine years ago.

Remembering all that took place that day and the days that immediately followed, one finds oneself in the eye of a storm of emotions, thoughts, and unanswered questions. 'Who', 'why', and 'how' being the ones in the forefront.

Not long after the event, we were given answers to those questions. A foreign religious extremist group of radicals was the 'who.' Their extreme religious beliefs were the 'why.' And, a simple story of terrorists among us exploiting a weakness was the 'how.' So, mystery solved, right? Isn't that what really happened? I know that I bought it without question. At least in the first few weeks, anyway. However, as the weeks turned into months, all kinds of questions were raised. One being the locked up secrecy in which they hauled off, quarantined, and then sold for scrap the wreckage of the World Trade Center buildings. What purpose could secrecy about the evidence serve? The world saw the buildings come down. We were all given a fairly good explanation as to why they came down. Why would the government go to the extra effort of hiding the material from everyone? Unless, of course, leaving the material out for anyone to see might reveal something they don't want us to know. Hmm...

Other questions started arising that led me to start searching for answers on the Internet. It didn't take long to find several web pages and YouTube videos that not only were asking similar questions but were also presenting evidence that I had either not yet been made aware of or I had not thoughtfully considered.

My initial thoughts were of doubt. Less doubt about what I had been led to believe along with the rest of America, but more towards what these "conspiracy theorists" were trying to get me to think. No one could have done this. No one could be that evil. No one could have kept the truth quiet and hidden. It's too complex to have been pulled off without getting caught.

But, am I right? Why would I believe that a bunch of radical Muslim extremists living in the mountains of Afghanistan are that cunning, evil, and capable? Because it's easier to believe that some Muslims are that evil? Because to believe that I've been deceived would be a blow to my intellect? My pride? Because, I think that everything is hunky-dory here in the 50 states? Because the news said so? What, exactly?

A great documentary to watch on this subject is called Loose Change. At the end of this very well put together, informative, and unfortunately appalling film the narrator made a statement that really struck me. He said, "You will either have an emotional response to this information or a logical one."

What do you think? Would you be in support of a criminal investigation over the disaster? Would you agree that there is, at minimum, enough evidence and motive to implicate others' involvement so much that a new investigation would seem called for?

Where Were You?

2010-09-15T19:10:00.003-05:00

It was Tuesday. I was 22 years old. I was taking a week off of work using "vacation" hours that I had just acquired the previous Friday, the second anniversary of my hire date at Springfield Remanufacturing. I hadn't gone anywhere. An actual vacation, as people define them here in the U.S., wasn't in the budget for me, but I was thoroughly enjoying my time off of work just hanging around the house with Jacob, then only 19 months old.

We left our home, just out of town, around 2:00 in the afternoon to get a few things at Walmart. Along the way, I drove past two gas station both of which had lines of cars stretching out into the streets. I found it odd, for sure, but didn't think too much of it until after I left a hectic Walmart and saw the same lines at other gas stations, as well.

I thought that maybe I should find out what was going on. I switched the car stereo from CD to radio and heard a lot of talk. I only picked up clues, but couldn't figure out exactly what they were talking about. I switched the station twice to find the same talk again and again. The stations were broadcasting the same thing. I heard, "war", "attack on American soil", and "death toll well into the thousands."

When I got home, I scrambled to find the TV antenna that was still packed away despite having lived at the house for over three months. I've never been much of a TV watcher. After hooking up the antenna, I sat and watched the footage for hours.

Alan Jackson wrote a song less than two months after the disaster. That song asked a simple question that has an answer almost everyone in the United States remembers very clearly: "Where were you?" So, where were you when you got the news?

Choices

2010-08-19T19:58:00.005-05:00

In the last blog, I left off talking about how much God really does in this world. There are plenty of people who profess to believe in God and also believe that God created everything, but that He doesn't really concern Himself in our everyday lives. This is commonly referred to as God the clockmaker. This is where it is believed that God created everything, set up rules of how it should run, set it in motion, and then went on vacation where He continues to reside leaving us to handle all matters ourselves in a completely unabated environment.

Some may say that it's illogical to say that God made something happen or stopped something from happening when there is a logical explanation for the occurrence. So, for my argument I will use logic. After all, illogical arguments are just... well... illogical.

So, for purposes of argument, I'm going to ask you to use a little imagination. There. Ready? Okay. Imagine that you are God. You decided to create mankind. But, you want to do something that you've never done before. You want to create something like yourself. See, you're God. You have free will to do whatever you want. You've created lots of things, but this is a first for you. So how do you create something eternal that has free will, all the while it being designed for a relationship with you? You're going to have to set up some rules to limit yourself. Even though you can do anything and are limitless by nature you're going to have to change that at least in relation to this new creation.

For example, you could easily make man love you. Or could you? Is it love if it is not a choice? What sort of relationship would that be? You could easily make man mind you by putting it in an environment that he couldn't mess up. But, without the choice to mess up, is there really free will? Okay, so scratch all that. For free will to be present there must be a choice. You designed them for relationship with you but they'll need to be able to choose not to have one if free will is to be a factor here. So, you create a huge planet of almost infinite variety all of which you deem good. Then, you make one lonely tree that you deem bad and instruct them not to eat from it. This is there choice.

Despite the mathematical odds against doing so, they ate from it. Now things get slightly more complicated. You are good, perfect, righteous and that has tremendous power. Now, man is bad, imperfect, sinful and cannot be in your presence. Just as light and darkness cannot coexist because light displaces darkness, neither can you and man stand face to face. Good thing that you had a plan for all this.

So you sacrifice a part of yourself to pay for what man did, ultimately punishing yourself to buy back what man sold and to reconcile your relationship with them. Now, man has it all. You've given them a complete record of the facts that you made them, you love them, you made a way for them, and all they have to do is believe that you are telling the truth. See, man didn't believe. They questioned what you told them, disbelieving who and what you are.

Okay, back to our discussion. Your beliefs change your actions. Also, your actions reveal what you truly believe. For example, you believe that dollars have a value, so you want more and you protect what you have. Belief creates action. Another example would be that you pay your federal income though neither you nor anyone you know has ever seen the law that requires you to pay them (there's another blog coming that explains why I know this to be true). You pay them because you believe that you will be in violation of the law if you don't. Action shows what you truly believe.

If you truly believe something then your actions will show it. You may be asking yourself the age-old questions right now. "If God is everything that the Bible says about him, if He truly does play a huge role in our lives and the world around us, then how come I never see Him? Why does He worl in mysterious ways? How come He doesn't just show up and make it obvious?"

Let me attempt at answering these. His ways are mysterious because, simply put, He must always allow room for you not to believe. If He came and knocked on your door, all your faith would be gone the instant you locked eyes with Him. You cannot have faith in that which you also have material proof. Faith is belief without material proof. Also, upon seeing Him you would lose your free will to choose not to believe in Him. Once you knew beyond a reasonable doubt, or unreasonable for that matter, that God existed you could never go back to unbelief. Therefore, your free will would have been taken away by such an encounter. The very existence of all the talk of faith in the Bible is to say that God Himself is unseen. All we see of Him is what He does.

In order for there to be any chance of us having free will, He must remain hidden to such obviousness. He must reveal Himself to us in ways that there is at least a small possibility where one could think that it was not Him. This way, in case you want to exercise your God-given free will, you can do so. It's all a choice.

I told about my wrist getting healed in the last blog. I could have just thought that it was about time that it healed and that it did it on its own. I could have thought that it was just a coincidence that it healed while I was having it prayed for. Or, I could claim that I'm just really losing it and getting mixed up with all this God mumbo jumbo and I believed in the healing so much that my body healed psychosomatically. Mind over matter, right? But regardless of all the explanations that I could have come up with to make it a normal thing to have happened, I'm believing that God healed me. To me, it makes more sense anyway. It's the most logical explanation.

You may be asking, "Why do we have to choose to love Him then? Why does He punish us if we don't?" I'm not God and I can't answer for Him, however I imagine that He doesn't want you with Him in heaven for all eternity if, in fact, you don't really want to be with Him. I'm sure you can relate. You wouldn't be roommates with someone who doesn't like you and didn't want to be your roommate in the first place. Now add eternity to that scenario.

Forget for a second all of how you've pictured both heaven and hell to look like. Just realize that the simple truth is that heaven is eternity with God and hell is eternity without Him. We choose by our chosen beliefs and our subsequent actions whether we want to be with Him or not. And, regardless of your decision, He will respect that decision. That's what giving someone a choice is all about.

"...choose this day whom you will serve... But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Joshua 24:15

Kansas City Trip

2010-08-16T22:16:00.006-05:00

In the last blog I talked about Wilderness Outcry, but that wasn't the only thing that I did on my vacation. We also were able to go to Kansas City and stay with the Imes' for three nights. We had a blast. We really miss having them closer, but they are in a good place and so it's just a bittersweet thing, I suppose.

Among the various items on our play-it-by-ear agenda was playing some serious spades. Even though Mike and I lost to the ladies, it was extremely close and a great nail-biter finish. Good job, girls. You deserved it. I'd like to fins another spades couple because I miss playing the game. Not that the Imes' can be replaced, but surely some couple can fill our need to play between trips to Kansas City.

A nice little bonus was that I got to watch several World Cup games in high definition on a big screen which was amazing! I'm glad that they didn't mind putting up with my sudden sports fanaticism. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I watched several more World Cup games, but HD big screens really do make watching something a better experience.

One of the nights they bought us dinner at Cinzetti's. It's my new favorite restaurant of all time. Too bad the only locations are Denver and Overland Park! It's the only all-you-can-eat authentic Italian food restaurant I've ever heard of. Not just authentic Italian, but GREAT Italian, GOURMET Italian! Everything I had was delicious. I recommend highly.

Also, while we were in town, we went to IHOP (International House of Prayer). IT was an experience that everyone around here needs to come check out. The Sunday morning service was good, but not near as hopping as the Saturday night worship. Hundreds of youth filled the place, many of which were being trained as leaders. There were several people healed including two people with past sports injuries that permanently damaged their rotator cuffs. One was a 20 year-old guy who was the quarterback for his high school football team until the injury took him out of the game. The other was a girl. Both got back full rotation without pain.

I got healed, too. I had had a bad wrist for about two and a half months. One morning, I woke up about 30 minutes before my alarm was to go off. To keep it from waking up anybody else I turned over on my left side so that I was facing it and could shut it off quickly when I woke back up. I don't normally sleep on my left side. When I woke the second time, as my alarm went off, my wrist and neck were really hurting me. The neck pain eventually went away that day, but the wrist never let up. If I put any weight on it, it would snap. I say 'snap' because it wasn't a nice, relieving 'pop' like you might think. It would snap and really hurt. I didn't and still don't know what was wrong with it.

To keep the story as short as possible, I'll just skip to the teenager coming up to me to ask me if he could pray for me. I said, "sure." His prayer was short and afterwards he asked how it felt. I had to admit that it did feel a little better. I couldn't get it to snap anymore, but the pain was still there. I told him so and he asked to pray again. After that prayer it felt even better but still not gone, by any means. So he asked to pray one last time. While he prayed and even after he stopped I felt as if my wrist were wet and a fan was blowing on it. It just felt cool, exposed maybe. I don't know. But, the pain was completely gone. I didn't find any hint of the injury no matter what I did with it. It was awesome!

It's now been two months and I've had no pain come back. It never snapped again after that night either. A thought did come to mind, though, roughly a week after IHOP. I thought, "Maybe it just finally healed on it's own." Upon thinking about that thought, I immediately said out loud, "No, that's not it. Thank you, God, for healing me."

This little thought exchange brought together some recent teachings I've heard and read as well as some revelations I've had while reading the Bible. I realized that people tend to explain away everything that God does. They explain it in a way that it makes sense to them how it happened without God's involvement. Those same people may argue that God was never involved on these matters and that maybe I should stop attributing things to God that can be otherwise explained.

Hmm... sounds like my next blog.

Wilderness Outcry

2010-08-12T22:37:00.005-05:00

It's actually been a long time coming for me to write this blog. I've been pretty busy with life and have not set aside time to write a blog at all for several months. The sporadic few that have somewhat filled the black hole have been ones that I wrote when I should have been sleeping (sort of like right now). But, nonetheless, it's time to break this "no time" excuse and just knuckle down and write.

Back in June, I took a week off of work. Since I haven't been at DEI long enough to have acquired vacation time, all I got was time off without pay. But, I was thankful for that since they could have declined my request altogether. The reason I asked off in the first place was for an event called Wilderness Outcry in Poplar Bluff, MO. It was a call to all Christians regardless of denomination to come together for worship and prayer. Jodi and I both felt that we needed to go. We prayed that DEI would let me off and God came through and made it happen.

Originally, we planned to stay the whole week but our plans changed. We, like most everyone else, found out through Facebook that they were canceling the event due to a lack of funding to pay for all that they were planning. We were told that most of the things that needed rented and paid for would need to be paid for up front. But, since there wasn't a huge organization with a bankroll running things, the result was a canceled event.

However, the landowners, whose property was being used for the event also were the ones with the original vision and heart for the whole thing. So, they put together a website, Moriah Ranch, that they used to say that their land would still be open for camping, worship, prayer, etc. They promised portable toilets but couldn't really say what all would be available. But, they were hoping that people would still come. We were excited still and thought that it was actually a good thing. Some of the events that were planned that were no longer going to take place seemed a bit out of the original vision anyway.

As the days grew closer and closer to the event, people who previously had voiced that they were going or who wanted to go started to back out one by one. We, too, were tempted just to call it off, but we couldn't shake the feeling that God was calling us to go. Our hearts were already set for it and there was no backing out at that point.

It turned out to be much more than I expected. I have no idea how many people were there. It was a lot, but nowhere remotely near as many that could have been accommodated by that land. It turned out that according to those who registered and signed in 38 states and 6 countries were represented. Almost all who were there came from somewhere far away. I felt almost a little guilty that we only traveled 3 hours to get there. The worship was awesome! The quality of the musicians was pretty much just average, I'd say. But, the Spirit was moving and it was truly being felt by everyone. We had some interesting conversations and met some cool people.

The only tough part was the intense heat during the day and the swarms of hungry mosquitoes at night. After worship was over, we went back to our camp to enjoy some eating, hanging out together and what should be the most fun part of a camping trip. However, we pretty much left our food to the mosquitoes while running into our tent to seek shelter from the bloodsuckers. We spent the next hour or two attempting to sleep while killing a mosquito every few seconds. The twenty seconds or so that the door to the tent was open seemed to let in about 40 of the little vampires. We survived it, though.

On the way back home, we stopped at the Current River in Van Buren, MO. The river is fed by Big Spring so it is super clear. There are parts of it that are 20 feet deep but you can stand on a rock ledge and see the bottom with incredible detail like the water isn't even there. All of us swam for about an hour or so. It was a lot of fun and it was satisfactorily cooling enough for us to release all the heat that we had been soaking up for the duration of our camp.

One of the coolest parts to the trip came later. We had prayed that God make it possible for us to go to Wilderness Outcry both in the sense of getting off work and financially. When it came to going, no extra money came, but we had enough to stretch and make the trip. The difficult part would come the Friday after my week off for there would be no paycheck for me that day. Then, that Friday came and I got handed the usual envelope which normally contains a paycheck. I immediately thought, "Oh, yeah. I'll still get a pay stub showing that I didn't work any hours." I didn't even look in the envelope until I got in the truck after work. To my amazement, there was a check inside. I looked at the stub to see where the mistake had been made, but I found no mistake. It turns out that the company decided to pay out a bonus, in which I was not made aware. And, it was decided that it would be that Friday that they would pay it out on, the one week that I would receive no compensation. Isn't God good? We asked and we received. Simple as that.

Pizza Delivery Tip #4

2010-07-22T21:39:00.002-05:00

Pizza Delivery Tip #4 - Choose Your Friends Wisely

You never know when your friends may turn on you. Especially when they're broke and they know that you have a job that requires you to carry around a significant amount of cash.

I delivered pizzas for almost two years right out of high school. Most of my friends at the time were ones that I had been running around with for years. Still, there were others that even though I was around a lot, I must admit that I didn't really know all that well. All of them were loyal friends and would've done whatever they could to help me out, but never underestimate what friends lacking morals might do.

