Refrigerator Verse of the Day

Hebrews 5:11 (New Living Translation) - "There is much more we would like to say about this, but it is difficult to explain, especially since you are spiritually dull and don’t seem to listen."

A Child of the 70's

Well not really. She was born in 2004. But if she had been born in the 70's she might dress like this. Friday we went to a party for a friend who turned 30. She was born in 1978 so her husband decided to have a 1970's themed party. We had a great time dressing up and dancing to disco. There was also a trivia game in which Tony McCollum dominated. He apparently spent a LOT of time watching television in the 70's. A groovin' time was had by all.

Hello, Goodbye

Our friend, Holly, has decided to drop off the face of blogdom. I just found out about this when I visited another friend's new blog, and she mentioned it in the comments. I haven't heard, therefore, if it was just too time-consuming, or if she felt she was running out of ideas, or what, but I thought I would take the opportunity to share some of my own thoughts on blogging. This is actually a re-post of something I wrote on one of our many top-secret, hidden blogs, which I'm not going to link to, as that would force a downgrade of its top-secret clearance. Anyway, I wrote this one night (1/27/08) after going to see the band, Scarlet Snow, perform at a local coffee shop in Winder (it's kind of long, sorry; I was new to blogging at the time):
-------------------------------------
Why Not Blog?

So, honestly, what does one talk about on a blog? Is this to be a political blog? a stream-of-consciousness collection of random daily thoughts? tech help? music reviews? family pictures? or what?

I have no idea. All I know is that, at times, I feel a desperate longing to express myself, to voice my opinions to the world whether it wants to hear them or not. Not a need to be accepted, necessarily, but a need to say something.

My biggest problem with this need is time. I spend at least 9 hours a day at work, with a 20+ minute commute each way, for a total of, usually, 10 or more hours away from home. After that, I ache to spend time with my family, and so I try to get in time to play with my young children before their bedtime, after which is finally some time alone with my wife. This time together typically concludes because we're both just physically exhausted and ready to stumble off to sleep. So, the songs in my heart, the novel ideas stirring around in my brain, the random thoughts that I might post on a blog, even the pictures of my children that I might post on a website for extended family and friends to enjoy, never come to fruition. And thus, we get a blog started in mid-November that isn't updated until late January. At nearly 1AM.

And so, I would like to give the full credit for this, my first real post on this blog, to the provider of tonight's Mochaccino, without whom I would not be awake right now. Thank you, Latté Da. (I was going to link to their website, but I can't find one, and I'm not staying up any later to try. Instead, I'm linking to a Mochaccino recipe. Enjoy.)
------------------
So, there you have it. To Holly, I don't know why you say goodbye; to Ren, I say hello.

Ft. Yargo Photo #1

Even at the park with the family for a little evening R&R, things can manage to get a little hairy.

Happy Easter!

 

So Many Blogs, So Little Time

Well, I just spent the last two hours (or so) catching up on my blog reading. Last week our church did a Daniel fast. Since I was serving in our children's ministry the Sunday that this announcement was made I didn't find out about it until I got the chance to listen to the sermon CD, just two days before we were suppose to start. Therefore I didn't feel adequately prepared to fast (I know, excuses, excuses). So, instead of being a vegan for a week, I fasted from watching TV and reading blogs. Ouch. Although is was a nice change of pace to read The Bible and pray instead of seeing what I shouldn't wear or how couples adjust to being new parents, it was a sacrifice. Davis and I did not watch Lost on Thursday (but we recorded it and were able to watch it yesterday after church). At any rate, a whole lot of blogging went on while I wasn't keeping up. Two big announcements were that Adam is moving and The Lowes are having a baby! It sure is nice to be up to date again.

Commitment Updates

UPDATE #1: Unleash has a new website where it looks like you can pretty much watch the entire conference. Pretty cool.

UPDATE #2: Stayed up too late last night finishing a book I was reading. It was good, but I was 18.5 minutes late for work today. That's not good. I was solidly on time Monday, and within 5 minutes Tuesday and Wednesday. But today, not so good. Still, this is a process, and all I can do is take things one day at a time.

To Kids, At Least, They Are

I just wanted to take a quick minute here at the end of my lunch break to sing the praises of a little group I like to call They Might Be Giants. They've been one of my favorite bands since early high school, and now, they're becoming one of my children's favorites as well. They just came out with their third children's album, and it is yet another quality product. This album and the last one both included a DVD of videos for most if not all of the songs on the CDs, and even their first children's CD was enhanced so that you could put it in your computer and play interactive videos (popping balloons, making scary-looking robots dance, etc.). Anyway, just wanted to get the word out. If you're a parent of a child between the ages of 0 and say, 10, I would HIGHLY recommend giving these a listen. We received one as a gift this weekend, and the kids already have pretty much all the songs memorized (in Daniel's case, this includes guitar parts). Anyway, speaking of kids, they like to eat, so I guess I'd better get back to work.

Two Places at Once

Right now I'm wishing we were at our church's big Egg Drop. I hope everyone has a great time!

