Friday, October 23, 2009

Tidbits of weirdness that have tickled my fancy.

A Jet overshoots the airport on a flight from San Diego to Minneapolis, MN (the same flight my daughter has been on in the past) by 150 miles because they say they were distracted by a heated discussion…or as some speculate, they perhaps fell asleep. I can understand the heated discussion story. It is similar to how my lunch group solves the problems of the world 30-45 minutes at a time M-F with the amazing clarity of conservatism and common sense. We also could forget to land the plane.

Also amusing to me. The story about a man in Duluth, MN who was arrested for drunken driving in a Lazy boy. He had a Lazy Boy attached to a riding mower frame with a cooler and drink holders and everything. He hit a parked car with this rig and had a blood alcohol level of .29. I’m not sure I could handle being the officer who made that arrest. It doesn’t feel right to be laughing hysterically while arresting someone. I pretty much think it would be amazing to have a drivable Lazy Boy.

Again in MN (You get the sense that MN is the center of weirdness but it is just coincidence….or is it?) a woman was ruled against in that her bong water should be considered part of her drug paraphernalia instead of as a controlled substance. The problem being that the bong water contained traces of Meth and was 37 grams of water (two and a half table spoons). This constitutes a felony conviction of up to 7 years in prison for having a large amount of drugs instead of a misdemeanor conviction for having drug paraphernalia consisting of a fine of $300. So, druggies...remember to empty your bong water.

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Victory Update

Well Victory of the Lamb continues to grow. For September our average attendance was 140 people per Sunday. In addition there are over 4 Bible classes running right now during the week. The Bible Quest Kids have almost topped 30 kids too. All these are great blessings from the Lord as he has graciously been blessing our ministry.

I personally have bequeathed my sound "engineer" status to an actual sound engineer/musician who knows what he is doing. Benhur, his wife and little daughter are new arrivals at Victory from Santiago, Chile. He is originally from India but met his wife who is from the Milwaukee area in Chile while she was teaching English at the ELS mission church in Santiago. He married the teacher but after mission defunding they ended up back here in the US staying with his wife's brother. He has been a huge asset in improving the sound of the band and in arranging some of the hymns and songs with new sounds and styles. He speaks in a sound language I don't even understand so I just let him do his thing and occupy my time setting up the cables and taking down.

All in all our ministry is doing well and lots of people are stepping into the various roles. It is gratifying to see God bless this ministry and bringing ever more people who do not know Jesus into the church.

Links to Benhur's secular videos

Family Update

Well it has been awhile since a Family update. I'll start with today and go backwards. There's not too much to report except that we had a good visit with Zach while he was here for the last two weeks. As I type this he is in the air on his way to Pensacola. He had a break between modules of schooling for 3 weeks and he sought out recruiter's assistance with his local Milwaukee recruiter for two of them so he could be home and visit even though he still worked every day at the recruiting station. He made a round of visits to relatives and such and then hung out with a few friends.

Zach's main goal to come home was to surprise his Mom so he told no one but myself that he was coming. Surprised her we did! It was exactly what he was hoping for. Since it is unlikely he will make it home for Thanksgiving, it was a good interlude before he comes home for Xmas. He also got to take care of all that fun stuff like renewing his driver's license and getting his contacts supply. I thank Kelly and Cal for the wonderful early Thanksgiving meal we had at their new house. It still makes my mouth water.

Kt is still busy with school and work and Phil. She visited him in September and I'm sure we will be seeing him on one of these holidays coming up as well.

Ike has been busy with football, CC and school. His football team had some sort of magical transformation this year and went from a Keystone Cops comedy routine to a pretty tough competitor. The thing is all the skills and size were there...they just need to have some confidence and sustain it. It's almost freaky the change. Last week the coach of the opposing team was livid with his team for "failing" against what was considered the most pathetic team in the league (last year they beat us 48-0). We all heard him screaming and jumping up and down. Sad ! Ike ran on my CC team as well. He was the 2nd or 3rd runner depending on the day. I had a great core of boys on that team and it always changed as to who was finishing where. They ended up taking 2nd place at the conference "Wisco" meet. I was ecstatic about a team from scratch from a school that hasn't had CC in 6 years and we came on strong. I hope for even better next year.

