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.

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.

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.

I just decided to launch a Paradise Digital blog.  (That’s my company for those who have forgotten).

It’s over at http://paradisedigital.wordpress.com for now, but will soon be integrated into the new site.  Speaking of the new site, it’s looking great, and while Gina helps me edit the content and keep some cohesion (THANK YOU Gina!) I’m also finishing the demo reels to go on their respective pages.  Once all that is done, it will launch and I will be super-rich-and-famous.  Or at least proud.

Thanks to my parents too for believing in me with this.  It means a lot.  More than I can write frankly.

So today I was just surfing over at the Enoch’s Path website looking for things that either needed changing or updating, or just kind of looking over it (isn’t it funny how rarely we look at the things we write after time passes). What I found was something that challenged me. I find myself pretty regularly challenged lately, ever since EP’s permanence was called into question, and while I enjoy being called into accountability spiritually speaking, it has been a trying time personally. Again, I enjoyed it.

Nonetheless, what challenged me today on EP’s site was this phrase:

“We believe that God’s story has more to do with how we live rather than what happens when we die.”

Personally, I used to put a LOT of (if not all of my) stock into what I was building up in Heaven. It’s only been recently that those views have been challenged. Some have said that maybe Heaven as we currently frame it, doesn’t exist. Or even if it does exist, does it have ANYthing to do with Christ’s message as he was trying to teach us how to live here on Earth?

Regardless of my current beliefs on whether Heaven is an ethereal place in the clouds that we go to when we die, or something less enjoyable, I want to focus right now on the phrase from above that says God’s story has more to do with how we live, rather than what happens when we die. Because to me, that says everything.

How am I living? I know it’s not up to my “potential” (a terrible word, but useful nonetheless). I also know, it’s extremely selfish most of the time. I look for projects to do that won’t take a lot of my time, or that I can use money to solve, instead of dirtying my hands or complicating my social calendar (which admittedly is pretty thin lately anyway).

If God (in Christ) was teaching us how to live on Earth, maybe the reason it’s easy for the rest of us to focus on how to live in Heaven because that’s not our present, it’s our future (we hope). It’s easier for Christians, myself at the forefront of this list, to say that “We’ll never be perfect, but we’re trying” if we know that someday we’ll “get there” literally by arriving on Heaven’s doorstep.

But what if the purpose of TRYING to live a perfect life isn’t because we’ll ever be rewarded….but just because that’s the only hope this planet has of becoming heaven on earth.

It won’t happen in my lifetime, it may not happen in my daughter’s lifetime, or in my grandchildren’s…so we can’t really see it as a reward system anymore, so much as just the way to live because it’s right to do so.

Alright…that’s wonderful to put down in words, now how do I actually focus on how God wants me to live? I believe he’s already spelled it out in the Bible. Take care of the widows and the orphans. Take care of the poor. Take care of the least of these. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love the Lord God with all your heart. Love each other as Christ first love us.

Easier said than done.

After all of this, I’m sure I’ll find out later that I’m wrong. Or at least off track somehow. I think I was talking to Chad last week when he helped me come to the realization that NO MATTER what you believe, Christ would come and turn it on its head. He did it for the apostles, AND the pharisees…I don’t remember him telling anyone that they had it right and they should just stay the course. He challenged EVERYONE to live better, and to do things differently than they thought they should.

So here’s to change!

Thanks Phil for sharing this with us.  Chandra wants to hold a seminar in the Financial Aid Office based on this hilarious-because-it’s-true SNL skit.

Don’t Buy Stuff You Cannot Afford

Beautiful weather this weekend!  Seriously, it’s been gorgeous.  We even slept with the windows open which hasn’t happened in a couple of weeks.  Except of course in the girls’ room.

So what did we do with this weekend and it’s weather?  Well, Friday was great.  It started around 3 with Gina coming over and hanging with us for the first time since Elliot was born.  She finally got to meet her and hold her and just be with us, which was great.  Her oldest was checking out SAU and so she came to visit with us while it was “non-mom” time.  So we had some chicken for dinner and then headed out to Eastwood Towne Center for some Maggie Moo’s…which, as our Clio friends are all starting to realize, is something we subject them all too.  We refuse to be the only addicts!

After Gina and the Owen clan split ways we headed back to our house for movie time with Luke & Jenny.  They wanted to see Iron Man, and I’d bought it when it came out.  Chandra was not looking forward to this.  I think she enjoyed it anyway.  Then afterward, we were all still awake and they said they had never seen Forgetting Sarah Marshall, so we watched that too.