I was hanging out with some friends one night after work and was let in on the fact that at one time in the not-so-distant past they had conspired to wait until the end of my shift out back behind the store. When I came out with one of the last deliveries of the night, the plan was to knock me over the head with something and take off with my bank bag. They were really proud of themselves, it seemed, that they had "thought it out" so well. They weren't planning on hurting me too badly, and I would wind up with half the takings, but only after all the police statements and such. See, they wanted to pay me for my trouble, but they didn't want me to know anything about it so that I could honestly tell the police all that I knew about the attackers and not have to lie. This way, I was told, it's completely foolproof.

After they revealed to me their once-upon-a-time-but-never-did plans, I informed them that the "money" that a pizza deliverer carries around with them is mostly in the form of checks, then signed credit card receipts, and finally cash. The first two wouldn't have done any of them any good, and they would've been very disappointed to learn that their "cut" wasn't much more than enough to buy a couple of pizzas with. Furthermore, upon getting my "cut" for the head injury I received, I would have proceeded to beat the tar out of them.

So, beware that your life-long friends may at times just see you as a target for some easy money rather than the pal you've always been to them. It might be a good idea to print up some "Friend Applications" so that you can interview potential friends, have permission to run background checks on them, sift through their school records ,and thoroughly pelt their listed references with every question you can think of.

In reality, though, we choose our friends based off of stipulations other than relational safety. Relationships of all kinds can be hazardous. But, people need people. So, despite the danger, we continue to be a relational creation. It does pay, however, to choose who you relate with, lest you find yourself getting knocked out by your friends who are looking to make all of you a few bucks.

5th Anniversary

2010-07-20T23:16:00.007-05:00

This year's anniversary was our fifth! My mom took the kids so Jodi and I could run off to Branson for the weekend. It was a lot of fun hanging out with my girl all weekend with almost nothing on the agenda.

It was also a very successful weekend. Many weeks ago (not sure how many) Jodi's mom sent her a picture of a tall lady statue that was clearly from the same maker as the tall lady statue that Jodi bought at a yard sale a long time ago. Jodi wanted it, so we decided that we'd look for it while in Branson. Long story made short, we found it. Jodi had painted the one that she bought years ago. This one has its original paint on it still and looks good.

At the same flea market, I found (in a basket of random old photography stuff) a 58mm polarizing filter for my camera lenses. I have wanted one of these for a while, but have failed to buy one until now. They're not real expensive or anything, but with shipping and everything I've just never made that commitment. There was no price on it so I asked the owners of the store and they called the owners of the booth who relayed back to me that they wanted $2.50 for it. SOLD! I love it. It really cuts out the glare in outdoor photos.

We ate a lot of good food over the weekend including panini sandwiches with iced mocha cappuccinos at Big Cedar Resort. We also ordered some yummy dishes from the White River Fish House on the Landing with which we started with an Alligator Tail appetizer. We also were able to sit and do some relaxing with some good ol' HGTV. We love that channel and rarely get to see it.

A nice ending to our weekend was when Jodi defied what she was told and decided to go out on a limb anyway and try to sell some of the jewelry that her and Tara had been making. She casually brought it up to the Accessories buyer for Apricot Lane and the girl immediately bought 18 rings from Jodi! AANNDD, they discussed becoming a supplier of these rings for both the store on the Landing and the one in the mall in Springfield. I'm so proud of her!

So, great weekend! We missed a bunch of things going on, but we had a pretty good excuse and I wouldn't trade quality time with my wife for anything. Love you, baby!

Spanish Fat Lady's a-Singin'

2010-07-12T16:09:00.006-05:00

With 64 games in 31 days, I've been busy. Too busy, in fact, to write a blog, just in case you've been wondering what happened to me. However, yesterday concluded the 2010 FIFA World Cup with Spain winning the golden trophy. I enjoyed this year's games, but I think overall it will be remembered as the World Cup with all the surprise game results. There were many upsets and it was truly a tournament for the underdogs.

While I usually root for the underdog in a game, I couldn't this time. My World Cup teams were chosen long ago. They are the US, Italy, and Germany teams. This year, I added Ghana to the mix since we have an emotional attachment to the country.

The USA did fairly well, in my opinion. But, their wins seemed to be a little sloppy. I long for the day to watch the US team play against the big boys in such a manner that no one can sneer and say that they were just lucky. But, I didn't feel that their World Cup performance really lived up to that standard.

Italy just blew it. What a disappointment! They came in last place in their group! What more is there to say?

The Germans did fantastic! They were typical Germany football: mathematical, fast, precise, with a strong defense. I loved watching them play, but due to having a stupid job, I missed their loss in the semi-finals. I heard that Spain dominated the game which I find hard to believe, but I'll find out for certain when I watch the game later. Still, Germany put on a great performance. It was exciting to watch their games for there was rarely a dull moment. They even won third place with a whirlwind of thrills.

Ghana did very well. They made me proud until they beat the US. I could have done without that, but whatever. My heart really goes out to them the way they were taken out of the tournament. If you haven't seen it, you should check it out on YouTube. No doubt, it's on there. In short, a Uruguay defender standing on the goal line purposefully used his hands to block the ball from entering the goal. He was ejected with a red card for it which puts him out the next game as well. I have to give the guy a lot of credit, though. He made a lightning quick decision to sacrifice his own playing time and reputation by deliberately breaking a rule for the greater good of team and country. That decision gave them a chance to win the game where they most certainly would have lost. And, they did well to make that chance turn into a victory. Hopefully, Ghana will be able to forgive Uruguay for pretty much stealing their chances from them.

I was disappointed that Africa didn't do better. Only Ghana made it out of group play. For the first World Cup being hosted on the continent, I was hoping that Africa could see some major victories. Alas, they'll have to be happy with how far Ghana made it.

I really enjoyed the World Cup, though, as a whole. I liked seeing my family get into it with me. I'll miss it. Today, I go back to being a non-sports fan. There's always the next World Cup to look forward to. Only 47 months to go!

1979 Celeb Guessing Game

2010-05-25T22:40:00.004-05:00

I did this a couple years ago for my 29th birthday. I thought that it was kind of fun to see who all in the celebrity world is about my age. At 29, most of the celebrities still looked like they could pass as teenagers. Maybe not so much at 31?

This year, I only found 6 celebrities. One, of which, isn't even alive anymore. I wanted to get all new famous people without repeating any from the last game. The problem with that was that after these six they started becoming very obscure. I didn't recognize anyone else, in fact, with the exception of the young blonde girl from the movie Jurassic Park. Although, I doubt anyone else would have recognized her. I didn't until after I saw what all she had been in on IMDB.com.

So, good luck. Oh, by the way. The name of the game is easy. Name all the celebrities. Be the first to do so and leave them all in a blog comment and you'll receive honorable mention in an upcoming blog, bragging rights for a whole year, and you get to choose my next blog topic! Exciting, isn't it? And, as always, click on the picture to make it larger (in case my audience is getting older like me and needs it bigger to see anything).

Science vs. Christianity?

2010-05-17T23:07:00.006-05:00

Since I was a young teenager, around 14 or 15, I think, I gave deep thought to the apparent incompatibility between the modern science that I had been learning in school as well as seeing taught on public broadcasting shows and the sometimes contrasting things that I was hearing and being taught at church. My mind would wander for hours sometimes attempting to make sense out of what all I was being taught. During this time, I would sometimes ask questions to different people. This, in most cases, led to further confusion. I would receive answers that only proved that the person attempting to answer didn't really know the answer themselves. I even would get the pat answers from fellow Christians sometimes like, "Well, you just have to have faith." These are non-answers anyway; just a way to get out of answering the question.

I don't have anything against the answers I received or the people I received them from, but I much would have rather preferred an 'I don't know' or maybe a referral to someone who might know in place of some of the responses I got. I actually got lovingly reprimanded once, I think. It was explained to me that I shouldn't spend so much time and energy in seeking knowledge since most people aren't won to Christ from being shown knowledge anyway but rather by being shown love. I won't argue with that. I believe that it's true, even. But, what about the few that remain that aren't moved by love? Could it be said that the majority moved by love is the '99' and that the ones that have questions they cannot let go of might be the '1'? I believe that God calls us to help those who are struggling with the same issues that we once struggled with. And, I can remember being plagued with unanswered questions. I've since found satisfactory answers to those questions and I can't help but want to help others who are battling with that. A simple answer sometimes is the only thing holding some people back.

Since then, I have spent much time reading books on the subjects, talking with others, watching videos about it, listening to my pastors, and searching the Bible. What I've found is that there is only a thin layer of false information out there that a lot of people have just accepted as truth. Their pursuit of knowledge has stopped in its tracks upon receiving this information. It's as if once they heard it, they thought nothing else needed to be learned on the subject. And, furthermore, they've assumed that since what they know supposedly makes a strong argument against the existence of God, then they don't have to give any consideration to any arguments that support God's existence. They just stand on their few little arguments and they feel untouchable by the oceans of evidence for God's existence surrounding them on every side.

I am currently reading Lee Strobel's A Case for Faith. I'm not quite half way through it, but I love it and have been very excited by the clarity given to the answers for many of the arguments that people unfortunately rely on. I believe that, just like me, when people's unchallenged rebuttals get answered with a satisfactory amount of convincing evidence they become ready to accept what previously they had resisted by tooth and nail.

One of the recent arguments that was made in this book by one of the many scholars Lee interviews pointed out some irony in the process of most people's belief systems. I found it kind of funny, sort of sad, but mostly insightful. I put my own twist on his point, though, and came up with a hypothetical scenario to demonstrate it.

Imagine that you are lounging in your back yard on your day off. All of a sudden, what appears to be a boom box falls from the sky, bounces off your trampoline, and then lands in your hammock almost unscathed. You get out of your chair and walk over to check it out. You see speakers, dials, buttons, switches, but no brand name of any kind. You also notice that it doesn't have a CD tray or a cassette player. You start wondering if it's a boom box at all or if it's equipment that fell off a plane or something. Then, it strikes you that it must be a satellite radio or some bluetooth controlled stereo that you know nothing about. You are a little strapped for cash and your personal ethics (we're still imagining a hypothetical here) include the motto 'Finders-Keepers' so you go down to your local pawn shop that buys high-end electronics, but they don't want to buy it because they say it's homemade. So, you snatch it back up, take it back home and open it up. It takes you a while because the screws were threaded the opposite way which makes you wonder why the ones who made it would do that. Once open, you see that there is writing on different looking circuit boards and metal plates and things. But, clearly, this thing was made overseas somewhere because you don't recognize what language it is. It's apparent that it is a language, but you've never seen letters or symbols like that before. So, after a short trip to Stanford, you walk in a meeting of linguistics experts and present a small group of them the metal plates with the strange writing. The group of experts that you show the plates to immediately become intrigued and place them under a camera that projects their image on the big screen. One by one, every one who had been talking in small groups become silent as they notice what is up on the screen. A room full of some of the most intelligent and learned scholars in the world on the subject of languages both antiquated as well as current cannot tell you what language it is. You go back home and it occurs to you that it could be an extra-terrestrial's boom box. After laughing it up at that absurd thought, you're startled to see a flying saucer come screaming out of the sky and become implanted in your lawn. You go over and tour the UFO, not laughing this time, and you see all types of controls that have the same writing you found inside the boom box. The ship is empty. Maybe the pilot bailed?

Now, do you believe in extra-terrestrial intelligence? After all, here is your proof, right? Or is someone playing a very expensive joke on you? You don't know any pranksters with that large of a bankroll, do you?

My point is this: Almost everyone would believe in extra-terrestrials if alien technology fell in their lap. A lot of people would think it to be lunacy to deny their existence after the arrival of such evidence. Many people believe that they exist even now without all that "proof". Still, there are those who would blame it on the government. It must have been NASA, right? I'll admit that thinking it's our or some other country's government is more logical than aliens' involvement.

We believe it for all the evidence. Given the right amount of compelling evidence we'll believe in what the evidence logically points to. But, no matter who you think is responsible for making the evidence, you can at least agree that it was made. It didn't become assembled by mere chance. Rocket ships don't build themselves. That would be absurd. The mathematical chances of that happening are probably one in some number with more zeros than I want to count. Some of you devil's-advocate-loving rebels out there may be saying, "But it is possible no matter how small the probability." But, that argument reminds me of Jim Carrey's character in the movie Dumb & Dumber. He was asking the girl what the chances were that they could wind up as a couple. He asked something like, "Is it something like 1 in 10?" to which she replied, "No, more like 1 in 5 billion." Then, instead of accepting that number as zero like we all know that he should have, he excitedly says, "So, you're saying there's a chance." Yeah, so which one was he again? Dumb or Dumber?

All it takes to prove the existence of intelligence is the presence of evidence that is so complex that the probability of it happening by chance is virtually zero. We live every moment of every day rightfully assuming that the objects around didn't materialize from happenstance, but rather were designed by intelligence, built by intelligence, marketed by intelligence, shipped, purchased, etc. You get the idea.

All around us is evidence of a Creator. The "natural" world is so full of evidence of design that it leaves a virtual zero for the probability of any other possibility. Every living thing has DNA in it, a written blueprint of and all the work instructions for a microscopic manufacturing process that the cells use to function at tremendous speed and efficiency that we see nowhere else in nature. DNA is the most complex written language we have ever seen in human history. It only consists of four "letters" but one DNA strand is so incredibly long that it has more information packed in it than the Encyclopedia Brittanica. This is no less written information from an intelligence or evidence of design that the boom box or spacecraft is.

It goes on from there. The level of fine tuning of multiple factors such as our distance from the sun, earth's magnetic field, our solar system's position in the galaxy, the speed of earth's orbit,.the tilt of earth's axis, etc. could not have been achieved by mere chance. Again, it is so ridiculously improbable that it is virtually impossible.

I can see, I suppose, why Charles Darwin came up with what he did. The nineteenth-century information that he had at the time was child's play in comparison to the amount of knowledge we have ascertained from all the scientific discoveries since then. This is true of every science, astronomy, biology, physics, archeology, medicine, just to name a few. Aside from that, we have sciences now that didn't even exist in his day. Modern technology has allowed us to look further into space and deeper inside living cells. Archeology has unearthed countless new fossils, written accounts, and other evidence that fails to support evolution and Darwin's idea of the origin of life while lending support to the biblical account of historic events.

So, I ask you, if you do not believe in God, what information do you believe? Where did that information come from? What ideas have you accepted as truth? How open are you, intellectually, to the possibility that the information you have or the conclusions that you have come to do not hold up to the reality of any truth, scientifically, spiritually, or otherwise? The real intellectual crime is to stop learning, stop being open to new ideas and studies, stop listening. Christians get accused of this all the time, ironically by those who are closed-minded themselves. While I will concede that some Christians are closed-minded and have given a bad name to Christianity, the same can be said of any group of people including atheists, non-church-goers, and agnostics. So, it's hardly an argument at all, but rather a moot point. The truth about most Christians I know or have observed is that they go to church to learn more. They go to have their own thoughts, beliefs, and priorities challenged. The Bible says that David was after God's own heart. But, David wasn't perfect. Where David went right was that he asked God to test his thoughts and to test his heart. He invites God to set him straight where he had it wrong. This is what most of us do when we attend church and search the sciptures and read books and pray and meditate on His word, etc. We're doing everything but stopping our quest for the truth and a better understanding of it.

So, to conclude quite possibly the longest blog I have ever written, I would like to challenge you, the reader, to search your own beliefs and thoughts. None of us our perfect. In what categories of knowledge have you stopped learning and accepting challenges? What information do you have that you think you need no more understanding on? And now ask yourself where that information came from? From friends? Teachers, authors, your parents? People, though, right? Should any of that information from people be accepted at face value, without strong evidence to back it up? What is your evidence?

Don't stop searching. Don't stop learning and testing what you already "know."

Mother's Day

2010-05-06T20:46:00.002-05:00

Mothers have it hard. Parenting in general is not easy, by any means. But, mothers definitely bear the burden that comes with raising children in a greater way than fathers do, in most cases.

