Reminds Me Of Most Christians I Know

It is sobering today to find Christians choosing the political strategy of the crowd instead of that demonstrated by Jesus. It will cost us more than we realize. If we choose to defend our religion rather than seek the whole truth, we will lose three very important capacities: (1) We will lose our ability to see God outside of our own tradition; (2) we will lose our capacity to influence people in any positive sense toward God; and (3) we will lose the opportunity to grow in our own faith.

When voters choose to limit themselves to the singular strategy of defending a religious tradition, they minimize their capacity to positively influence other people toward God. When we are so narrowly focused upon our own concerns, we cannot expect others to truly hear us.

(Edited for content)

Taken from here

Minefields

So Maria and I are on the *new* school year schedule. Holden has his first day of Pre-K at the "big boy" school right up the street from us tomorrow. As a part of our new schedule Maria got up when I do to get herself ready (while I make the kids waffles, french toast sticks, or cereal), so in turn she would have enough time to get the kids ready while I took a shower a bit later.

We have a new puppy, her name is Nina, she's a black lab... about 4 months old. Her and Lucas (our other dog) have really bonded and are having a lot of fun together (as much fun as biting each others tails and ears can be). Well Nina is not housebroken yet, so we keep her and Luke locked in the kitchen to make it easier to clean up any accidents Nina may have. Lately she has been doing really good, I think 3 out of the past 4 mornings have been mess free. Just as I think we've turned a corner, I come downstairs this morning to a veritable diarrhea minefield in the kitchen.. with a bit of cat food throw-up and peed-on doggy bed to act as the cherry on top.

Probably took me about 25 minutes to clean it all up.. and even after that I wasn't satisfied and pulled out the mop & bucket and went over it a second time with that.

I think I'm going to invent a doggy diaper and all my problems will melt away like snow. On a brighter note, only 33 days till Dexter season 3 premiere.

September 28, 2008

OMG I can't wait... love this frickin' show!

That's The Point

The other day I overheard someone say they didn't like blogs because "people can say whatever they want to on them" and while yes, not everybody is nice and posts everything that is good and wonderful about the world... nobody is making you go read them. While it is easy to stumble upon one that might not be your cup 'o' tea, it's not that hard to hit the back button and stick to blogs you like, you know? Or maybe don't read them at all if you don't like people voicing their opinions.. just because you don't agree with them doesn't make yours any more valid.

I just found it funny.

NFL Experience

So I went to a Ravens pre-season game this past Saturday evening. It was a perfect night weather-wise and I was took a buddy of mine that I work with that had never been to an NFL game up until recently (he went to the Redskins/Bills game at FedEx the week before). We left the house around 2:30pm to give us plenty of time for travel and so we would have some time to walk around the stadium and take it all in.

We hit the road for the 2+ hour drive, get up to Baltimore to get our tickets... pick up the tickets and head up for the Cromwell station light rail parking lot. There were a surprising amount of people already waiting for the train.. I don't have a Ravens jersey yet so I felt a bit left out, but I'll get one eventually (not before I get a Chiefs one though.. Ravens are a close #2). Get on the train for the ride and by the time we hit the stadium it's packed.

So we get out and bam, we are right there in the shadows of the east side of the stadium. We get out and a short walk later we are in. So we get in and since we are a little early the concourse isn't very crowded and it's pretty easy to get around. We walk around for a bit and check stuff out.

Then we peak out one of the tunnels leading out to the field and we see a bunch of players signing autographs and warming up. We venture about half way down but don't go all the way down.. and the ticket check guys at the end wave us down.. so we go on out and down. Pretty good crowd of people already down there oogling at the cheerleaders and getting their autographs. Some players are signing as well.

We figure we should find our seats, so we go find them and we still have some time to kill, so we head on out to grab a sandwich & drink ($32). We come back out and the seats are really filling up.. it seemed like it was going to be fairly roomy around us, but it filled up pretty fast. We sat down and we have some really loud guys behind us. They hate the redskins and we sit down right in the middle of a big argument of how bad FedEx field is (my buddy that I brought is a redskins fan, but likes the ravens too). He's the quiet type and didn't say anything of course.. but I thought it was hilarious the beating he took from them.

OK, game is over and we stuck around to watch Phelps go for his 8th gold.. that was pretty cool. Watching that with like 15,000 people going crazy was a trip... it was easily 10 times louder at that point then at any point during the ravens game, (yes, it was a preseason game though). We left the stadium and we couldn't go through the east side, so we were forced out to the street on the south side. We were heading down the street then all of a sudden the road is barricaded because the players are leaving. We don't feel like waiting so we cut through the crowd and keep on going. Before you know it we see a crowd of people behind a fence yelling out for Rex Ryan (Ravens Def. Cord) and before you know it I turn around and there he is right behind me. The guy right in front of me was proud that he got Ed Reed to sign his jersey and wasn't shy about showing it off. So somehow we got into an area we shouldn't have.. in between players and some of the coaching staff.

A few other players were milling about, but with us staying and watching the race and it being really late with a long drive ahead of us we knew we needed to get on our way. Well, we ended up getting on the wrong train (heading north) and proceeded to get off at the next exit. This was actually a great strategy as it got us up to the next station before and got on before the throngs of people could heading south.

It was a good time, seeing the Phelps thing was pretty cool in a crowd like that.. that alone almost made it worth it. Some pictures of the trip.

Canada

The other day I got upset when I thought about Canada. I was worried that they might try to overtake the United States and force us to like polar bears, molson ice & hockey. Canada is a big country and they sit on top of us.. like that fat kid that sits on you on the playground and makes you smell his feet.

But then I looked at the medal totals at the Olympics and I realized Canada wasn't really worth worrying about after all. They are sort of like a colder version of France.. except they don't try to talk a bunch of junk and get pwnd.

Home Depot = American Idol

So I was in Home Depot the other day on a mission looking at some plumbing supplies. The in-store music was blasting.. well, not blasting but it was fairly loud. I feel like a tool for even knowing what song it was and looking it up on youtube (and listening to it while I'm typing this).

I'm not sure if it was a customer or an employee of Home Depot.. but somebody took the chorus (1:18) and proceeded to shred the song.. sang nearly the whole chorus very loud and surprisingly well. It made me LOL right there in the store.

You so want to hear it right now, so here you go... taste the best (WTF?)