Highlight from movie night: Luke & I wanted some beer so we ran around the corner to Big 10 party store and I was just going to get my usual $4 Old Style 6-pack.  (Joe 6-pack?)  Instead, we found a Sam Adams Variety 12-pack.  2 of their 6 different flavors including Scotch Ale, Irish Ale, Brown Lager, Black Lager, Boston Lager and Honey Porter.  They were delicious.  My favorite was the Scotch Ale…and who would’ve known had we not tried?  I like changing it up every now and again.  It was Luke’s treat too, so I owe him now.

Yesterday (Saturday) was just calling for spending time outdoors so we decided to drive up to our old town of Dewitt and hang out there.  We always enjoyed walking downtown Dewitt, it’s very quiet and not at all a busy downtown like Okemos.  Sure enough, there was some fair going on.  So we had the dog on her leash and Elliot in her stroller and once we got there Elliot needed to be fed.  So we found a bench in the shade just off of the “major intersection” in Dewitt and sat for a half hour just enjoying the weather while the girl had a bottle.  Bailey loved it, I just tied her off to the bench.  We really didn’t walk much after that though because it was crowded, there were mosquitos and we still had more plans for that evening.

So we drove the dog up to Chandra’s parents (about 7 minutes away) and left her in the kennel with her best doggy pal Cocoa (Chan’s parents are up at her aun’ts this weekend in Lake City), and then we went to Golf Gone Goofy in Dewitt.  I slung Elliot in the front-carrier and golfed with my arms essentially wrapped around her.  This was our first trip trying something like that, and while she fussed for the first 10 minutes, and I was constantly worried about smothering her (which she seems to try to do anyway as she’s always burying her head), she ended up falling asleep for the last 10 holes of golf.  We had a great time.  It felt almost normal again.  Which was nice.

We then ordered a dinner from our favorite Dewitt bar/eatery Relli’s and took it back to her folk’s house to eat.

Curtis’ parents live around the corner from Chan’s, and Curtis & Becky were having a bonfire so Chandra wanted to stop by and say hello.  We did for about an hour but sat inside because the skeeters were unbelieveable and we didn’t want Elliot getting West Nile or something.

Anyway, it was nice to get out and do stuff and realize we’re not relegated to the inside of our house all the time.  Unfortunately, how many more weekends this nice will we have?  HOPEFULLY, one more!  We’re joining up with my brother’s family and my parents in Frankenmuth next weekend to celebrate my Mom’s birthday!  We were actually already excited about that THIS weekend and almost drove out there one week early just for the heck of it…but we figured that’s probably not wise and we should just wait.

Although I’ll just let everyone know I’m still furious about the Frankenmuth Brewery closing.

So the last time I got a knock on the door late at night and answered it to find a young black girl standing there shaking and afraid, it was because she crashed her minivan through my tress and into my yard.  Long story, it’s on the blog somewhere though if you want to read it…check back around April.

Tonight however, the poor girl was shivering (seemingly from the cold) and asked if she could use my phone (same as last time) because she still had a long way to walk from here.  I said sure and gave it to her and mentioned, “Yeah, it’s too cold to walk that far tonight.”  Her response was, “I’m ok with the cold, it’s just the dark that I don’t like.”  And sure enough we have a mile or two of completely unlit, wooded sidewalk on this street.

No one picked up the other end of that call.

She said thanks and hesitated before turning around and SLOWLY walking down my driveway.

I asked Chandra if she thought it was advisable for me to drive her to her home (if she accepted).  Chan wasn’t thrilled with the idea, but this was obviously nothing more than a scared teenager walking home from High School after a football game (there was a game at OHS tonight).

She appreciated my offer and reluctantly accepted (hey, we’re both dealing with strangers in this situation).  Halfway to her apartment I asked if everything was ok, because she seemed on the verge of tears and she quickly said, “I think someone was following me.  Every time I turned around to check though I heard a lot of rushing and running and it sounded like they darted into the woods.  I know it sounds paranoid, but it was so pitch black dark I was really starting to freak out, so I ran up to your house.”  She had a hoodie on that said “Okemos High Pom Squad” and said that she’d had to perform during the football game.

I was glad she chose my house.  I got her home safe and sound in about 3 minutes, but it would’ve probably been another 20 minutes walking in the cold dark night.

Not due to a lack of events in my life I haven’t been real great at keeping this page updated.  I apologize to both of you.