Mothers have society working against them in many ways. Here in modern America, our culture paints a picture of the ideal woman. She is now in our mind's eye as a beautiful, young, strong-willed, independent, career-driven woman. But, does any woman fall into this category? And if they do, are they satisfied with their life? Really satisfied? I would bet that all women, everywhere, have felt inadequate at one time or another (if not always plagued by it) due to this social distortion of what a woman should be. I try to think of mother characters in movies and there aren't many that I come up with. The first ones that come to mind are portrayed in a negative way. Most of the women in movies that are portrayed in a positive light are single and childless. Even the happy endings where the women fall in love with men, don't usually show children even on the horizon. Honestly, there just aren't that many things in the media today that make mothers look good.

At least movies, books, television and other forms of entertainment that paint the ideal woman incorrectly have an excuse. They're all forms of fiction entertainment. Fiction is understandably fake.

But, let's get real, shall we? Mothers aren't rare or background fictional characters. They're everywhere. And they're, in most cases, the most important person in the next generation's lives. Think about that for a moment. Mothers not only bear the next generation for nine months, they shape it everyday with their endless and, all too often, thankless dedication. Mothers literally shape our future.

So, this Mother's Day, call or visit your mother. Thank her for giving you a future. And do something nice for all mothers you see. They deserve it. But, most importantly, don't limit your kindness and respect for mothers to Mother's Day.

Excel-lent Fun

2010-05-01T20:27:00.005-05:00

This past week, I was playing around with the World Cup Spreadsheet that I posted for download on the last blog, and I wound up running across a huge error. As I was popping in numbers in the score section to test it out, I realized that it was taking the wrong teams from the first round and placing them incorrectly into the second round. I tried to follow the string of functions to see if I could correct the issue, but whoever wrote the thing appears to have only learned a few choice functions in Excel and doesn't like to stray from what he knows. I would finally figure out what one function did only to find that it pointed to the results of three other functions that pointed to results of two more. It went on like that about 5 functions deep and I gave up.

I'm no Excel guru. Trust me. I think I know the program really well, but some forums have shown me that I know very little. Guy's are on there talking about pivot tables and background coding and I just have to ignore it from lack of understanding. However, I decided to take a crack at redoing the World Cup sheet because I couldn't help but think that whoever wrote this one was over-complicating the whole thing. I do admit, though, that some of the situations I got into when coding the functions seemed to paint me into a corner, if you will. I was a little stumped a couple times, but it all finally came to me.

This spreadsheet is much better. It's more attractive, in my opinion. It's simpler. And, most importantly, it works right. So, in case you were one of the seven people who downloaded the old one from last week, I suggest that you download this one again, here. I also changed the old link so that people wouldn't get one that doesn't work right. Enjoy!

World Cup 2010

2010-04-22T22:58:00.010-05:00

I'm not a very big spectator sport person. I love sports but my love for them is in playing them not watching others play them for me. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm not saying that. I just don't really care about them.

This puts me into a somewhat unique place among male social circles. See, it's no big secret that men don't talk to each other near as much as women talk to each other. I even heard once that an average woman will speak 4 to 5 times as many words per day than the average man will. I can believe that. Men, don't talk a lot. But, when they do, one of the old trusted subjects is sports. Men will even talk to complete strangers about sports. Salesmen commonly use it to break the ice when meeting new clients. It's almost a universal male tool to get a conversation started, to save one that is losing steam, or to fill an awkward silence.

Unlike a lot of guys, I quietly bow out of the conversation when it turns to sports. Guys will start naming names, throwing stats around, describing plays, etc. I even see the types of guys that probably never played a sport in their life chatting away about batting averages, quarterback blitzes, and personal fouls. Not me. I commonly get caught off guard when I'm not aware of what professional sport is playing currently. The following dialogue is real and has occurred more times than I can count:

Average Joe - "You gonna watch the big game this weekend?"
Me - "No, I'm not really into football."
Average Joe - "I was talking about the fifth game of the World Series."
Me - "Oh."

The two exceptions to my lack of interest in sports is when I either A) know someone personally in the game that I am watching, or B) it's a World Cup year. And 2010, is the year. Beginning June 11th and ending July 11th will be 64 of the most watched games in the world. Each one will have more people watching it than any one of the 44 Super Bowls. It's the largest sporting event on planet Earth. Its fans must wait four years from one to the next, but in June the wait is over. Among the millions watching, I, Lord willing, will be.

A tradition that I began eight years (two World Cups) ago was to keep a record of the outcome of every game played. Eight years ago, I downloaded and printed a bracket and tediously wrote down every game result and tabulated the points and goals for and against. Four years ago, I found a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet that all I had to do was plug the scores of the games in. The calculations were done for me. This year I was forced to modify an old 2006 spreadsheet to use for 2010 because I couldn't find any good ones. I found one that worked well enough, but was not very user friendly, even for an Excel geek like myself. Another, looked great, but failed to function properly.

Here is a link to the spreadsheet in case you would like to follow along with me. Let me know if you find any formula mistakes and I'll take a crack at repairing it. Thanks,
Levi

CFL Bulbs Don't Come In Green

2010-04-18T09:36:00.002-05:00

I've blogged already about how I don't like compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL's). In the blog I questioned whether the bulbs were as "green" as they were being made out to be. I feel like my arguments at the time were pretty good, but I was missing a huge component in my case against the little pig-tailed bulbs. Until now...

Earlier this week, I spotted a headline in the News-Leader that read, "Broken fluorescent bulb cleanup requires caution". It was a 'Dear Heloise' column. If you are not familiar with who Heloise is, then you are probably unfamiliar with reading the newspaper. Heloise, according to her website www.Heloise.com, is America's premier hintologist whose columns appear in over 500 newspapers in both the United States and internationally. I wasn't aware of that before finding her website, so stop making fun of me. I was also previously unaware of the science of hintology.

Bear in mind, that it was my opinion before having read this article that CFL bulbs were worse for the environment than their more traditional incandescent counterparts. But this article really drove the nails into the CFL coffin for me. It reads as follows:

If a compact fluorescent lamp or bulb accidentally breaks, what do you do? The glass is very delicate and can shatter easily if dropped or even handled roughly when being removed from the socket. The bulbs contains a small amount of powdered mercury, so caution is needed for cleanup.
Follow these cleanup guidelines:
Open a window for ventilation for at least 15 minutes before starting cleanup.
Do not handle the pieces with bare hands; wear protective disposable gloves.
Place the pieces in a plastic bag and then into another one, and use duct tape to pick up the tiny fragments.
Wipe the area clean with damp paper towels, and place the towels in the bag, too.
If the area where the bulb broke is carpeted, you can vacuum the carpet, but you must immediately remove the vacuum bag (or empty and wipe the canister) and put the vacuum bag in with this other bulb trash. Do not vacuum hard floor surfaces.
Check with your trash company or call your recycling center for specific disposal directions. As a general rule, fluorescent bulbs can be put in the trash for pickup or taken to the dump if your state and local regulations allow. Or, check for a recycling center near you.
Let's continue to help the environment and go green!

So, let's condense and review, shall we? A broken CFL bulb is so toxic that we must go to some extreme cleanup measures in order to protect ourselves. A single broken bulb will add to the landfill a pair of disposable gloves, two plastic bags, some duct tape, some paper towels, and possibly a vacuum bag not to mention the mercury that you "cleaned" up. Also, if you must open a window for ventilation for 15 minutes, how much more energy are you using to reheat or recool your home? Also, the CFL bulb is much more complicated than the simple incandescent bulb and uses considerably more energy to produce. Furthermore, the CFL bulbs are not made in America. Patriotism aside, the CFL bulbs require much more energy to be shipped here compared to the American made incandescent bulb.

Make no mistake, CFL bulbs are in no way more green than incandescent bulbs. Rather, their huge Sasquatch carbon footprint and their toxicity make for a very ugly weapon to the environment. The use of CFL bubls remind me of the people who preach to recycle but are so eager to recycle, in fact, that they never reuse anything. The motto goes: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Which means we must first focus on the former and only use the latter as a last resort.

The CFL bulbs claim to use less energy, which may be true but the cost of the energy they use before they are ever installed in your home coupled with the cost of their environmentally toxic impact negate any energy savings they may offer during usage.

Pizza Delivery Tip #3

2010-04-06T22:53:00.005-05:00

Take care of your vehicle and it will take care of you.

I'm sure that you've heard this phrase before. Usually it comes out of the mouth of an older man, but I am getting up there so I almost fit the profile. This advice doesn't come from age so much as it does from experience. A bad one, to be more specific.

I was 18 years old and was driving a car that I really liked. It was a 1986 Oldsmobile Cutlass Calais. It was a two-door, five speed manual transmission, 2.5 liter 4 cylinder. It was nice.

It's fatal end came one night when I was delivering a pizza to a subdivision near the intersection of CC and 65 highway. I had taken NN, or "old 65" depending on how long you've been around, and was driving carefully, or so I had thought. The weather had been terrible all night. It was winter and we had been receiving some form of precipitation all day. The sky was sleeting, snowing and dropping freezing rain on us at different times.

I had just passed the Catholic Church when the road ever-so-slightly curves to the left. It's a bend that could easily be taken at 200 miles per hour in dry conditions, but this night was anything but that. I had subscribed to the wisdom that a front-wheel-drive car should have the best tires on the front so that it can get traction. I'm sure some of you have heard this.

When I started to make the curve to the left my back end slid out to the right and before I could react I had already passed the point of recovery. The rear of the car made it's way completely around till I was going backwards. I had tried everything I could think of in those couple seconds repeatedly and nothing was bringing me out of it. The inside of the car started to light up as if the dome light was slowly coming on, but it wasn't the dome light. Still going backwards, I turned to see two headlights headed right for me. I quickly turned back into my seat and braced myself for impact by pushing as hard as I could against the steering wheel with my head pressed into the back of the seat. I even had the foresight to slightly bend my elbows so that I might not break my arms. The moment was no doubt just a second or two, but I remember every detail of it and wondering what was taking so long and that maybe the car had slipped by.

I woke up with the radio blaring. I was cold. I couldn't move much. I couldn't figure out why I was just sitting in my car. I just sat there for a little while. I'm not sure how long. I was staring at my dash near the passenger side and was trying to mentally process what I was seeing, but was having trouble doing so. Finally, I saw that the dash was split wide open. While I was shocked at this observation, I noticed that the instrument panel looked different. I saw the cracks, but there was something else that made it look different. It eluded me for a second, but then I realized that the steering wheel was no longer in the way of me seeing it. Then, it all came rushing to me. I had been in an accident.

The Ford Bronco II that hit me couldn't get the traction to stop. He tried to avoid me, but I was taking up the whole road. I had spun 270 degrees by the time we collided, so the front of his truck hit my car squarely between my driver's door handle and the front bumper. The impact pressed the door so far in that it left me pinned between the door and the console. The steering column broke from the sideways force to the front axle and when it did all the force I had exerted on the steering wheel made me push it through the windshield. The windshield was spider-webbed throughout but there was a hole with the steering wheel still in it. The top part of that hole had two round cutouts where my hands had been when it smashed through it.

Another detail that I'll never forget was the look on the Bronco owner's face when I looked at him. I had not yet realized what was happening when I looked out my driver's door window that no longer was there because my head had gone through it. He was standing out in the middle of the road about 15 feet from me. He was looking the opposite direction of me when I first noticed him. He turned and saw me and didn't come any closer, but asked if I was alright. What I would find out later from him was that he had been trying to wake me up without success for a little bit while he waited on the ambulance to make it to me. He didn't expect me to be awake and looking at him when he turned around.

In the end, the car was totaled, a new pizza was made and sent out to the house but the driver kept the tip for me and gave it to me two days later when I went back to work, my only substantial injury was the piece of glass in the back of my head that they had to dig out, and I had to dig some glass out of my eye when I got home.

This could have all been avoided if I had had better tires on the back.

Moral of Story: Take care of your car or your car might take care of you.

Pizza Delivery Tip #2

2010-03-27T19:46:00.004-05:00

Avoid road rage by hitting it head on.

Along with the many hours of repetitive experience driving to and from the restaurant comes a familiarity with every detail of virtually every possible scenario of the placement of other vehicles on the road and their variable speed of travel. In other words, you become what others may decide is an "aggressive driver", but really you're just a calculating and controlled master of driving efficiency. These calculations may lead you to make driving maneuvers that others find unfair, dangerous, or at the least, impolite.

When I left the restaurant and was turning right (east) out of the parking lot it wasn't uncommon for there to be no one coming. The grassy area between the store and the road left ample room to see if any cars were coming while approaching the road and if none were seen there was no need to come to a full and complete stop before entering the street. After all, it's a parking lot and no stop signs are present to require such a meaningless usage of the brakes.

On one such occasion, I pulled out without stopping and watched a small Mazda pickup start to leave Sonic's parking lot and then abruptly stop upon seeing me coming. As you can see from the satellite image on the right Sonic is located just east of Pizza Hut and by my pulling out without stopping, the driver of the Mazda chose to feel like I had cheated him by pulling out as if it had not been my turn to do so. He began to tailgate me even though I was doing almost five over the limit, so I decided to teach him a lesson. No, I didn't brake check him. That's not safe and it can get people hurt. I slowed to about 10 miles per hour and let him stew for about a minute. Then, I made my turn and took off back to a normal pace.

My turn was to a back roads shortcut to a neighborhood that is only reached otherwise by a slight double-backing of street choices. Few people took the back roads even though it was slightly faster and always less busy. I popped out on McCracken Road about 150 yards ahead of the Mazda who was apparently going the same direction.

I suspect that the driver of the Mazda, after having gone a different route than me, must have started to get the "shoulda" regrets. You know? "I shoulda told that guy..." or "I shoulda taught that guy a lesson by..." Remorse had set in and maybe even some embarrassment received from his friend in the passenger seat, but when my car entered the road in front of him for the second time he wasn't going to let this good fortune pass him by without acting on it. He closed the substantial distance in a matter of seconds and was back to riding my bumper and even more aggressively this time obviously expecting some sort of confrontation. I payed him no mind and continued making my turns toward the customer's house.

I found my destination and after pulling in the driveway the truck stopped across the street. I couldn't let a drama play out in front of the customer so I decided to just deal with these guys first. I remembered my friend, Dustin's, advice about being the first to make a move and therefore controlling the situation so I went for it. I walked fast and purposefully over to the truck and calmly but with some force asked, "You guys have some sort of problem?"

The driver looked like he was debating on whether or not to get out but I made it to his door first and with both hands on the open window frame, I put my face down near his and told him he needed to quit his tailgating, start his truck back up, and leave. While saying this, I smelled the beer on their breath. They appeared to be a couple of construction workers and from what I gathered had probably been drinking most of the day on the job site. The driver started to say something about me not stopping, but I cut him off with, "You better not be here when I come back." With that, I went back to the car and started getting the pizza bag without actually bringing it out of the car. They left.

This situation could have gone much different. So, I, in no way, am advising anyone to use this method. However, it turned out to be great advice to me for the particular confrontation that I had.

In conclusion, realize that efficient, calculated driving can bring about some unwanted rage from time to time. Not everybody appreciates your skill. Maybe, if I had just simply waved an apologetic hand, the entire scenario might have been diffused from the start? In all likelihood, yes.

Successful Marketing

2010-03-19T23:22:00.004-05:00

The other day I was in Walmart picking up a few items. We've almost completely cut Walmart out of our shopping practices, but still go there for certain things like hygiene products and randomly needed items like copy paper. I was picking up some tortilla chips when I spotted this bag of Krunchers. A new flavor!

I immediately said in a very excited, not so quiet voice, "Ooh, I bet these taste good." I would have typed an exclamation point on that quote because the first part of the sentence definitely deserved it, however I started to fade out on "good." I had suddenly become keenly aware that there were three other shoppers in the aisle with me. All of whom, I might add, turned my direction right as I was finishing my sentence. I dared not look anyone in the face, but knew from my peripheral vision that single eyebrows were being raised while simultaneously the eyes just below them were traveling down and back up me looking for other evidence that confirms that I was truly a dork.

You must understand my excitement, though. I'm not a big chip eater. I rarely ever eat them. But, I love Krunchers. Mesquite BBQ, Original, Jalapeno, I don't care. Just give them to me. I also love onions. I put them in almost everything I cook. What a great vegetable!

I don't have any real preference to any Hawaiian flavor that I am aware of, but it sure does sound good for some reason.

