Hello. It’s Sunday, Nov. 30th 2008. After a long, exhausting four days, I’m home under a fleece blanket, studying Hebrew and other courses (well, not RIGHT now, but generally that’s what I’m doing). The wind and snow are blowing fiercely outside my window, which I can’t even see out of right now because it is [...]

Here’s my annual list of things I’m thankful for, 2008 edition: My wife, the loves she gives me, the laugh she laughs, the moments between us that are between us My kids, their love, laughter, silliness, and the crazy stuff that they think of My family, sisters, brother, parents and so on My Tapestry family, new ones, old ones, [...]

(ht to Andrew)       

seriously, this is amazing. yes, they were playing live too…      

by the way, the subliminal message in the Lost trailer is for a fictional airline “ajira airways” - “ajira” is hindi for “island” can you dig it? I know you can.       

Ok, this is now my fav. song out. It screams the feelings I have inside. It also sums up how I feel that God found me, not the other way around.Oh, and just because I love the tv show “Lost,” here’s the official trailer for this next season, with the same song.        [...]

I thought this was an appropriate clip to steal from my brother’s blog as we come up on Thanksgiving.  It’s funny and poignant…and true.  And funny.  I know I said that twice, but I laughed out loud at one point when he talks about cell phones going into space and how impatient we are.

I know it’s four minutes and to any of us who have “places to be and things to do” online that’s long, but part of the point of this clip to me is to slow down and appreciate things more.  So shutty.

      

This is from Brian Mclaren. It’s so good, I HAD to repost it here: For those of you baffled by the global economic meltdown, the following summary of basic economic theory should be helpful. Some of it may seem familiar and you may feel you’ve heard it all before, but note that fascinating new information has been added, [...]

I love my wife and my daughter.  They both crack me up from time to time.

Tonight, I was on the computer (as I am now again) and when I walked into the other room, Chandra was holding Elliot on her tummy while the baby napped.  Chandra wanted to surf the web, but was loving having her daughter on her belly.  So she asked me to move the ottoman over for her, and put the laptop on it so she could type and surf one-handed.

The laptop battery was dead, so the plug, which resides semi-permanently behind the couch, had to be stretched over her to reach the computer, just missing the baby.  Here’s how it looked.

      

(sung by Enya, on her new album “Winter time”)      

a prayer written by Shane Claiborne on Sojo.net God of Abraham, Miriam, Hannah, Rizpah, and David… God of Elijah, Amos, Ruth, Isaiah, Deborah… God of Mary, John the Baptizer, Peter, Paul, Philemon and Onesimus… God of Anthony, Ambrose, Dirk Willems, Teresa of Avila, and Francis of Assisi, God of Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, William Wilberforce, and Oscar Romero and [...]

I’ve just returned home from viewing the movie, “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas.” It is a gripping movie. For those who haven’t read the book, the movie takes place amid World War II in Germany. The main character is a boy named “Bruno” (played by Asa Butterfield) who is the son of a Nazi [...]

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of attending the Michigan Poverty Summit. It started out early, way too early. I was up at 5am and left Lansing around 6am. I and my friend Amanda rode down with my mom and our family friend, Theresa. We got there at a little after 8:30, registered and walked into [...]

I tried to pay attention to both sides of an argument.

I’m human, so I fail at that a lot, but I do try.

One of my more conservative friends, who is very active in both politics and her church, posted a story written by Chuck Colson on his reflections of the “deep despair” many Christians are feeling over the election of President-Elect Obama.

Immediately I rolled my eyes and gagged slightly.  However, I know enough of Chuck Colson to know that while I disagree with most of his views, he is a smart guy, and usually a generous one who is not quick to dismiss his opponent just because they disagree with him.

So it was an interesting read.

While he is unhappy with the election results due to his own beliefs of the definition of marriage and pro-life positions, he is thrilled for what this means to African-Americans, and the world-at-large’s impression of America now.

Give it a read.  You may not agree with it all, but it’s dumb to read stuff you already agree with all the time.

http://christianpost.com/article/20081108/election-results.htm

      

Well on Veteran’s Day I of course think of my two Grandpa’s who served during WWII; Grandpa Owen trained pilots on simulators and my Grandpa Farley was a ball-turret gunner in a plane similar to the one you see in the movie Memphis Belle.

I also think of my Father-in-law who did not have to serve during war time thankfully, but was stationed in Hawaii…so it was difficult I’m sure.

And my buddy Chris Barnes, who served over in Germany and Kosovo in the nineties and had to be staged stategically to stop riots.  He was jumped by a rather large Kosovoian nationalist during one such riot after the guy got up on the tank Chris was guarding and launched himself onto Chris’ back seriously injuring his spine.  Chris is a disabled vet, and a great guy.

My wife also has two second cousins who both served in Iraq in the past four years.  They’ve served two tours each and are happy to finally be home.

Thanks to all of those men for serving their country.