Things of note:

• Obviously I have a daughter now, which has significantly changed how I spend the little bit of spare time that I have.  For example, I’m both watching Iron Man, editing this, and making sure my kid and wife are able to sleep (by staying quiet) while I type and watch.
• My wedding website is nearly complete at www.owenvideo.com.  I’m just not happy with the clip that’s up there, so I’ve been compiling clips to make a sure little montage instead.  Meanwhile my business cards for it have been printed and I’ve handed some out to friends of relatives who have kids or “people they know” getting married soon.
• Unfortunately my corporate website hasn’t quite launched yet.  My buddy Dave who is making it is just swamped with work, including his daily grind job, plus the websites he’s building for actual money (which I am not giving him, we’re trading a website for me so I can help edit a commercial for him as well as a motion graphic intro for his vidcasts.
• I’ve only got unemployment due to me up through December, which used to be fine…until I realized we’re still going to need money after that.  But, if I get a part-time job, it has to be one that is only weekends, or will start weeknights AFTER 5:30 (when Chandra gets home)…which should be just about impossible to find.
• My dog snores LOUDLY.  Also, she likes to push her blanket to the front of her crate and roll around in the middle of the night making loud clanging and banging noises to wake us and Elliot up.  So far I’ve been able to prevent most of that by affixing her blanket, or replacing it with one that is stuffed with stiff padding and she can’t move as well.
• Helped move the Murphy’s (Ypsi Free’s former pastor) the other night, and I’m still pretty sore from that.  But it was nice being able to help them out…I like alleviating people’s fears about fitting all of their belongings into a 26′ moving truck.

That’s all I can think of now because the kid (sorry mom - Our little girl) is fussing in her crib and I need to be ready to go grab her when she starts wailing.

Chad already beat me to ranting about this new commercial string.  Please, Microsoft….just up the anty…don’t fight the advertising.

I don’t know who you were, but someone (I would even wager, someone who reads this) sent us a WONDERFUL gift to commemorate Elliot’s birth.  It’s a building (baby) block, with a big letter “E” on it and her birthday, our names, her full name and a baby footprint image on it.  It’s ADORABLE, but it came with no name or anything, so we don’t know who sent it, but we want to because it’s very special to us.

If you know someone having a baby, I can’t recommend this enough, it’s super personal and we love it.  www.craft-e-family.com is the website associated with it (on the bottom of the block).

THANKS whoever it was, but please make yourselves known!

Need a recommendation on a bank?  I’ll give you one NOT to use.  National City.  They can burn in the fiery pits of Hades for all I care.

Every local branch of National City (NC) (well, minus Dewitt, MI) has been wonderful to Chandra and I.  First in Clio, they knew me by name after two or three visits!  They knew where I worked, asked me about how life was, they were SO great!  In Okemos, same thing!  They knew me and I only went inside (maybe) three times!  Wonderful people, staff and just an overall pleasant experience.

HOWEVER - I have many times had to deal with their RIDICULOUS policies, procedures, practices and national customer service hotline, and I can tell you, they have trained monkeys how to talk and answer phones!

We cancelled our account with NC about 6 months ago, because if we accidentally went over our balance, EACH ERROR cost us $30.  So if we didn’t know we overdrafted (this was before we were great about budgeting) and kept purchasing, each purchase cost us an additional (non-negotiable) $30.  One time, we got a statement and an included bill for $90.00.  We OBVIOUSLY DIDN’T HAVE THAT KIND OF MONEY IF WE WERE OVERDRAFTING.  Nonetheless, we closed our account.

Today, I got a letter from National City reminding us that we stopped a check to our mortgage company a year ago (our mortgage got sold 4 times in the first year and we wrote a check the same day we found that out one time, so we cancelled it because the mortgage company’s customer service couldn’t help us either).  It added, that since it was almost one year to the date of cancelling it, we needed to RENEW our cancellation of the check, or it would be released, and they could possibly cash it.  Oh yeah, it was going to cost us $32.00 AGAIN!!

I called their hotline to complain, and the woman goes, “Oh, well a cancelled check only stops for a year before it’s released if you don’t renew it.”  And I said, “But we cancelled it.  We stopped it.  We didn’t PAUSE it…we STOPPED it.”  I’ve rarely yelled at customer service people, but today I did.

Finally I got in touch with our local branch to make sure our account was indeed closed and that they couldn’t bill us for this $32 if we refused.  She confirmed it was closed and said, “Sir, even if they did release that check, we don’t cash checks once they’re 6 months or older.”

DUH!  So why is their corporate headquarters trying to nickel-and-dime us every freaking month?!

The moral of the story: DO WHATEVER YOU MUST TO NEVER WORK WITH NATIONAL CITY BANK.

So I’ve been working on the computer for about 30 minutes and Elliot was being fussy in the crib & in the pack and play, so I’ve been getting work done (or reading blogs…whichever), like this:

I don’t know why, but sometimes I enjoy scaring myself into realizing how the end of the world (whether biblical, scientific, or a mixture somewhere in between) is going to come about.  Unfortunately, I didn’t invent this one myself.  I wonder if this has anything to do with the Mayan Calendar ending in 2012…

World’s Largest Super Collider could Destroy the Universe.