I didn't buy the chips. I have my reasons. But, I would like to commend their makers for the wonderfully packaged product that caught my attention and got me so excited that I even embarrassed myself.

Pizza Delivery Tip #1

2010-03-12T21:54:00.002-06:00

Introduction: The other day I remembered a funny story from a long time ago that I thought that I better write down before I forget about it again. And, what better way to help me remember than to write a blog about it so that everyone else in the world can help remember it for me. Upon deciding to write about it, though, I realized that I have a bunch of crazy stories from those days and that it might serve better as a beginning to a short series of blogs in the format of suggestions to pizza delivery drivers. I hope you enjoy them, whether you aspire to the pizza delivery industry or not.

TIP #1 - The way to a pizza eating person's heart (wallet) is through their dog.

In my many years of experience (two) of delivering pizzas, I tried many different tactics to woo my customers into being more and more generous with their gratuities. One of my many profitable tools was memorizing dog's names. See, dogs always come to the door when a guest arrives. Especially when that guest just so happens to be carrying several pounds worth of steamy, cheesy, saucy, meat and vegetables all held together by a crust baked to golden perfection. Immediately, you, the pizza deliverer, become the dog's newest favorite person. Why not capitalize on that new friendship?

Imagine being in the customer's shoes for a second. This should be easy to do. We've all ordered a pizza before, right? Well, now imagine that you love dogs and that you love your dog who you've named Charlotte, but affectionately refer to as Charlie. You ordered a pizza. You expect to pay the driver when he arrives and you even plan on giving a reasonable tip as long as the pizza arrives on time and is in one piece (or eight, get it?). The door bell rings. You open the door. A quick exchange of greetings happen between you and the driver. Your dog runs to the door and stops by your side as the driver unexpectedly says, "Oh, hi there Charlie! How are you tonight? Ready for some pizza?"

Suddenly, a camaraderie takes place as the driver seems more like a friend of the family stopping by rather than some random employee. Time and time again, I watched as the dog's owner would go grab another dollar or two to add to the tip they already had ready and waiting for the average delivery driver.

This tip seemed foolproof. But foolishness has a way of rearing its ugly head despite overwhelming odds against it. Allow me to give an example. I delivered a single pizza to a residence somewhat early in the evening one night at work. A lady probably in her late fifties or so opened the door and out bounded a little gray and white dog I recognized and addressed adoringly by it's name. I, then, looked up to see the lady's face turn quizzical, then maybe a little confused, to somewhat suspicious. I was wondering why she was looking at me like that when it occurred to me that I had never been at this particular house before. So, I started to apologize for having mistook the dog when she interrupted me to ask how it was that I knew her daughter's dog. I was still confused about whether or not the dog was who I thought it was or not. So, I didn't immediately respond.

Finally, I explained that her daughter must order a lot of pizzas or something, but it was clear that my hesitation combined with my lack of a likely story failed to convince her that it was an innocent situation. She had to write the check out still because I had caught her off guard since it hadn't even been twenty minutes from when she had placed her order. So I had to wait there awkwardly for a minute while she explained that she was dog-sitting her daughter's dog while her and her husband were out of town. I couldn't help but notice a slight emphasis on the "husband" part. It all just got really clear to me, suddenly. She thought that I had something inappropriate going on with her daughter. Rather than trying to diffuse the situation I just remained polite, took the check made out for the exact amount (no tip), and left.

I can't imagine that this situation could ever be recreated, but just for safety's sake it might be helpful to not only remember dog's names, but also the home in which you saw them at.

Childhood Obesity Task Force

2010-02-09T21:38:00.006-06:00

Today, President Obama formed a task force to tackle the problem of childhood obesity. The First Lady, Michelle Obama, has pushed for this and will apparently help lead the campaign.

According to the article, one out of every three children in the U.S. are currently obese, this being triple the ratio it was in 1980. Personally, I am not too quick to accept this as a fact only due to my belief that the only method for determining obesity is not a very accurate one. At least, it isn't in accord to the way most people define the word 'obesity', anyhow.

It was a while ago, but I wrote a blog about how it is determined whether or not someone is obese. The formula is not a complex one, by any means, and, therefore, doesn't take enough factors into account. Obesity is determined by BMI(Body Mass Index). BMI is determined by dividing your weight in kilograms by your height in meters. Then the following scale tells you where you stand (or sit or lie down, for that matter).

* Underweight = <18.5
* Normal weight = 18.5-24.9
* Overweight = 25-29.9
* Obesity = BMI of 30 or greater

Are height and weight the only factors that should be used to determine how healthy you are or are not? Surely, this should not be so. I would think that build plays a huge role, but I won't get into this again. I repeat myself a lot in the real world, but online I try to limit it wherever possible.

So, I do think that the numbers given in this article and others like it sound a lot worse than what they actually are. On the other hand, people are getting fatter. There's no denying that. I applaud The White House and the President for admitting it and doing something to combat it. But, what might be done?

In the article and a couple others that I scanned-read, I only saw education as a plan. This is important, to educate America how to make healthy choices. But, does it stand to be the answer to the problem? Most definitely not. Is it possible that it will bring us halfway to solving the problem? Probably not. Will it make much of a difference at all? I hope so, but I doubt it.

I'm not trying to be negative. I just think that 95% of us know how to live healthy lifestyles, but that only about 20% of us actually do what we know. That only leaves an education campaign a chance of improvement of 5%. To the other 95% it's just beating a dead horse. Maybe some of those, after being re-educated, might find a renewed sense of motivation, but how many will, I wonder?

I think education is a good start, but I would suggest not to spend too much time, energy, or money on it. Privately funded documentaries such as Super Size Me and Food, Inc. have done more to educate America on the health risks of poor eating choices than our government will ever accomplish, anyway.

I believe that there is another solution and that it has been spoken in complaint form at one time or another by everyone in the U.S. who has ever tried to eat only healthy foods: "It's not right that eating healthy should cost so much!" I believe that this is the biggest problem plaguing Americans with poor health today. If you've ever been to a health food store and walked the aisles, you know what I am talking about. I've seen a few decent prices here and there on certain items, but for the most part healthy, organic food prices can be two and three times the price as their chemically produced counterparts.

Much of this is due to the way farming is run these days. Subsidies are paid to farmers to grow certain things during certain seasons and the farmers grow what they are paid to grow. End of story. The effects this has is that the only way to make a profit is to grow lots and grow it fast. Chemical farming, genetically modified seeds, and artificial hormones are used to get the most for their efforts. To grow something other than subsidized crops like organic crops that have no subsidies means that the farmer is carrying all the cost and all the risk if those crops don't sell in the market. The costs and the cost of the risk is passed on to the consumer.

Let's look at the opposite of subsidized crops for a minute. What about the tobacco industry? They've taken a lot of grief these last twenty years, haven't they? They're being blamed for one of the largest health epidemics in the United States and they're being forced to pay for it. We've seen the cost of cigarettes go from roughly 75 cents a pack to almost $5 a pack in my lifetime alone. This cost increase wasn't the result of tobacco getting harder find or anything. It's the cigarette producers handing down the costs of settlements, litigation, and most importantly, increased taxation. In an effort to discourage smoking and also to recoup some of the health care costs caused by smoking, our government as dramatically increased the amount of taxes on cigarettes.

So, using this logic, it stands to reason that a possible solution to our nation's so-called epidemic would be to tax the junk out of the junk food producing companies, while subsidizing the healthy food and organically grown foods. If the tables were to be turned and unhealthy foods were two and three times the cost of healthy ones, America would no doubt choose healthier meals. Alongside our population getting healthier, health care costs would decrease, health insurance premiums would get more competitive and would dramatically drop in price. Our country's health care problem could be solved, people! But, as they say, it would take an act of Congress to get any of this to happen so quickly. Maybe that's just what we need.

Zebra Cakes Disclaimer

2010-02-07T10:22:00.004-06:00

Warning: Consuming Little Debbie's brand Zebra Cakes may cause the consumer to experience changes in ones behavior. The behavioral effects may include temporary energy boost, giddiness, and in some rare cases: swaying ones choice of attire.

This is extra funny since she bought this box of Zebra Cakes yesterday and had a couple. Then, today she was wearing this outfit getting ready for church. She was unaware of the connection until I mentioned my observation. What a funny girl I married.

Phone Upgrade

2010-02-05T21:51:00.006-06:00

Last December I started to grow tired of my LG VU cell phone as I saw better and better ones out on the market, so I jumped online to see when I was available for an upgrade discount. February 2nd was the date and I had been eagerly awaiting it since then.

By the time January arrived, I had read what felt like thousands of reviews for several phones that made the short list of ones that were being considered. The Samsung Impression was my clear choice and I was confident that when Feb. 2nd rolled around that I would get a great deal on one and it would be awesome.

However, by the end of January, I was having second thoughts. Cold feet, if you will. The two-year commitment started to sound more like an until-death-do-you-part sort of time frame. I started thinking that I had become pretty good with my VU. What if I got the Impression and discovered that it was just like the VU? What if I preferred my VU over the Impression, but then it would be too late?

I had the great idea to go into an AT&T store to play with the phones so that I could make a more informed decision, but the sales guy was pretty pushy towards the iPhone. Then, come to find out, that the iPhone is actually a little cheaper than the Impression! What?! I told the guy that I wasn't interested because it wouldn't Bluetooth to my headphones for listening to music, but he showed me that it would. I was sucked in. All of the sudden, the iPhone looked rather intriguing.

Then, I was reminded of several reasons why I knew I didn't want the iPhone. First, it would cost me $20 more dollars a month for the data plan increase. Second, everything that I need or want to do online away from home can be done on my VU or an Impression. I don't really need full HTML browsing. Third, I like the ability to Bluetooth files to and from my wife's phone, or friends' when the need arises. Fourth, the biggest reason that I wanted the Impression was because of its slide-out QWERTY keyboard. You can get pretty good at typing on a touch screen keyboard, but your accuracy is nowhere near as good as when typing with the Impression's widely-spaced actual keyboard. In conclusion, the iPhone, while beautiful in its design and user interface, just doesn't compare with the Impression in its features and combined cost savings.

Better yet, I was able to buy my Impression at Walmart for less than half of what the AT&T store wanted for it and a little more than half than what ATT.com was charging for them.

I am totally sold on this phone, after all. I was scared that it would just be a little better than my VU, but it's WAY better! It's like everyone involved in developing it at Samsung was required to spend a week with every other smart phone and then required to design and program one that is better than them all and yet not considered a smart phone so that the phone's owner isn't required to pay a high monthly fee for the most expensive data plan.

Gone Mobile

2010-01-17T21:48:00.004-06:00

This month, I added unlimited web usage for my phone. I wasn't sure if it was going to be something that I would actually use or not, but I figured that I could try it and if I didn't like it I could just as easily remove it from my bill. Well, it's been better than I thought that it would. I've been able to catch up on reading blogs that I like, get and respond to my e-mails instantaneously, check facebook, watch YouTube videos, Google Map destinations, and more. I'll probably keep it.

One thing that I was disappointed with was the inability to view my blog from my phone without the use of a special application. I found an application for the LG VU (my phone) that grabs all the text from a blog and allows you to read it on my phone, but it also grabs some of the html code with it. It's not too bothersome for me, but I could see where some people would think so. Also, the layout is sort of bad and there isn't any photo support.

I searched Blogger for a solution, but they apparently don't support blog templates specifically for mobile phones. So, I searched the Internet and found a solution. I found a simple template format that allows the reader to read my blog and see any photos that are posted with it. It doesn't, however, support either the reading of or posting of comments, which is a bummer. I managed to add this ability to the page, however, it took forever (or a full minute, whichever came first) for the page to load. Then, even fully loaded, the comments could be read well and a new comment could be typed, but the "Post Comment" button was non-functional. So, it did no good to type a comment that wouldn't post.

I'll take what I can get, I guess. So, 'the words' is officially set up for mobile devices and can be reached at levifeltonmobile.blogspot.com

My View of the Outside World

2010-01-13T12:31:00.000-06:00

It's finally melting!!! I see green!

Multimedia message

2010-01-07T01:12:00.000-06:00

There's a strange glow tonight. It's so bright that you don't need any help seeing anywhere. It's as if there are no shadows at all. Pretty neat, really. It's 1:00 in the morning and I'm taking advantage of mobile blogging. Good night.

Insurance

2010-01-01T15:55:00.005-06:00

I realize that with all the talk about insurance in politics lately no one probably wants to read a blog about the subject. I promise that this blog will have nothing to do with a political stance on health insurance. No, I don't want to type about it any more that you want to read about it.

In the year 2001, I got my first cell phone. It was a big fat navy blue and black Nokia that I was seriously proud of. It did nothing more than store phone numbers and make phone calls, but that was about all cell phones did back then. One of the things that really surprised me was that I was able to get the phone for "free" for signing up for two years. You all know the very typical story so I won't carry it on at length, but I had entered into a realm of technology that I had never dreamed I'd be part of.

One thing that I thought was imperative upon starting up my two-year contract was setting up the insurance plan. I was assured by the sales representative that accidents can and do, in fact, happen all the time to phones that are carried around everywhere you go. I imagined an accident occurring to my beautiful blue Nokia and being stuck with a contract without being able to afford a new phone while having to pay for a service that I couldn't use. So, $5 per month to assure me that this imagined scenario wouldn't take place felt like a great deal at the time.

Little did I know that this particular phone could also be used as a hammer without any consequence of functionality. Two years went by and I found out that I was eligible for a "free" phone upgrade. So grateful was I that I got another Nokia, but this time it was silver and black and only weighed a mere pound which happened to be roughly half the weight of my previous phone. It was also half the thickness so that I could stuff it in my pocket without quite the prominent bulge of its predecessor. I continued my insurance plan without a thought at all to whether I needed it or not.

More years passed by and I had my first problem with a cell phone. One day the little colorless LCD screen messed up. A third of the screen froze while the remaining two-thirds flipped like a mirror image. The phone still worked but was obviously difficult to maneuver through the numbers. I was available for an upgrade again so I took it. But, this time I wanted something cool. Cell phones had come a long way in the last couple of years and I wanted something cutting edge. Even with the upgrade discount I still shelled out about fifty clams for a sleek, stylish, black Motorola RAZR. I loved it. It took photos. It shot some of the worst video I've ever seen, but it actually shot video! I was feeling pretty cool. I was a little perturbed by the fact that RAZRs started being given away for free with two-year contract renewals just weeks after my purchase, but I got over it because at least with the phone I was cool.

Very cool, in fact, until it happened. Another problem arose with my cell phone. This time it wasn't the screen, it was a speaker. The tiny speaker that you put up to your ear during a phone conversation just quit working. I would answer the phone and people could hear me just fine but all I heard was silence. I quickly discovered that the speaker phone option still worked. Apparently, it used a separate speaker for that function.

Now, when someone receives a phone call while in a crowded store, and they whip out their cell phone and put it on speaker for everyone to hear, what do you think of that person? PRECISELY! You think that they're trying to show off their phone, but you immediately find them arrogant and rather annoying. And, there's no explaining the situation to everyone who passes you by either. You just learn not to use your phone in fear of people's scorn.

So, after months of dealing with the huge inconvenience, I remember that I've been paying for an insurance plan for years. It's time to cash that puppy in and get this problem solved. So, I call the 1-800 number and I quickly get the process started with a customer representative and find out that I have to pay a $50 deductible. WHAT?! I guess I never noticed. Oh well. I pay it. I get my new RAZR pretty quickly and have to ship my old one in. Problem solved, you think?

No. I finally drop my insurance plan after paying $5 a month for about 6 years. I paid about $360 in premiums over this time and when I finally went to use it I was out another $50. So, in essence, I paid $410 for a replacement RAZR that I could have purchased used for about $50 on Craigslist. You live, you learn.

A couple years ago, Jodi broke her phone. Well, Lyric broke her phone, actually. And it only cost me $27 on Ebay for a replacement. Moral of story: don't buy cell phone insurance.

The sad part about all this is that it also corresponds to our own health insurance premiums and usage. I've paid more in than I'll ever get back. Because of never needing health care beyond the amount of our deductibles, it's as if we don't have insurance at all. We pay full amount out of pocket even though all year we're paying high premiums. Moral of story: you decide.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-29T18:24:00.002-06:00

Merry (belated) Christmas everybody!