      

stolen from my brother’s blog

      

I watch Today on NBC each morning while I’m waking up, helping my wife get ready for work and checking my e-mail.  I’ve noticed there’s one “reporter” that is just awful.  The anchors are fun usually, and sometimes a tad annoying…but hey, so am I.  But their medical reporter, Dr. Nancy Snyderman, can’t keep her opinion out of her reports.  I understand to a point, when you report on something you’re passionate about it must be difficult to stay out of your reports emotionally…but this woman is incapable of doing that.

When she reported on vaccinations she kept saying, “There is no controversy, no matter what people say, vaccinations do NOT harm your children.”  Ok…she’s not the expert, she was supposedly interviewing experts, and there were people who disagreed with that opinion who got about 2 seconds on air while they manipulated their lines into something to make them sound uneducated.  So today when she came on, it was about some medical study they did where they gave a placebo and WOW, this heart disease medicine works because of the dramatic results, so they cancelled the five year study and just put everyone on it after a year and a half.  She just went on and on about what a miracle company this was (I won’t be mentioning their name, because I don’t agree) and how we should be thanking them so deeply for this drug that has only been studied for a little over a year.

Are you kidding?  Take her off of TV.  She’s not a reporter, she’s an insider, and an opinionated one at that.

Oh…while watch Today this morning I saw that the Obama family (or any new presidential family for that matter) is given a re-decorating allowance of $100,000 when they first move in.  To be honest…that’s not a lot for a 33 bedroom home with a dining room that seats 100 and a situation room in the basement.  On HGTV they give families $1,000 to work with and have to pinch their pennies just to paint and slightly redecorate two rooms usually.  I’m shocked it’s not a more outrageous number.

      

I saw a trailer tonight for The Beautiful Truth, a movie about the cure for cancer…that has existed for decades.  Developed by Dr. Gerson and having an organization founded in 1977 to promote it (which they’re having a hard time doing obviously…thank you big 5 pharmaceutical companies), this movie intrigues me.

I love jumping on the anti-corporate America bandwagon as much as the next guy.  I really do, and I believe there’s something TO this movie.  I’ll see it eventually (it’s not out yet).  But my only problem is the sheer volume of questions they asked in the trailer.  It seemed like they couldn’t focus on one issue…which is fine for life, but not for a movie.  I’m worried that they’re not going to deeply answer any questions, but instead just lead you to another organization for which you will have to pay to get answers from.

I’m going to do some more research on this one and get back later.  Check out the trailer at apple.com/trailers if you’re interested.  It’s not the highest quality trailer, but it’s easy enough to get the idea from it.

      

So I know that this blog is open to the public, and it probably has it’s share of lurkers…although for what reason I have no idea.  It’s one of the most poorly updated, and least interesting to look at sites out there.

Nonetheless, it’s out there.

But when I was Twittering a few days ago about a site that I’ve used a few times, Zamzar.com, I never expected a direct response ON my Twitter page from Zamzar!  They don’t subscribe to my blog…so they must have some kind of engine tagging their name so that when it appears, they’re there to post help!

THAT IS THE FUTURE OF CUSTOMER SERVICE.

At least I hope so.  I don’t know whether or not they’ll be able to help with my problem, and to be honest, I don’t really need it at this point (could’ve used it that day, which was when they did respond to me, I just didn’t notice until now).  It’s just amazing to me that they care enough about their users experience to make sure it’s a good one.  I’m not a paying customer.  It’s a free file conversion site.

So do you need a Word document converted to a PDF but don’t have Adobe Acrobat installed?  Go to Zamzar.com, upload it, and they’ll e-mail you when it’s ready.  Do you have a Quicktime Video you want as a WMW?  Not sure why you would step backwards like that but they can help!

Why am I promoting them now?  Is it because they caught me saying their site was ’stupid’ and that they’ve incurred my ‘wrath’ and now I’m back-peddling?  …it’s possible.  But really, I’m just super impressed that even after that, they contacted me to see how they could help.

      

So I over heard Chandra on the phone talking to her mom about job security and some of what she said struck me like it never has before.

Chandra works for the second largest employer in the capital area, Michigan State University.  People are PROBABLY going to continue going to college through hard financial times.  Which means, they’ll need financial aid.  Which is what she counsels on and processes.  It’s true, banks may stop lending as MUCH, but there are still grants and scholarships.  Their department, has become one of the most important ones in the college lately…and it’s a job that no one really wants.

So when they opened a campus in Grand Rapids recently, people in her office were offered raises to go work there (don’t ask).  Same thing when they opened a campus in DUBAI.  That’s right…DUBAI.  Man…that would’ve been sweet.

My point?  Even if something happened and MSU ceased to have Financial Aid…there are jobs out there for people with experience…and she’s got two years and counting.  She’s a genius.  Get the job that the masses dont want, stick with it, and make sure it’s something that a financial recession can’t hurt too badly (unlike her husband who was part of a non-unionized department at a financially failing school district….).

I’m proud of her, that’s all I’m saying.