Monthly Archives: July 2007

A Funny Story to Keep You Secure

If I were Bruce Schneier and I had witness the following conversation I would tell the story at any possible opportunity because what you’re about to read is true, and stupid.  Instead this story comes from my friend, Dave.  Dave was telling me that while he was waiting for the shuttle at a hotel to take him to some destination the following occured:

 Two co-workers checked in together, one headed off to his room, the other asked the clerk what the first guy’s room number was… She wouldn’t give it out, “privacy” she said.  Good for her.

I decided to “help out” (okay, I like tweaking people), so I went up asked if he was in 105 ’cause I stayed in that one before and it had a funny smell…

She said, “No, he’s in 104.”

You just can’t make this stuff up 🙂

Feasting on Asphalt 2

Last year Jessica and I really enjoyed Feasting on Asphalt – a tour across the width of the United States on back roads with Alton Brown & his production crew. Love it. Watched each episode at least once and most of them twice. We’re that sick. But its coming up again and they’ll be premiering season two this Saturday night on the Food Network. Set your DVRs, rescheduled your otherwise important events and check it out.

You can learn more on Alton Brown’s site.

Big Step in the Seated Position

Evelyn went potty on the toilet tonight.  Much cheering took place – as you can imagine – and she was excited.  I’m not sure she realizes how wonderful it will be for us to not have to spend so much money on diapers and wipes and having to always remember to carry the diaper bag.  This is just the start and she’s by no means done being potty trained, but I’m excited to see this next stage coming.  As a parent you love the next stage because you see your child develop and grow, but at the same time there is moderate sorrow to see that the memories are what you have left because that very child is growing.  Its wonderful, though, and I’m glad that she’s not going to be thirty, living in the basement and wearing diapers 😉

Trials & Suffering

I don’t know how to respond to this article about suffering other than to say that the people involved seem to be enamored with themselves.  Christianity doesn’t have simple answers for all things, but the things the people in this article are saying make me want to hurl.  Their attitude towards pain and suffering indicates that they have not read their Bibles, they haven’t evaluated the afterlife, and that they don’t understand the full potential of pain and suffering that could take place.  I once heard a teacher discussing this very issue bring up a good point: what if God was halving suffering from what it could be?  What if we, on this earth, were only suffering one one-hundredth of what we could be suffering?  Would we care?  Would we be thankful towards God for preserving us and letting us suffer so little?

I have written before about a former elder at our church who simply taught about trials and suffering and went over the need for the Christian to understand God’s use of trials and suffering in their life.  Hal actually suffered a lot as he died of cancer, but that cancer was not a trial he couldn’t fathom, he spent much time rejoicing that the Lord used it to bring people into his life that he could share the gospel of Jesus Christ with.  Hal saw that the trials and suffering were a beautiful gift that was only temporary.  He saw eternity with God as a clear and powerful goal that made the suffering less of a distraction.  Yes, he hurt.  Yes, his family and our whole church cried when he died, but we all know where he’s going and we all wept with joy as we came together to share stories of love, compassion and awesome counseling that were all part of Hal’s life.

The article linked to above doesn’t offer answers and hope, it offers hopelessness and really nothing worth keeping track of.

Snakes

I have seen two snakes, of the garden variety, around my house.  Two!  Its pretty cool to see those sorts of critters since we have a garden.  As if the snakes weren’t cool enough Abby today watched in rapt awe as a spider wrapped up an earwig near our back porch.  She said that it was wrapping the earwig in its yarn.  You just have to love kids’ vocabulary.

I Wish I Could Make This Up

Someone searched on the Interwebs and got to my site.  They searched for”Neopolitan Dynamite part 2.”  I can’t even imagine what the first movie about exploding ice cream would contain, let alone a sequel.  It seems that Hollywood is reaching pretty far now 🙂

A Day of Tears

Today at church we said good-bye to our friends the Pools.  They’ll be moving to Virginia later this week and we won’t see them as regularly.  Fortunately Rachel has family here so they’ll be back at times and we’ll get to see them.  I was very sad to see them leave.  The Lord has a plan for them and I’m OK with their departure.  We had to leave friends and family when we left Nevada and Texas.

One of the families we left in Texas was the Mason’s.  They’ve been planning and trying to adopt a baby from China for about three years now.  Today, in China, they picked up their baby girl Nadia.  Jessica and I had tears streaming down our faces as we watched these videos of Luanne & Mike holding their new baby girl.  They will be heading home after about a week’s time I believe.  We can’t wait to meet Nadia and see them again as a bigger family.

Many tears today, but we’re glad for what the Lord is doing!

iLustForAniPhone

I used an iPhone today.  Crap.  I totally want one – like I’d probably sell one of my internal organs for one.  Its cooler than cool.  It may single-handedly be able to reverse global warning and help find the cure for Paris Hilton.  Wow.

The downside is that I also want the $500.00 that it has as a requirement to get one 🙂

Color Me More Biaseder

If I wasn’t biased before – I am more biased now.  Microsoft has patented an adware framework.  They want to patent the concept and lets pray that they don’t use it.  You can read more about it here.  I’m a Mac & Linux fanboy, and I know that many of you know that, but please, for all that is good let Microsoft know this is unacceptable.

A Customer Service Story & A Joke

Today on my lunch break Jessica and I went to go close a bank account at a bank we don’t want to use any longer.  Upon going into the bank the two gals that were closest to one another behind the counter were bandying back and forth about getting married to a millionaire – together.  They argued who would get access to the money and who would have to sleep with the guy (they were definitely interested in the money and not the man who had accrued it).  Its the kind of customer service you dream of from a bank.  It reminded me of this joke:

A man is in a bar and finds a woman down the bar from him attractive.  He picks up his drink and slides on down next to her.  He looks her in the eye and says, “Would you sleep with me for $1,000,000.00?”

She sizes him up, thinks for a moment and then says, “Yes.”

The man looks back at her and says, “Would you sleep with me for $100.00?”

“What kind of woman do you take me for,” she asks.

“We’ve already established you’re a whore, now we’re just haggling over the price!”