This was Lyric the morning after Christmas. The light coming in the window was just enough to give Lyric a light saber.

History of Motorola

2009-12-20T10:26:00.007-06:00

Last night, Jodi and I watched Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian. I wasn't sure about the prospect of watching it despite having enjoyed the first one. I saw a couple negative reviews of people saying the humor was too silly. I didn't get that impression at all in the movie. It's a family movie, for sure, so there is a little slapstick humor that was intended to make the kids roll on the floor, but for the most part they did a fine job of incorporating humor that was fun for everyone. I thoroughly enjoyed what I saw of it.

We started the movie about 10:00 PM and after finishing a 57-hour week at work, my fatigue got the best of me. I only saw about an hour of the movie and then proceeded to wake up near the end when the music is getting all climactic and loud. I started to watch again, but upon seeing Jodi snoozing beside me, I decided to ignore the screen so that we could retry where we dozed off and finish the movie together at another time.

With the movie over and the credits rolling, I felt safe to watch while I tried to find the strength to get off the couch and start the task of getting ready for bed. They showed a little clip alongside the credits of a young man they had showed earlier in the movie. His mother was calling him down to dinner or something and he says, "In a minute!" The mother then calls him by his whole name as mothers often do when becoming impatient with their children. The joke is that earlier in the movie Ben Stiller's character finds himself transported into the famous black and white photo of the sailor kissing the nurse in the middle of the street in Times Square. During this brief stint of running around in the black and white street scene, he drops his elaborate cell phone and a young sailor, this kid I mentioned during the credits, picks it up. During the short credits scene, the young man is tinkering with the phone (which appears to be a Blackberry or a similar PDA style phone) and his mother, becoming impatient, calls out, "Joey Motorola, you get down here this instant!"

I might have found this funny, but I already knew enough history to know that the name Motorola didn't come from it's creator's surname. This aside, the joke would've still failed in its attempt to humor me for the time discrepancy. The famous photo, as shown here, that the main character gets transported into was taken at the end of World War II, more specifically on Victory over Japan day, August 14, 1945. From what I knew of Motorola, the company, it had emerged out of the Great Depression which took place after the stock market crashed in 1929.

I did some research and found that Motorola became one of the largest electronics companies in the United States, but like most companies, they had a very humble beginning. The company started in 1928 as Galvin Manufacturing Company. They made a product called a battery eliminator. Most home radios were designed to run off of battery power. The battery eliminator converted the radio to allow it to be plugged into a home's AC outlet. The company started to flop when the market crashed and people stopped buying anything that wasn't an absolute necessity. That's when the owner, Paul Galvin, began talking to engineers at a radio parts company who shared space within the same Chicago manufacturing facility as they. They formed a group who designed the first radio for an automobile in 1930.

They named the radio 'Motorola' because they felt that it suggested music in motion. This was because, since 1901, a company named Victor produced phonographs. Their most popular model was named 'Victrola'. This had become a household name by 1930. So, in essence, Galvin was combining 'motor' which was most commonly associated with vehicles and the last part of a household name known for music to produce the name for their designed automotive radio. They became so popular that Galvin changed the name of their company from Galvin Manufacturing Company to Motorola.

One of the people in the group that designed the radio was Elmer Wavering who was only a young man of 23 at the time. He had been working at the radio parts company when Galvin got the group together. Many years later, Wavering and several others would create the first automotive alternator that could be easily mass produced. In his later years he would say that the alternator was, by far, his greatest achievement. He said, "The car radio made driving more enjoyable, but the alternator made everything else possible." The consistent power of the alternator, as opposed to the inefficient generators that were previously used, made many things possible including power locks, power brakes, power seats, power steering, electric wipers, air conditioning, etc. This is just to name a few really. Take it from a guy who for years drove a 1959 Ford truck that had a generator. Almost nothing was power. Not even the windshield wipers, which ran off of air compression from the engine. They would barely be moving when idling at a stop. They'd quit working altogether while accelerating and then would finally work fairly well after having reached cruising speed.

The reason I knew some of this information already was because of my love for old cars. In the owner's manual for my 1962 Plymouth Valiant it shows a Victrola as one of the available options for the car. Yes, a record player, that mounted under the dash. One can be seen demonstrated here in this YouTube video. After having seen one in action, I want one really bad. And, who knows, maybe someday I will run across one on Craiglist for free. While I'm dreaming, though, I should really make it where they pay me to take it off their hands. And, the money they pay me is just enough to repair whatever may be wrong with it. Then, while repairing it I find some important piece of history inside. I open up a 1950's style diner and have the historical item as the centerpiece to the restaurant. And, people come from all over to see it, and discover Jodi's and my awesome healthy cooking. Then, people pay us millions of dollars as the restaurant is transformed into a franchise of healthy fast food restaurants that eventually forces McDonald's to close their doors. What? It could happen.

Back to what I was originally blogging about, I find it funny how a small business that figured out how to power those old huge radios of the 1920's without batteries grew into making these contraptions shown here, a phone/datebook/camera with flash/DVD quality video camera/address book/internet browser/voice-recognizing computer/television/GPS/MP3 player. There's probably more to mention but I don't actually have one, so I don't know all the functions.

SRC to DEI

2009-12-06T10:36:00.003-06:00

It was a beautiful and warm sunny day in early September. I had just turned 20 years old in June and I was feeling very much like I was no longer a kid and I had reached full adulthood. I was also feeling very much like a failure in life. I had been unemployed for the first time since starting working. It had only been a month, but I was desperate for a paycheck. I knew nothing about SRC, but was told by my uncle that I should go and apply and that my cousin's husband could get me an interview.

I stepped out of the warm sunlight and into the 1960's front office complete with wood paneling. I filled out an application and while I quietly sat there and wrote out my non-impressive job history of several fast food places, a brief stint at a telecommunications call center, and the most recent manual labor job that apparently hadn't stuck, a man walked in to check on the status of his application. The patch on his arm indicated that he was an ASE certified mechanic. The secretary told him that he hadn't been selected, but that his application was still good for another month at which time he would have to fill out a new one to keep one on file with them. He had been waiting already two months with no word.

I was tempted to just walk out without finishing my application since if this certified mechanic couldn't get a job with them, how would my pizza making skills convince them to hire me? I reluctantly finished and turned it in. I got a call the next day to set up a panel interview. I was astonished, but accepted.

The interview consisted of sitting in a folding metal chair surrounded by three managers from three different departments. Later, I was told by my boss, one of the interviewers, that what convinced him to hire me was my response to his question: "How do you feel about overtime?" I immediately responded with, "As much as you can give me." I guess that they had a group of employees reluctant to work it, but I was just fine working 63 hours a week, every week, for years.

Over the nine and a half years I worked there my titles went from Cycle Counter, to Forklift Operator, to Shipper/Packager, to Receiving Clerk, to Traffic Assistant, to Inventory Control Manager, to Warehouse Supervisor, to Materials Manager, and finally to Supply Chain Coordinator.

I wrote a blog about my leaving SRC back in December of 2008 which can be found by clicking this link. Originally, I planned to take three months off and if SRC didn't hire me back at that time, then I'd go find a new job. I did look for a job during that time somewhat, but wasn't going to take just any job. If I was going to go back to work it was going to be with a company that recognized and was willing to pay for the skills that I had acquired over the years. I'm a math guy, and I did the math and found out that we would be okay financially for three months and if we needed to we could possibly stretch it out to 5 or 6, but that was definitely going to be a stretch and maybe not even possible. It was 11 months. And we were perfectly fine financially. God is good. Recently, we even did some financial math to fill out an application for a loan for a business venture that we're working on. In going back to see what our recent income had been, we couldn't help but laugh. The final dollar amount was ridiculously low, and yet we lived quite comfortably. I love it when God reveals himself so obviously. I could do all the math and figure out where it all came from directly, but I know where it all came from indirectly so I don't feel the need to waste the time.

DEI has been great so far. I really like the people there and the smaller company feel. Additionally, they respect what I am worth even more so than SRC which should know better than anyone. After all, they were the ones who invested so much money and time in me in the first place. They took a pizza delivery boy with nothing more than a high school education and turned him into a businessman. For that, among other reasons, I am grateful.

Thanksgiving 2009

2009-12-04T22:32:00.005-06:00

With Thanksgiving slowly becoming a distant memory, all the focus has rapidly turned towards Christmas. However, I would like to pause for a moment and write a quick blog about our Thanksgiving this year.

It all started early this year. Four days early, to be exact. But, any time is a good time to be thankful to God for what we have and who we are. In order to coordinate with all the family members, my mom had Thanksgiving dinner at her house the weekend before Thanksgiving Day. I thought that I might wind up at work Monday with a turkey-hangover, but all was well.

It was a good time. I really enjoyed getting to hangout with everybody, particularly my brother and his family who braved the trip from Michigan. It was a beautiful sunny day, so we all took advantage by hanging out outside and watching the kids ride motorcycles.

Then, for the big day, we hosted Thanksgiving dinner at our house for the first time with Jodi's family and even some of mine. Jodi's family usually has Thanksgiving at Jodi's Aunt Marilyn's house in West Plains. But, she rented the house out this year and I doubt that the renters would have appreciated a bunch of strangers showing up at their door and letting themselves in.

It was a lot of fun and everything turned out wonderful thanks to all the family and friends that pitched in to help with bringing items and preparing the last minute dishes.

A friend of ours brought a cooked turkey with him. Had I known to expect this, I probably wouldn't have bought the largest bird I could find weighing in at over 21 pounds. Oh well. The more the merrier. Both birds were good, but I must say that Jodi did a fantastic job of cooking it and I benefited from a tip that I saw that morning, during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, to carve the turkey against the grain of the meat. This makes the turkey really tender and avoids that tough meatiness that most of us associate with turkey.

Having two turkeys left us with a good problem of having multiple pounds of awesome turkey left over. We knew that with the sheer volume of turkey leftover that there was no way that we were going to eat all of it without growing tired of it no matter how good it may be. So, we got inventive. One night, we had fajitas and used the turkey in place of steak or chicken. It was excellent and it took virtually no time at all to prepare since the meat was already cooked. We just heated it up in a pan with some water and a fajita seasoning packet and wahlah!

We still had plenty to go around so I took a bunch and pulled the meat into strings. I then cooked this down slowly with BBQ sauce, water, and brown sugar to make pulled turkey sandwiches. Instead of using bread, I had a bunch of dinner rolls left over that worked perfectly. They were still connected to each other from baking so I took four rolls in a square and cut them in half sideways to make two thick pieces of bread. It was probably full of calories, but tasted wonderful.

The two carcasses made an awesome turkey soup that had a surprising amount of meat. Jodi slow cooked it all night and it was delicious.

Have I Gone Too Far? You Be The Judge

2009-11-27T01:18:00.007-06:00

I should be really tired, but I'm strangely not. I should be turkey-tired, but I'm going strong. It's currently almost 1:30 AM on Black Friday and will surely be beyond that when I finally get this blog typed up.

The thing is: I need your help. Tonight, I was fixing my computer and while it was formatting another hard drive the slow way, I decided to hop online and kill some time by catching up on my blog reading. I read one of my favorite blogs and was astonished to see the term "xmas" used. I'm sure that the author didn't mean it derogatorily, as I know that they are Christians. However, their usage of it, while most certainly innocent, prompted me to do a little research.

My string of searches led me eventually to a blog written by Tommy Sparger who was writing a blog that mirrored many things that I had just read on a previous article on an atheist's resource website (I won't link to that site nor will I give the name of it for obvious reasons.) I'm not saying that they were one and the same, but simply pointing out that they were coming to the same conclusion based off of the same argument being used. This especially struck me since I could see that Tommy Sparger seemed to be somewhat connected to North Point Church (a local church here in Springfield) from what I could see from his blog page.

Of course, I disagreed with the atheist's argument but there was no place for comments of any kind by the reader and I may have been hesitant to comment anyway since the theme of the lengthy article clearly considered me to be the enemy. But, I couldn't idly stand by and watch someone in the church make a similar argument with the same conclusion and not be called out on the fallacy in which the argument was being made. So, I left a comment. It was a long one, but all of it necessary to make my point. I finished, felt good about what I had wrote, and posted the comment. I incorrectly assumed, because many blogs are, that the blog would be moderated. It wasn't. The comment posted right away and was visible for all to see. I was surprised by this, but was also happy that those who read the blog might also read my comment and therefore would not as easily be misled. After it posted, I went on to North Point Church's website using the link provided to see if I would be able to get any clues to who this Tommy was in regards to the church. I found out in a matter of seconds that he's the lead pastor. Oops.

I'm still feeling right about what was said and I feel that it needed to be, but all of a sudden, now I wonder what, if any, sort of repercussion there might be to having this out there for all to read. After all, according to their website, there are about 3500 people that attend this church, and surely someone will run across my comment, if someone hasn't already. Maybe I should have conveyed my message a little more lovingly? I don't know. Tell me what you think in a comment, please.

Below is what was written in Tommy's blog:

At North Point Church, we are about to start a 4 week series of unforgettable Christmas moments. It will rock. You won’t want to miss one week. Don’t come to the services late because we will open each service with crazy Christmas elements that will blow you away. This series starts the weekend of November 28th/29th and runs for 4 straight weekends - through December 19th/20th. The music, the drama, the production, will be out of this world. Something new every week. You will want to “invest & invite” all of your friends and family to this very relevant series!

We are calling this series: “Xmas - Discover the true Christ of Christmas”

I repeat….. we are discovering the true Christ of Christmas, not kicking Him out! We are putting Him in - not taking Him out. That is the point of this series.

Some people think the term “Xmas” is some diabolical plot to subvert Christmas. Many religious people think that to use the term “Xmas” is to take Christ out of Christmas. Replace Him. The truth is, this kind of thinking only shows how uninformed or misinformed, and unnecessarily militant with misinformation, many Christians are concerning their own faith.

The origin of the term Xmas comes from the greek spelling of Christ, which begins with the letter Chi (X).

The origin of the word “Xmas”, is thoroughly Christian. Dennis Bratcher, who wrote an article about the origin of “Xmas” says: “All of the hype and hysteria over supposedly taking Christ out of Christmas by writing “Xmas” instead of spelling out “Christmas” is both uniformed and misdirected.” Abbreviations used as Christian symbols have a long history in the church. The letters of the word “Christ” in Greek, the language in which the New Testament was written, or various titles for Jesus early became symbols of Christ and Christianity.

Dennis Bratcher says ” So there is no grand scheme to dilute Christianity by promoting the use of Xmas instead of Christmas. it is not a modern invention to try to convert Christmas into a secular day, nor is it a device to promote the commercialism of the holiday season. Its origin is thoroughly rooted in the heritage of the Church. It is simply another way to say Christmas, drawing on a long history of symbolic abbreviations used in the church. In fact, as with other abbreviations used in common speech or writing (such as Mr. or etc.), the abbreviation “Xmas” should be pronounced “Christmas” just as if the word were written out in full, rather than saying “exmas.” Understanding this use of Christian symbolism might help us modern day Xians focus on more important issues of Faith during Advent, and bring a little more Peace to the Xmas Season.”

Wikipedia -

“In Greek, the letter Χ (chi), is the first letter of Christ, and it, or the similar Roman letter X, has been used as an abbreviation for Christ since the mid-16th century.[9] Hence, Xmas is often used as an abbreviation for Christmas.”

Answers.com -

“Xmas has been used for hundreds of years in religious writing, where the X represents a Greek chi, the first letter of Χριστος, “Christ.” In this use it is parallel to other forms like Xtian, “Christian.” But people unaware of the Greek origin of this X often mistakenly interpret Xmasas an informal shortening pronounced (ĕksPRIMARY_STRESSməs). Many therefore frown upon the term Xmas because it seems to them a commercial convenience that omits Christ from Christmas.”

“Today, with knowledge of classical languages being less widespread than formerly, some erroneously believe that the term Xmas is part of an effort to “take Christ out of Christmas” or to literally “cross out Christ”;[7] it is seen as evidence of the secularization of Christmas, as a symptom of the commercialization of the holiday (as the abbreviation has long been used by retailers).”

I thought you might find the following article from snopes.com interesting: http://www.snopes.com/holidays/christmas/xmasabbr.asp

I left the following comment which became comment number twelve on his blog with most people supporting or defending the use of the term "xmas."