Honoring Your Commitments

My church sent a group of as many of our volunteers as could get off work to the Unleash conference Thursday. One of the main things that struck me at the conference was in the Worship Leader's breakout session, where he talked about what he's looking for in band members: character, competency, and commitment. About commitment, he mentioned that if you're late to practice more than twice, you're out of the band, as you're probably not really committed to being there. This was crazy to me because I am chronically late to everything, but I've never felt like it was because I wasn't committed; I'm just not very good at managing my time. But I suppose it is about priorities; am I prioritizing my sleep over getting to work on time, my work over getting home to my family? Hard questions, to be sure. All that to say, this week I'm committing to make it to work on time, every day. (Please don't mock me, prompt people; this may be a break-through.) Okay, gotta hurry up and get ready, or we'll be late for our family's Easter Egg Hunt. *sigh* Pray for me (and my wife, she's a promptie).

A Break in My Day

Today I got to enjoy some time with my kids at a park here in Athens. I had envisioned a peaceful walk by the lake, maybe, or at least a bit of tranquility and rest while the kids ran around and had a good time. And, for the most part, it was a serene little break in my day. There was one bit of fun that got to be a bit grating on the ol' ears, however. At least Maggie liked it…

Laser Fitness

I've been meaning to write this since Friday: I got to go to one of the most awesome birthday parties of my adult life this past Thursday. It was at Lazer City in Buford, GA, and the party was for my friend, Andy Eaton, proprietor of the famous Tales of Wonder online comic book store. (Aside: Actually, they do more than just comic books. The description on the website says, TalesOfWonder.com is one of the largest direct market retailers of trade paperbacks, hardcover books and merchandise related to the comic book industry. Tony was once given one of these by Andy. Very cool.) Anyway, the party was a blast! I didn't see anyone who wasn't having a great time shooting each other, guarding our base or attacking the other, plus eating pizza and some very good cookies. We had about 25 folks there, but the play area was multi-level and pretty large, so it got to be quite a workout. I am personally not in the best of shape (see recent photo) and I though I was going to pass out at times from all the physical exertion. It's a lot of work to move stealthily around, crouching suddenly or jerking back to try and avoid getting shot. I definitely felt fairly lame for being so exhausted, but I was comforted to overhear a couple of friends who are in much better shape (see recent photo) talking today about how they were still sore as well. This is one of my most late-night blog posts, and I honestly have no idea what my original intention for saying all this was. Probably, I wanted to tell Andy "Thank you" and "Happy Birthday" and "I saw the card but didn't get a chance to sign it because we were being led in to start the shooting, but I do think you're a great guy and I am glad you were born. Sorry I missed signing the card." Goodnight.

Doing the Math

Before we started our Financial Peace University class, I decided to look around on the Internet and see if anyone had anything bad to say about Dave Ramsey, as I’d heard praise but no real criticism. One of the first things I found was an article entitled, “Dave Ramsey is Bad at Math.” This article talks about how it’s better mathematically (meaning you end up spending less money) to pay off your debts starting with the highest interest rate, then the next highest, and so on, as opposed to Dave’s plan of paying off the smallest debt first, then the next smallest, etc. The article also mentions a plan by a guy named David Bach, from his book, The Automatic Millionaire. I had actually read this book a couple of years ago, but I couldn’t remember what the debt-reduction plan was that he mentioned. That whole book was about putting all of your bills including house payments on automatic online bill-pay, establishing a retirement account that is taken directly out of your paycheck, and basically having your entire financial life go on “behind-the-scenes.” I’m pretty sure that the idea behind that is that if you have access to the money, you’ll waste it, but if you’ve set yourself up where all the aspects of your life that will lead you to get rich, what does it matter if you waste what’s left? Not too bad, I guess, and Dave’s overall plan also encourages and implements some of these ideas, but the debt-reduction scheme he recommends just seems odd (account balance divided by minimum payment, lowest ratio first), and the book seems to be aimed at people who are doing all right but just aren’t sure how to get rich by retirement. It doesn’t address the bad spending habits and poor choices that probably got us into debt in the first place. Anyway, the point I was going to make is that the “bad at math” article compares the 3 methods (percentage-based, Ramsey, and Bach) and concludes what is, perhaps, obvious: paying off based on interest rate gets you out of debt fastest and cheapest. The problem is, depending on what your debts look like, it may be quite a while before you ever start to feel like you’re making any progress. Whereas, on Dave’s plan, you can usually pay off the smallest debt relatively quickly, and the psychological boost of knowing that you can knock these things out and feeling like you’ve done something early in the process is huge. So, yes, Dave’s plan may not be the fastest, but it gives encouragement quickly, and potentially more often, than going based on percentages alone. Incidentally, nearly two years after the “bad at math” article, the author wrote another one, largely consisting of responses he received. It’s title is: “Dave Ramsey is Good at Psychology.”

New Adventures in Hi-Fi(nance)

Today was the big day! We have given our children jobs to do for which we are paying commissions (thank you, Angela, for being the only respondent to our request for job ideas). We have also given them a very short list of thngs that they are not to do, for which they will be fined. And we got to experience the joy and pain of both right on the first day. It was amazing and heart-warming to see them eagerly do their jobs with a happy heart. It was crushing and heart-breaking to have to watch as one child had to open their commission jar, extract some of the money they'd worked for, and pay a fine for doing something they aren't supposed to do. I'm excited about teaching them smart money management so that it gets into their hearts at a young age, but it was really rough to have to impose the fine. Still, this is an adventure, and every adventure that I know of involves making some bad decisions and learning from the ensuing pain, so that the adventure will end with joy and, ideally, prosperity. And so it begins...