I, too, must disagree with the stance of this blog.

Regardless of the origins of the usage of the term 'X-mas' as defined here by the author of this blog and then "confirmed" by several websites, the current usage in modern speech and writing forms of the popular majority pronounce it "exsmas" and have no more knowledge of its origin than they have of the origin of the term "jay walking."

The author contends that anyone who takes issue with the substitution of "Christ' for 'X' must be "uninformed or misinformed, and unnecessarily militant with misinformation." He quotes others as saying that they are "misdirected."

So, who from shall we receive direction? From the author of this blog? Maybe from the websites in which he received his information? North Point Church?

If all that these sources can do is point me to an ancient language that scarcely resembles its modern counterpart to prove the origin as innocent, than I am justified in dismissing the argument as obviously missing the point.

People today are not etymologists (those who study the history of words) by default. Assuming such for argument's sake is not only preposterous but downright deceitful to all those who are subjected to it.

The bottom line is that it is a fallacious argument, and intellectually irresponsible as well, to use the origin of a term thousands of years old and from a foreign language to such boldly assert that the use of the term now must not be any different from its original intent.

Furthermore, it's shameful that a short trip to Wikipedia, Snopes, etc. was enough of an intellectually honest path for the people here to make others feel that they were supposedly misinformed. The irony displayed here would be humorous if it weren't so sad to begin with.

And, just to answer those who, no doubt, will attempt to place me in the category of "misinformed religious militants who can't seem to focus on the more important issues of Faith" as this article so well paints it, at least I am not running (or defending) a huge church that is wasting weeks of precious time arguing ancient semantics to justify an aspect of a modern secular worldview in the guise of being "relevant."

Again, I want to know if you think that I went too far or if I was right to argue the case. Either opinion is welcome. I promise that I will not comment on your opinion unless you specifically ask me to do so.

A Copy of Our Listing

2009-11-06T09:09:00.002-06:00

Scroll down for lots of photos!

2-Story
1900 + sq. ft.
3 Bedroom
2 Bathrooms (1 full/1 half) both completely renovated and remodeled
Brand New Kitchen (cabinets galore, black appliances, garbage disposal, built-in recycling center, and many more custom features)
Formal Dining Room
Foyer with built-in bookcase
10 ft ceilings on first floor
Beautiful Molding throughout
Huge Brand New Mud/Utility Room
Refinished Hardwood floors
New ceramic tile in Kitchen, both Baths and Utility
Basement (partial unfinished)
Central Forced Heat and Air
New Roof (2008)
New Gutters (2008)
1 Car Detached Garage (New Roof 2008)
Covered Front Porch
Fenced Backyard w/Garden Wall
Mature Trees and Shrubbery
Alley Access
Great Central Location, Close to Downtown Shopping and Entertainment

Thanks for looking!

Block! You're being annoying!

2009-10-27T18:37:00.004-05:00

Who isn't on a social networking site these days? I consider myself very computer savvy and an avid surfer of the Internet, however not even I really know what a Twitter is or how many calories one might contain. On the other hand, I do write blogs (obviously) and maintain my blog page, I maintain a website for my photography, I have a profile on Facebook, I had a profile on MySpace up until about a month ago, and I have a couple photo-sharing sites that I seldom do anything with. I ditched the MySpace profile when I just suddenly realized that I never log on anymore. When I would randomly jump on, I would immediately log back out after seeing that I had no messages. I thought that deleting my profile might feel a little like ripping off a band-aid, but I was pleased to find that the act had no physical ramifications.

A couple blogs ago, I wrote about a certain photo that I spent some time restoring. I mentioned that I was going to try and track down some living relatives of the young men in the photograph. I wasn't kidding. I procrastinated a little, but I was serious about finding someone. I thought that it would be easy to find at least one living relative of one of these guys, but it might prove to be more difficult than what I originally had thought.

See? I decided to utilize one of the most well known social networking sites to aid me in my quest to reunite history with present. Facebook was my choice. It wasn't extremely helpful, but it sufficed, or so I thought. I clicked "find friends" and searched the last name of one of the players on the team. Then, I narrowed the search by city, which is one of three ways to narrow it down. MySpace was better than this. MySpace allowed you to narrow it down by 10, 25, 50, or 100 miles. I would of preferred it this way, but I'll take what I can get. I narrowed it down to zero people by doing this. I tried again using another name. Same result.

Finally, on the third name, I had 21 people in Springfield with the last name. I wrote out an e-mail explaining what I was doing and intended to upload the three photos to the message. But, Facebook only allows you to upload one photo for such a message. Oh well, I didn't really feel like waiting for all of them to upload for every message, anyway. I figured that I would just HTML code them in. No such luck. Facebook doesn't accept HTML coding in messages. They do allow you to slap in a link as long as you don't attempt to HTML code it in automatically. Nevertheless, I went through the stupid process of clicking the "add a hyperlink" button and pasting my link in there so that they could code it for me in their own little Facebook language.

So, I tediously went down the list of names clicking "Send a Message" then copying and pasting the Subject line, the message body, and adding the hyperlink. I got about five messages in and, all of the sudden, I got a message telling me that I was annoying, that I was sending messages much too quickly, and that I needed to slow things down or else. I took a screenshot which you can read for yourself here on the right. If the text is too small, as with all my blog photos, click on the photo and it will make it bigger.

Incredulously, I thought, "Isn't this what social networking sites are for?" Here I am trying to connect people with their past and doing it in a very polite, non-intrusive way and I'm being accused of being annoying or something? I wasn't about to let a pop-up warning message stop me, so I continued with my messaging only to see the same message a couple more times. I continued, anyway. Then, I got another message. The screenshot is pictured here. They shut me down. I can't message anyone now. Apparently, I'll be allowed to use the messaging system again in either a few hours or a few days, Facebook wasn't sure which. Is this my sentence? I got 3 hours to 3 days in Facebook Messaging jail? Come on!

I understand protecting people from spammers, but shouldn't Facebook recognize that I'm not a hacked program attempting to send out hundreds of thousands of messages to unsuspecting victims, but instead just a mere social network member trying to be social? So, if you don't receive any messages from me on Facebook in the next few days, don't get offended. I'm just doing time in Facebook jail. Some people showed up outside, though, to protest my incarceration. I'm especially touched by their willingness to stand around out in the rain just to support my cause. I really like the guy's socks who is holding the sign with my name on it. Hopefully, the socks will get me an early release date.

This Little Piggy Went To The Market

2009-10-20T15:06:00.014-05:00

With our house pretty much ready to be on the market, Jodi wrote out a list of our house's features so that we could see what kind of listing it would be. It was actually a long list which is great. I kind of felt like it wouldn't be, but I've been guilty of looking at it through a different perspective. We've been in this house for over two and a half years now and even though it has come a long way we still have many projects that we've thought up that we haven't even begun. I'm sure that every home owner probably feels this way when they begin the process of selling their home.

We've put every extra dollar we've had into this house and many more that weren't extra at all. We've sacrificed vacations, fancy dinners, and many other things that lots of people enjoy not because of a lack of funds but because we took our available funds and bought building materials instead. So, in place of lying on a beach for a week one year, we spent a month working after we got home from work.

There are times when I start to wonder what it would be like to live in a house that was new and didn't need anything done to it. I realize that the majority of people live in this category. Or maybe they're not the majority. Maybe they're second to the group of people who live in homes that need work done but choose not to do anything about it. Either way, I wonder if I would be content to live that way or if I would feel compelled to run out and buy a fixer-upper just to tinker with in my spare time.

Speaking of spare time, we never have too much of it around here. Many people don't, so I'm not saying that we're special or anything, but I do take notice of the lack of time to dedicate to maintaining friendships. Sometimes, I wonder why I have friends at all. I rarely call anyone. I very rarely ask anyone to do anything. And, fairly often, when asked to get together with friends I have to decline because of something that we have to do or something we have going on. And, yet, we still have plenty of good friends. I guess, it's because they're good people who choose not to take offense when they don't hear from me.

So, thanks to you all who have hung in there with us. When we're rich and famous we won't forget you. :) But, also to all those who are familiar with our house, I have a job for you. Look at the "listing" below and let me know if you have any suggestions to make it better whether it be a rewording of something, an item to list that we forgot about, or a section to take out altogether. Whatever the suggestion, we'd love to hear it. Thanks!

2-Story
1900+ sq. ft.
3 Bedroom
2 Bathrooms (1 full/1 half) both completely renovated and remodeled
Brand New Kitchen (cabinets galore, black appliances, garbage disposal, built-in recycling center, and many more custom features)
Formal Dining Room
Foyer with built-in bookcase
10 ft ceilings downstairs
Beautiful Molding throughout
Huge Brand New Mud/Utility Room
Refinished Hardwood floors
New ceramic tile in Kitchen, both Baths and Utility
Basement (partial unfinished)
Central Forced Heat and Air
New Roof (2008)
New Gutters (2008)
1 Car Detached Garage (New Roof 2008)
Covered Front Porch
Fenced Backyard w/Garden Wall
Mature Trees and Shrubbery
Alley Access
Great Central Location, Close to Downtown Shopping and Entertainment

Photo Restoration

2009-10-17T13:42:00.003-05:00

Almost a year ago, I took on my first job of photo restoration. I haven't done a whole lot of it, but I love working on them. It mixes two of my hobbies, editing photos and restoring things. There's just something about taking something old and making it new again that I can't seem to get enough of. It's no secret that I love taking something unwanted and make it into something desirable, but it's even more rewarding to take someone's prized possessions and restore them back to their original condition. It's even possible to make them better than they were to begin with.

Recently, I added a section to my portfolio on my photography website for photo restoration. You should check it out if you get a chance. As a matter of fact, you should check out the entire portfolio if you haven't seen it in a while. I've updated all the different categories and some of my more recent stuff has been some of my best work ever.

I needed to add to my list of examples, so I thought that I'd hop online real quick and find an old photo that needed a few touch-ups. I went to a site that I had recently checked out that I knew was full of historic photos and found this one. You can see that the original black and white photo is heavily faded. Many of the original details have been lost already, and many more will slowly disappear as the passage of time continues. The problem is not necessarily the lack of care for these items, but usually due to the lack of quality of the paper and the chemicals used to create the photograph in the first place. Since it was first discovered that silver nitrate darkened when exposed to light roughly two-hundred years ago, the process of capturing two-dimensional images of reality has improved at a slow rate, or at least up until the advent of the digital camera. But even since the digital age, the quality of making hard copies of these images has been slow to improve. Photos from 100 years ago are fading whether they are exposed to light or not. Some photos from 50 years ago have contrasted out and have lost their precious details. Color photos from 25 years ago are turning brown or orange. No one really knows what modern photo paper will look like after decades of being stored or displayed. We'll find out in time, though.

This is after I fixed the de-contrasting, removed the spots and hand-writing, and gave it back some detail that was hiding from view but was still there waiting to be discovered. This baseball team was actually a semi-professional one from Monett, Missouri. They traveled around for all their games by rail. They were all paid players. Hundreds of people would come to watch them from all over Southwest Missouri. The price of admission was a quarter. Even though they came from a small town like Monett, they played big. They were one of the best teams in the state. This photograph was taken their first year in 1908. While working on this photo, I thought of how neat it would be to find one of these guys and show him the repaired photo. But, then I suddenly realized that no one pictured here would still be around today. That was kind of a sad realization. I then wondered if there were descendants from these men that could be found. Would they all be aware that their grandfathers played semi-pro baseball on a team that gained notoriety throughout the state?

I spent about an hour adding color to this photograph and I just love the way that it turned out. It really came alive for me. Old black and white photos are interesting but they lack the color that makes a photograph so vividly alive. It's difficult to imagine what life would have been like back then. So, adding color to this photo is exactly what I think that it needed. These guys may be long gone from us now, but studying this photo really brings them to life all over again in my mind. I think that I'll try to hunt down some living relatives of these boys and give them what I've got. If, I find anyone, I'll write a blog about it, trust me.

Craigslist Trolling Pays Off

2009-10-08T14:59:00.008-05:00

Not so long ago, I remember scanning through the PennyPower, our local classified ads weekly periodical, for good deals. It was fun because it was in no particular order, so to find something specific you just had to wade through hundreds of 150-letter ad spaces that were trying to sell anything from dump trucks to garden gnomes. Our local newspaper, the News-Leader, also had a classified ads section, but it was never any good. Everything was in order, but it really lacked participation which I can only assume was because they charged too much for ad space. The News-Leader eventually bought the PennyPower after years of coming in a distant second place and incorporated it into their newspaper. Once again, I assume that the price for ad space has failed to become any more reasonable and so the ads are few and the power of the PennyPower is dead even though their name lives on.

Craigslist showed up here in Springfield just in time. The idea of having free ad space and to a great many more possible buyers than the paper could ever claim just got me excited. We quickly added Craigslist to our list of bookmarks on the toolbar of our Firefox web browser and jump on several times a day to see what's being offered next.

I've used it to give away things, get things for free, buy items, and sell items. I've managed to sell things that otherwise I would have had to just toss out to be rid of and I've obtained items with no more effort than dropping by and picking them up.

Out of all the different things we've managed to get for free on Craigslist, our latest find takes the cake for sure. Last week, I was checking the free section for the millionth time and I spotted a recent listing for a cash register. The ad said that it was from the 50's or 60's and that it was very heavy, more than a hundred pounds. There really wasn't any other details so I had no idea what it was, but I knew that I wanted it. I quickly wrote an e-mail showing my interest in it and explaining what I would do with it. I also threw in that I could pick it up any time at her convenience.

Two days went by and I hadn't heard anything. I saw that the listing had been deleted, so I had wrote it off in my mind and assumed that it had been given away to someone with faster typing skills than myself. Then, on the third day, I got a phone call. She wanted to know if I still wanted it. I restrained myself from screaming, "YEEESSSS!!" and simply said that I would love to pick it up. She gave me a few more details about including that it was made out of mostly solid brass. I can't really raise just a single eyebrow like people in movies, but if I could it would have been way up there, because I'm well aware that anything large made out of solid brass usually predates World War I. All the brass went to the war effort and since then almost nothing has been made from solid brass. Many items are brass plated but very few are brass through and through. I just figured that it was plated and kept my mouth shut about it.

She wanted to make sure that I wasn't just going to scrap it and asked me a few questions. I assured her that my wife and I both have a love for old antiques, particularly "turn-of-the-century" items. No, not 2000. She then offered me an antique sewing machine as well which I accepted.

I met her at the storage unit that the items were in. I saw the cash register and immediately knew that it was way older than what she thought, but managed to keep my cool about it in front of her. After loading it and the sewing machine in the truck she also gave me three mirrors, one of which is about 5 feet by 3 feet in a 6-inch-wide gold leaf frame. Score!

After getting home with the items, I did some research on the register and with the aid of the serial number and a couple collector's websites, I narrowed down the date of manufacture between November 1907 and January 1908! It is solid brass and weighs every bit of 180 pounds. It's amazing. We've been cleaning it up a bit, but we have decided to keep the aged patina look rather than get it down to the actual gold-colored brass look.

If I get nothing more from Craigslist, I will forever love it simply for this item. On one of the collector's sites I found these photos. I didn't include a photo of the back of ours but it looks exactly like the one in this General Store except ours is a slightly larger model than the one pictured. You'll have to click on the photo so that it zooms in so that you can make out the register at the far right. The other photo is one that has been fully restored but it is a slightly newer model so there are a few differences you'll notice. Neat, huh?

Garden Wall

2009-09-25T21:56:00.004-05:00

Finally, the wall is actually nearing completion! I'm sure that most of you have no idea what I am talking about. You old-school blog followers may remember a certain wall that I was preparing to build that I wrote about May 30, 2008. No, there's no error here. I did say May of 2008! That day, I managed to remove the fence, gate, small trees, and roots that were in my way and set a concrete footing for my garden wall. It took all day, but I made it.

Not long after this, I did start my wall. I reused some cinder blocks that my work had removed from their building. For fancy-pants purposes I will call it 'reclaimed block.' Just trying to spice up the house listing a bit, you know? The problem was that I decided to stagger the blocks for structural strength. This means that I would either need some half blocks or I would need to use my handy-dandy masonry saw to cut some full-size blocks in half. Too bad I have no such saw. And, as it turns out half blocks are not that easy to come by any more. So, the wall got put off and put off and put off some more. I had laid about 25 blocks or so and got it as far as I could with the material I had at the time.

In light of getting our house ready to market, the back burner project was moved up to the forefront again. I found some half bricks at Glenstone Block and picked up all the rest of the needed supplies at Lowe's. All the bricks are now laid and I even got the door frame built and inserted. This can be seen in the photo. The next step is to concrete up the sides to give it a stucco look. Everything seen in the photo will be covered and then we'll paint it the desired color with masonry paint. Lastly, I'll install the heavy wooden door that isn't built yet. I just got the wood for it tonight thanks to my awesome father-in-law, Larry Bales. Thanks, Larry!

The concrete work will begin on Monday since that's the start of a 3-day stretch of good weather. I'll post pictures when it's completed.

Afternoon Adventures

2009-09-19T11:07:00.004-05:00

Last Thursday, I dropped off Jacob's bike at his school in the morning when I dropped him off. By doing so, Jodi, Lyric, and I were able to ride our bikes when school let out and "pick him up." Of course, Lyric didn't ride his bike but instead caught a ride in the toddler seat on my bike. The trip was 3 1/2 miles one way which isn't too bad at all. The only downside is that we live on the opposite side of downtown from Jacob's school. So, it's no leisurely ride through the countryside. It's an urban landscape no matter which route we take.

The flip-side of that coin is that if we want to stop somewhere for fun we have a seemingly infinite amount of choices. We pass Park Central Library, several coffee shops, all the fun downtown restaurants, art galleries, two movie theaters, the history museum, the Family Y, the Discovery Center, etc. The list goes on and on. So the possibilities are endless.

For our first ride we stopped and ate an early dinner at possibly the smallest eat-in restaurant in Springfield, Chicago CheeseSteak Company. As always, click on the photos to make them larger, but don't expect this restaurant to get much bigger. It seats a total of four customers which works out since that's how many of us there are. From the photo you can tell that this restaurant isn't a building at all. The walls on both sides are simply the outside walls of the buildings next door. It was literally built into an alley about 7 feet wide. The food was delicious. The boys split an all-beef hot dog, Jodi tried the CheeseSteak, and I had a BBQ Beef sandwich. Everyone left satisfied.

I think that we'll try and make a thing of it and make the trip at least once a week and stop somewhere new every time.

P.S. Upon reviewing my posted blog, I just noticed that the address for the restaurant is 319 and 1/2. Funny.

Over the Hedge and Through the Woods

2009-09-15T20:15:00.009-05:00

Jodi and I have decided to get our house ready for sale. We've been working for years now on the renovating and we've come a long way, however most of the work that we've put into the house is in the house as opposed to out. We've somewhat neglected the exterior while beautifying the interior. The result: a house that people judge from the outside and then marvel at the inside because they "had no idea" it was so nice. While we do enjoy the oohs and aahs from guests we receive after they tour the interior we can't help but notice the lack of these noises from people as they walk up or as they leave. We're afraid that when these guests aren't our friends but rather potential buyers that they may not even make it up to the front porch if we don't drastically alter the appearance of our front yard.

Our realtor gave us some good advice when she told us that we need to work on curb appeal. She said, "No offense, but you need to cut your shrubs." She was right. We had let our hedges grow to enormous heights on purpose. We enjoyed the privacy that they provided. We could be out in our yard and none of our neighbors could tell. Unfortunately, she pointed out that a lot of potential buyers won't even stop the car when pulling up to a yard like ours out of fear. She made mention how police will think that there are drugs being made or sold in properties that are hidden like ours, and often neighbors will think the same. I think our neighbors know better, but I don't doubt that others won't.

So, the hedge got a trim. It was a lot of work. It took me all day, but it was worth it. We really don't care for the fact that we feel like everyone is looking at us, but we'll get used to it. I feel like a bit of a recluse in saying that, and maybe I am a little bit. I don't know.

Meanwhile, Jodi painted the porch and it looks wonderful! When we bought the house the porch was rotting out at the ends of the boards right where the staircase met the porch. We knew that if we waited too long we were going to come home to find our mailman had fallen through to the ground below. We didn't want to dispose of any mailman bodies, so my friend Mike and I cut out the rotten boards back to the next floor joist and replaced them with boards my friend Jake gave me from a job he did. Thanks Mike! Thanks Jake! We also replaced the beam on that end with a really heavy rough-cut hickory beam that my father-in-law gave us. He spotted the rot when we first bought the place and anticipated that I would need it. Thanks, Larry!

Then, I tore out the rotten porch railing that looked inviting enough to sit on but was really a deadly trap set by previous owner's neglect. It came out really easy and I replaced it with my own custom designed porch railing built with all treated lumber. We still have to paint the new porch railing white, but it already looks a ton better than it did.

Our list of things to do to spruce up our home's exterior isn't terribly long, but it'll take a lot of work. I'll keep my blog posted with all the new high-impact projects we take on.

Poo Poo Paper

2009-09-12T08:58:00.006-05:00

A few weeks ago, I ran across this product in a unique little shop downtown during Art Walk. I was intrigued with the product for obvious reasons. I was fascinated that someone decided to find something useful to do with elephant poop. I can't imagine having such a crappy job. It would stink to work in such conditions. Sorry, but I couldn't resist the puns.

I love that they have made a novelty out of it. Although, I can't imagine that they can compete financially with other paper products without the novelty working for them. And what great fun it is. The second photo is one I took with my cell phone from the back of one of the products. If you can't see it well on your monitor then, as with all the pictures I post, click on them to make them larger. The cute little pictures depicting, in simple terms, the process in which they go about making paper from elephant feces is a hoot. The thing that I can't get past is how to get poop sanitized. Poop is one of those things that just seems dirty through and through. I don't doubt they do sanitize the product, but I just can't imagine what was going through the person's head who came up with this process. Was paper products the intended goal of the person who first started messing with it or was it just the byproduct of some intended prank? Maybe we'll never know.

Presidential Address

2009-09-04T02:20:00.006-05:00

Usually when the President of the United States makes a statement on live television, a vast majority of Americans want to stop what they are doing and listen. The sit down speeches usually come during prime-time and wind up popping up on virtually every local broadcast channel. People like me, who rarely watch broadcast television, have little trouble avoiding the monologues from the faces of those whom my grandchildren might spot on some new denomination of dollar if we haven't gone to a one-world currency by then. Albeit a rare occasion, I do sometimes catch the highlights on the evening news or an online news report. I like to keep up on what is going on in the political arena. However, I also attempt to avoid the massive amount of jargon that accompanies the few informational bits that I would like to hear. So, there is a balancing act going on with my attention span during such addresses to the nation.

I just got notice earlier today of a planned Presidential Address for next Tuesday. It will take place at noon, Eastern Standard Time, instead of during the evening when the majority of Americans will be watching. The reason for this is that he isn't addressing the majority of Americans. He's addressing students. Specifically, kindergarten students through twelfth grade. To my knowledge, and my quick search of the Internet, I don't think that a President has ever done such a thing. The Department of Education has urged schools across the nation to allow all students to watch the planned address. In addition to being urged to allow students to watch the 20 to 30-minute live video of Obama's speech, faculties are also being given lesson plans to accompany the video, lesson plans that were drawn up by the Obama administration.

Upon finding out that Jacob's school intends to show the video, Jodi and I decided to opt Jacob out. He will instead be elsewhere with all the other concerned parents' children doing a different prepared civics lesson.

All of this happened this afternoon and I was surprised that I hadn't heard anything about it. However, the news reports are coming out now. People all over are taking issue with the proposed address. The White House ensures everyone that the Obama's speech is simply to encourage students to stay in school and to set goals and so forth, but Conservatives nationwide are calling it what it really is: a usurping of power by the Executive Branch of our Federal Government. They are intentionally showing this speech during school hours to side-step parents' involvement and influence, bypassing parents' right and power to educate our own children on matters of politics, morality, and ethics. By creating lesson plans, they are undermining our state's power and authority to comprise their own educational systems. Oklahoma State Senator Steve Russel said, "As far as I am concerned, this is not civics education. It gives the appearance of creating a cult of personality. This is something you'd expect to see in North Korea or in Saddam Hussein's Iraq." And I happen to agree with him.

In the last nine months, we've seen the federal government seize control over our banking system and the automotive industry while attempting to gain regulatory control over our nation's health care. We've seen the largest debt accumulated in a single Presidential administration. And now, President Obama thinks that he can just bypass me and get to my kids' minds? He thinks that he can go live when I'm elsewhere and spill his eloquent tongue all over the place to create a positive image of himself to all the children in America? I don't think so.

Sushi Night

2009-08-18T16:22:00.004-05:00

Last night we made sushi again. It was awesome! It keeps getting better and better every time we make it. And, we're getting faster with it, which is a good thing since sushi can seem to take forever to make. Here's a picture of just some of the rolls we made. We went a little overboard and made a total of 13 rolls. We had California rolls, eel rolls, shrimp rolls, and we even tried Mahi Mahi rolls both cooked and raw. We also made seafood sauce and used store bought wasabi mayonnaise and eel sauce to dip it all in. It was all delicious.

We made so much of it, though, that we also had it for breakfast and lunch today, not that we're complaining. It's the fastest breakfast and lunch there is since you're supposed to eat it chilled anyway. From the fridge to my mouth. I guess that all the time that it takes to make is made up for all the time that is saved later with the left-overs.

Coffeyville, KS

2009-08-13T15:23:00.003-05:00

48 hours ago, I was dropped off at my friend's house. He, another friend, and I were all heading off to Coffeyville, Kansas to do a job. We're done with it now, and we're all home, but while we were there an interesting thing happened. At about 4:00 PM on Wednesday, from our hotel room, I heard the sound of a marching band. I looked out the window to find a parade slowly passing our hotel.

It was a neat little parade that was full of the things that you normally see in one. There were antique cars, riders on horseback, wagons, a military Hummer with soldiers on top, fire trucks, police cruisers, a marching band, etc. Candy was being tossed to children. People all over were smiling. I was entertained for several minutes just sitting on the curb taking in the sights and festive atmosphere but soon I realized that I had a rather drab view from the hotel's parking lot so I decided to set out on foot and see some of the other older buildings in town.

I knew nothing of Coffeyville other than that it had been, at one time, a relatively large producer of paver bricks. I've seen many antique bricks in many places that bear the name of Coffeyville, like the one pictured here. I've seen these bricks still in use today in downtown Springfield, MO, and in West Plains, MO. So, I was convinced that the town had enough history that there should be a significant amount of older buildings to see. It didn't take long to find some cool old buildings just around the first corner. I headed up Maple to 9th and then 8th. Here I found several square blocks of historic brick storefronts, factories, and government office buildings. It was a really nice area. Massive cement awnings had been built along the fronts and sides of buildings to shade the 12 and 14 foot wide sidewalks.

Over the past 48 hours, I've worked 20 hours during the night when normally I'd be sleeping. So, my concept of time and even the day of the week was a little skewed for me. As the parade began to wrap up after having zig-zagged through the downtown streets, I realized something. It was Wednesday afternoon. All the people I had passed weren't working. The stores were all open but they were empty. Even the owners and employees of the stores were out on the sidewalks watching the parade. The town was hosting this parade, with very good attendance, I might add, at a time when most communities wouldn't dream of "interfering with business" to have one. I was witnessing American Culture right before me as I had read about, heard about, and seen only in movies. These people were halting their day to revel in something together that was completely unseen. Community.

'Comforting' is the only word I can use that describes, if only partially, the feeling I got when I saw that almost everyone in the parade wasn't just waving at the crowd like you see in large televised parades. They were really waving to friends and neighbors that they knew. "Hi, Tina!", "Hey, Chris!", "Oh, there's Lisa!" and many other shouts from one to another could be heard as I walked. It was an interesting 45-minute stroll that I'm thankful I got to witness.

It was reported on a nation-wide news show a while back that this economic recession might encourage people to live more simple lives. They predicted that, we would all need to lean a little more on each other and that families will be strengthened as family values grow, towns may start to live in closer community, and that people in general will be more friendly to each other.

I don't know if any of this has been occurring nation-wide but I do know that I saw something in Coffeyville that I want. I saw something that I believe we all desire. I saw a community of neighbors.

Book Review: A Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McLaren

2009-08-10T13:02:00.011-05:00

A Generous Orthodoxy’s Lesson on Intellectual Dishonesty

By Levi Felton

To begin, allow me to point out that this is not a book review like you may be used to reading them, but more closely described as a paper on intellectually dishonest arguments. I am using the book a Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McLaren as my sole example because I have yet to read a book that has had as many intellectually dishonest arguments within its pages as it has. If you are looking for a book review, as one would more commonly be written, a quick search of the internet will provide several. If, however, you are looking for a review of sorts from a different perspective or a unique angle, look no further than below.

What is an intellectually dishonest argument? This may be better answered by asking what the opposite is. An intellectually honest argument is one where a person reveals errors or omissions in their opponent’s facts and/or logic. All other arguments fall into the category of intellectually dishonest for they attempt to prove the opponent wrong by attacking something other than the facts or logic of the argument the opponent has made.

The list of intellectually dishonest arguments that you will find here is not complete and in no particular order. There are plenty more being used all over the world even as you are reading this very sentence. I have two goals to accomplish with this paper. The first is to discredit Brian McLaren’s book a Generous Orthodoxy. The second is to encourage others to learn the dishonest tactics of debate. When you learn these tactics and get yourself very acquainted with them, you’ll find that people use them more than you could have ever imagined and it will make you a better debater. Also, you will catch yourself from formulating your own arguments in dishonest ways and save yourself some embarrassment from getting caught. Let’s begin.

Note: I have (or had depending on when you are reading this) the paperback copy, so if you have the book and are looking up pages I reference and you cannot find what I have quoted then it may be due to a separate printing. I do know for a fact that the hard cover edition does have the pages numbered differently from the paperback. Let us hope that there will not be more than one edition of the paperback printed to save further page number confusion, amongst other reasons.

1. Argument from Age (Wisdom of the Ancients)

This is when a very old (or very young) argument is supposedly superior because of its age. The market will use phrases like, “Old Fashioned Biscuits” and “New and Improved.” McLaren uses this tactic several times but in the opposite form. He argues that the theology the Christian church has held as truth for so long is no longer valid in this post-modern society. Another way that he uses this form of argument is when he states that he’s “been around long enough and involved deeply enough” (pg. 25). He does this again when he says that he “learned the hard way” and that it’s his “most valuable credential.” (pg. 22)

2. Poisoning the Wells

This intellectually dishonest argument is when a person discredits the sources used by their opponent. I cannot use just one or two page numbers here. Ultimately, the premise of the entire book is that nearly everything Christians have learned needs to be unlearned. All sources are, in McLaren’s eyes, already poisoned and he uses name-calling, generalizations, assumptions, and stereotypes to paint this picture. One thing that the reader will notice a lot is the use of the ‘post’ prefix (i.e. post-Protestant, post-Liberal, post-Conservative, post-modern, etc.). He attempts to redefine religious terms after unabashedly attacking them as to demonstrate that all people feel the same way about them and therefore they need redefining. This new definition categorizes people as “post” which means ‘after’ even though he tries to make it sound better by stating it means ‘comes from’. This forces the reader into believing that he/she cannot be associated with one of these old terms and still be following Christ by McLaren’s standards.

3. Confusing Correlation with Causation

Just because an event takes place near the time another event takes place does not mean that one caused the other, yet some people will suggest this is true in their arguments. McLaren uses it when he describes his experiences with the conservative Protestant church and the Pentecostal church (pg. 51-59). McLaren’s experiences are written not like his own personal experiences but rather like it’s true of all people who go to any church under these banners. He assumes that because his own correlation with these church organizations led to a certain experience that it was the organization itself that caused it and that it would be and has been true of everyone else affiliated with it.

4. Reifying

Reifying is when an abstract thing is talked about as if it were concrete. McLaren overstates the seven Jesuses quite purposefully so that they appear to be pieces to a larger puzzle; wrong to be by themselves and thinking that “they are it”; right if unified with the whole. This is a complete fabrication worded in such a way to work around McLaren’s views and agenda.

5. Needling

This is when someone attempts to make the other person angry without trying to address the argument at hand. McLaren does this many times but specifically on page 183 when he asserts that the Bible is to equip God’s people to do good works, not to have the answers. So, anyone who feels that the Bible does have answers to life’s questions is left to feel foolish and like they are not following Jesus properly. He doesn’t attempt to show how or why answers cannot be found nor does he list any scripture that backs this different view. McLaren even goes as far to link (pg 177) the belief of having answers in the Bible with “moderately-educated people.”
Near the beginning of the book (pg 40) McLaren warns the reader that he is unfair. He states, “I am consistently over-sympathetic to Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, even dreaded liberals, while I keep elbowing my conservative brethren in the ribs in a most annoying…way.” This is the definition of needling.

6. Straw Man (Fallacy of Extension)

A straw man argument is one where someone, rather than attack their opponent’s argument, sets up a similar but different “example” of their opponent’s argument and then attacks it instead, leaving the original argument virtually unscathed. McLaren tells a parable (pg 155-158) to the reader in Chapter 8. In the story one group splits into two when a difficulty arises and both groups take different paths but both seem to be destined to fail in their survival. After the parable he likens the two groups to conservatives and liberals and states that in order for survival they are both going to have to change, etc. The parable should have began, “Reader, I would like to introduce you to this straw man.”

7. Argument from Adverse Consequences (Appeal to Fear, Scare Tactics)

McLaren contends that the Old Testament is simply not God’s word to people in our time. It, instead, was “God’s word to people back then.” He recounts many examples of violent acts and states that they mis-read the Old Testament. He commends a few well-known peaceful people saying that they have it right. In the end, he contends that there is nothing to learn from the Old Testament except what not to do. This compounds McLaren’s belief that works are what it means to follow Jesus. (This point is solidified by Gandhi being used as an example of someone who followed the way of Christ) The reader is left with a feeling that any belief that the Bible is God’s word to our generation can and will eventually lead to ethnic cleansing being justified. (pg 189)

8. Excluded Middle (False Dichotomy, Faulty Dilemma, Bifurcation)

This is when someone falsely makes a position out to seem like there are only two options to choose from. For example, an old Donald Duck cartoon was so filled with World War 2 propaganda that it taught the children who watched it that either you gave your money to pay your taxes and were patriotic and had the approval of the “Uncle Sam” character (ironically played by Scrooge McDuck) or you spent your money unwisely which made you a Nazi supporter. McLaren (pg 183) makes it appear that either the reader accept that the purpose of scripture is to equip people to do good works or the reader will end up out of God’s will for themselves and the world. There is no middle presented. The truth, though, is that neither is correct.

9. Special Pleading (Stacking the Deck)

McLaren only uses those biblical excerpts that support his liberal wants and desires. This is done to the extent that he not only ignores the Bible verses and stories that teach otherwise, but doubts their validity or even attempts to prove them wrong (sometimes just coming out claiming the possibility of their fallacy).

10. Argument by Question

This is probably the most widely used tactic that McLaren uses. The very nature of a Generous Orthodoxy is that no one is wrong as long as he/she is generous in a liberal/social context. This means that anyone who claims Generous Orthodoxy cannot answer divisive questions. This does not, however, stop McLaren from asking them. For example: (pg 108) McLaren makes what may be his most pointed and concentrated attack in the book. He poses in a barrage of questions that personal salvation leads to terrible outcomes in the way that most churches use it. Question after question is asked but no statement is made. There is great safety in using questions to attempt to make a point. First, there seems to be virtually no accountability to the one posing them after all he/she didn’t lead people astray by telling them something incorrect; they were just asking questions. Second, you cannot be proven wrong if you say nothing. Let us not forget that it was the serpent in the Garden of Eden that led man to sin by questioning first what Adam and Eve believed. While, I realize this seems to be taking it a little too far, in comparing the tactics used by Brian McLaren and Satan, my point is not to liken the two but rather to demonstrate the use of dishonesty in the form of questions and its obvious negative effects on those who are subjected to it.

11. Argument by Rhetorical Question (Loaded Question)

A rhetorical question is one where it is asked but in such a way that the one answering is led to answer a certain way. This is a very popular form of intellectual dishonesty. A courtroom would call it, “leading the witness.” McLaren uses it (pg 108) here as if he is intentionally teaching the reader how to use only rhetorical questions to make an argument. Every question is loaded and leads like a leash and collar. The reader will answer these questions in their head just as McLaren designed them to be answered. Using these answers, then placed in the reader’s minds, he structures latter questions to make it appear that all these answers have only one conclusion: his intended target.

12. Genetic Fallacy (Fallacy of Origins, Fallacy of Virtue)

This fallacious argument is one rarely spoken but rather implied. The idea is that things or people from that social class, or origin, have virtue or lack virtue. Therefore the actual details of the argument can be overlooked since correctness can be decided without any need to listen, study, or think. McLaren traveled from one denomination to the next and the readers are led to believe that he spent a significant amount of time with each of them and that he was there long enough to be considered one of them. Few people skip through denominations like McLaren has and so, to the reader, he comes off as having truly been a part of all these different views. By being an accepted part of them he establishes himself as being correct in all he says about them. Readers will tend not to question or doubt Catholics about what they say about Catholicism. Quite the opposite, rather, readers will assume that they are experts on the subject. Sometimes a person will directly make this argument by saying something like, “Take it from me. I’m a …”

13. Argument by Personal Charm

This is a tactic used to get your audience to cut you slack. Charm may create trust, or the desire to “join the winning team”, or the desire to please the speaker. McLaren appears to be a charming guy through his writing style. He may appear to be modest. Many will believe that he is helping along some very charming goals including loving and accepting everyone for who they are, working towards a peaceful society, and the great financial equalizer commonly referred to as socialism. McLaren illustrates throughout the book how all the modernistic ways of belief and doing things are going to become extinct in this new “post-modernistic world.” He suggests that we must all change our ways of thinking to a Generous Orthodoxy to survive and in that process we will all be better for it, as will the world. These “join the winning team” tactics can be seen on (pg 155-158) in a parable he tells. Another example is (pg 183) when he lays out two polarizations with a clear “winner,” but the “loser” is “losing” because, according to McLaren, how they view the Bible is wrong and ungodly.

14. Appeal to Pity (Appeal to Sympathy, The Galileo Argument)

Some authors want their readers to know that they are suffering for their beliefs. They’ll tell how they cannot get a fair hearing and that if only people would listen to them that they would see that their seemingly radical beliefs are actually right. In McLaren’s book there is a chapter that comes after the two forewords and the introduction, but before chapter one. It is called Chapter Zero – A Generous Refund. It’s a warning to the reader. Nine times (I counted) he suggests to the reader that he/she should seek to return the book where they purchased it and that hopefully it isn’t too late to receive a refund. These warnings come off, and I believe they were meant to, as more than a dare than a sincere warning. These are aimed at the rebel who is ripe for the picking. He even says at the end of the chapter that he is primarily writing to the Christians who are about to leave the church for disagreeing with the doctrinal distinctives and to the spiritual seekers who are attracted to Jesus but don’t feel that they fit in any church for their differing beliefs. The entire chapter describes how McLaren will be the subject of scrutiny and will have everything that he is about questioned. He states that people will say he needs professional counseling, he’s naïve, and that he’s only trying to validate non-conservative positions. He seems confident rather than pitiful, though. One can easily see where this attitude about it further appeals to the rebel. His ultimate appeal to pity/sympathy while also appealing to the rebel is in the statement he makes about how the reader may not even want to be seen with the book for risk of “guilt by association”. (pg 42) He exaggerates his own need for protection against those who disagree with him by stating that he plans to change his name and join a witness protection program.

15. Stolen Concept

This dishonest argument is when you use the very thing that you are trying to disprove. It’s arguing in circles no less than when dogs chase their tails. McLaren uses the Bible and claims to be biblical, but also states simultaneously that it isn’t correct about what it says. His view of how the books were written breeds doubt about all of it. He says that the books were written by men and that as such they are full of bias, the author’s personality, and heavily influenced by societal structures at the time of their writing. He even goes as far to point out that some people don’t even believe that the witness accounts of Jesus were true, but that they were works of fiction to inspire. He then applauds these people’s belief and actions (pg 67-68). For an easy read on a more in-depth study on the reliability of the Bible, I suggest Lee Strobel's The Case for Christ.

16. Argument from False Authority

The opposite, argument from authority, is to claim that the arguer is an expert in the area being argued. In contrast, an argument from false authority states that the arguer is not an expert in the area being argued and therefore you should trust him. It’s strange, I know, but McLaren uses it in chapter zero (pg 38) when he mentions that he is neither a trained theologian nor a legitimate pastor. He instead is an English major who says he is a “confessed amateur.” He then attempts to glorify this by saying, “you may define amateur as ‘one who works for love not money.’” As if professionals aren’t as qualified since they are only doing it for a paycheck, McLaren suggests here with this statement that his heart is more in it than they. Could it not also be suggested that professional’s hearts are in it more since they suffered through all the grueling work to get to a place where they know what they know?

17. Pious Fraud

This sort of fraud is one that is meant to accomplish some good end, on the theory that the end justifies the means. In chapter 10, McLaren gives the reader a diagram attempting to illustrate how the world has been gradually getting less and less violent. Maybe only in America can a reader see this and not immediately wonder what rock McLaren’s been living under. The ethnic cleansing in Sudan, the constant struggle between the Israelis and the Palestinians, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the almost daily suicide bombings to which we’ve grown accustomed, the terrorist attacks, the growing tension and nuclear threats between North Korea and the United States, and the epidemic of sexual slavery all point to a very violent world of clashing empires. This is exactly how McLaren describes the distant past where his diagram begins. He also mentions (pg 69) how we are getting closer to “God’s will being done on Earth which includes the extinction of war.” Later (pg 187) he proposes that God wants a nonviolent and kind humanity. While this may be true, a Generous Orthodoxy’s assumption is a complete transfer of priority. These statements are to set up the fraud that we are moving towards peace on Earth through our own efforts and that it is in this way that God wants it done. While the end, if believed, may be a good one, socially speaking, it still does not justify the means. This aside, it is rather opposite of what the end times sound like coming from Jesus’ own mouth. (Matthew 24:4)

18. Inconsistency

This is simply when someone’s thought processes in separate statements are contradictory in their nature. McLaren gives us an obvious example of this kind of intellectual dishonesty when (pg 22) he admits, “In a way I wish every reader could pretend to be…exploring the Christian story…for the first time.” Two sentences later, he says, “I often think my most valuable credential is my vast repertoire of stupid mistakes through the years, mistakes that can’t help but teach their perpetrator something the hard way.” In the first statement he discounts those that have any previous knowledge or experience, and then counts his own as “his most valuable credential.”

19. Argument by Prestigious Jargon

Many people use large complicated words to argue with and it will often give the listener the illusion that the user of these words is educated. Many listeners won’t even ask for a definition if they don’t know it in fear of embarrassment. I, personally, have found that those people who know what they are talking about and are confident of it being true will refrain from using language rarely used for the sake of helping the listener understand. McLaren is pretty good about using common language. However, this can be seen in the first foreword written by Phyllis Tickle. The following two excerpts are from her:

“What mattered was that, in aggregate, they revealed the conventions and structures of established religion as more human than divine in both its origin and consequence.”

And

“As a blow to the hegemony of enfranchised institutions, the impact of the printing press can best be understood today as analogous…”

If you understand immediately what is being said here to the extent of being able to explain it to someone else in everyday terms then congratulations are in order. If, however, like me, you had to look up the definition of a word or two so as not to rely on the context for meaning and had to re-read the sentences a few times to just somewhat comprehend the point being made then don’t feel bad. Surely, you are in a category with the majority. That being said, it’s important when writing a book, paper, review, or even foreword that we write so that it is understood especially when writing about something that may have eternal consequences attached.

20. Appeal to Widespread Belief (Bandwagon Argument, Peer Pressure, Appeal to Common Practice)

Even non-Christians understand that the Bible tells us to do good things. I’ve yet to meet anyone who has argued with that. McLaren takes it a step further by, quite assertively, stating that the purpose of scripture is to equip people to do good works. The word ‘purpose’ here begs an argument. While the Bible does, in fact, instruct to do many good things it never, anywhere, states that the performing of good deeds is its purpose of existence. However, McLaren would have us believe this hook, line, and sinker since the widely understood general view of the Bible seems to support it.

21. Having Your Cake (Failure to Assert, Diminished Claim)

This is when someone seems to be claiming something by giving arguments for it but then backs out or dismisses it at the end. Or, heard at the beginning of an argument, it might sound something like this, “I don’t necessarily believe it, but…” This way they can argue the point, but if proven wrong or if out-debated they can simply fall back on their original disclaimer of not believing it. McLaren does this (pg 67-68) when he throws out on the table that “some” believe that miracles in the Bible didn’t actually happen. He follows this with argument after argument of how these people are correct. He then sort of denies affiliation with them by saying that he believes “actual miracles can and do happen” but take notice that he fails to state whether or not he believes they did happen. Also, he follows even this statement with a disclaimer saying that the miracles, he believes happen, “create nearly as many problems as they solve.” He ends the subject “applaud(ing) (your) desire to live out the meaning of the miracle stories even when (you) don’t believe the stories really happened as written.” This is followed by a rebuke to “those who take pride in believing the miracles really happened but don’t seek to live out their meaning.” (Side note: notice he says ‘take pride’ when referring to those who believe in the biblical miracles. This makes it sound sinful to believe them. Also, note that all this is based off the ‘miracle stories’ meaning. Who determines their meaning? McLaren doesn’t explain what his interpreted meaning is.) In the end, we’re left wondering what he really believes, but his goal of having his cake and eating it, too, has been thoroughly accomplished in most reader’s minds.

22. Ambiguous Assertion

This is when a statement is made but it is sufficiently unclear that it leaves some sort of leeway. The statement may be vague and this can be done intentionally or unintentionally. This is similar to Having Your Cake, but not necessarily about a certain position in an argument. It’s broader, encompassing any statement or argument that leaves room for different positions or interpretations. For example, “Last night I shot a burglar in my pajamas.” Who was wearing the man’s pajamas? It could be read either way. McLaren leaves room in almost everything he says and even addresses his lack of clarity (pg 27) when he states that he has gone out of his way to be unclear so as to “stimulate more thought.”

23. Argument By Laziness

I covered this on number 16, Argument from False Authority, somewhat. I brought up McLaren’s boasting of not having any theology training. Argument by laziness is when a person doesn’t do the work or the studying but thinks that their opinion should be respected anyway. McLaren takes this even further by suggesting that his opinion might need to be even more respected because, unlike professional theologians, he does it for the love not the money.

24. Internal Contradiction

This is saying two or more contradictory things in the same argument. This is related to Inconsistency, however, an inconsistency does not necessarily have to be contradictory. McLaren’s theology contradicts itself when he consistently claims that we should follow Jesus’ example but also denies the validity of the witness accounts of Jesus’ life and teaching. How do we follow Bob’s example when everything we know about Bob is written by men whose writings are decidedly fictional? (See page 67 and the argument against the literal reading of miracles in the Bible)

25. Argument by Repetition

McLaren repeats himself several times about the purpose of scripture, among other things. In chapter 10, he words it differently each time and inserts it into somewhat different context but the repetition is not lost. “I believe (the Bible) is a gift from God, inspired by God, to benefit us in the most important way possible: equipping us so that we can benefit others…” (pg 177) “Perhaps the best way to use scripture is…to focus on our pursuit of mission. Then we will need Scripture to do what it was intended to do.” (pg 182) “The purpose of Scripture is to equip God’s people for good works.” (pg 183) “…biblical Christians have thrived when we’ve used the Bible with the goal of becoming good people who…do good works.” (pg 183) He also repeats in different ways what the purpose of scripture is not.

26. Statement of Conversion

This is simply a weak form of asserting expertise and so it is related to Argument from Authority. The speaker is implying that he has learned about the subject by being one of them and so he knows better than others, but now that he is “better informed” he has rejected the subject. McLaren does this several times as he describes the seven Jesuses that he met, but more specifically does it (pg 66) when he claims that he used to be deeply prejudiced against liberal and mainline Protestants. He implies here and solidifies the implication later that he, being “better informed,” is now liberal.