Karen and I just do our things...nothing new there. I have been running and continuing on after this CC season with it. Trying to get in better shape and lose even more weight. Maybe we'll see if I can run some fun runs this next year.

Monday, October 12, 2009

Immigration Qualification

Okay pay attention folks. This is where I'm not as conservative as I am in most regards.

I'm up in the air about immigration. On the one hand I have to admire each and every immigrant who busts their ass to get here. Think of it ...wanting to get into a country to better your life so bad that you would risk all that. Dang that's what this country was made of.

I also would be the first one to pay cash under the table to have some illegals do work for me that I as a stuck up American deem too menial to do. There goes my nomination to the Supreme Court (although the current trend seems to indicate you will actually be better suited to be in Congress or the Obama administration if you don't pay your taxes.) No one should think that if the 17,000,000 illegals went home that there would be this sucking sound pulling our beloved jobless Americans into these great paying jobs that were stolen from them by illegals. Lordy it is hard to get a teenager to accept a job at less than $8 an hour to fold clothes at Abercrombie not to mention pick cabbage out of a field.

Living in a racially mixed neighborhood with a larger percentage of hispanic people in it however I notice some things. That on one hand there are plenty of industrious, thrifty, immigrants, legal or illegal, trying to make a better lives for themselves. They want their kids to learn English and to attend school. They want them to attend college too and become successful. On the other hand you can also see the ones who are here to cash in and send it home and make a better life for their families back home. Hmmmm what to think. I prefer the classic immigrant picture. Coming to America to make a new life and make America the great country it is. Not to come here...collect the gash and send it back home. I would move to a foreign country in a second but if I go there I'm going to make a go of it in that country for that country. It's the least I owe.

I guess it shortens down to this. I say for all those who want America to be their home ...come and make it happen. We welcome you (well I do at least). To those who just want the cash, the quick hit, the generous social services and healthcare, and when all is well you leave or you never bother to be an American etc... Please stay home....because really I don't even believe you can see through those massive flag stickers in your back windshields and that just seems unsafe.

School Insanity

Ok here is a perfect example of one of the things that daily catch my attention as to the completely wacky country we've become. I noticed the following article and was appalled at the "verdict"

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/12/education/12discipline.html?_r=1&bl

This has been an increasing pet peeve of mine where schools are resorting to "zero tolerance" in the name of student safety or risk of bias and discrimination. It is no wonder America cannot think for itself. We are taking out discernment at every level of the game. We eliminate each and every risk from our lives with legislation born on the wings of paranoia. We cater to the fear of lawsuits and criticism from others. We all just need to get along and legislate a perfect feeling of love and happiness by getting rid of the evil.

Well that is why I love this guy.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/10/12/arizona-sheriff-vows-continue-immigration-sweeps-despite-federal-downgrade/

He is not like that. He makes the calls and goes for it despite what outsiders think. If his voters don't like it they will vote him out. Okay I was going to qualify my opinions on immigration in this post but I will just create a new post on that.

To Zachary Christie: Be strong little man. Try not to be some 2nd grader's bitch at reform school and we'll be waiting for you on the other side.

Friday, October 9, 2009

Nobel Peace Prize

HUH? WOW! I'm pretty sure I will be getting the next Nobel Peace Prize as I talk a lot about "hope" and "change" and have been almost as effective as Obama in establishing peace in the world.

I think its a bit premature to be handing out such things simply because Obama wants change. It would be nice if he had a track record where his recent decisions and potential big-time failures he is orchestrating by driving Israel away from the bargaining table, appeasing Iran (sanctions are as rediculous as the UN that loves them), and the as yet undecided course of action with Afghanistan had some sort of timeline to show success. Not to mention that Pakistan is about to blow on the Taliban issue in their border region and will complicate any US actions.

It could be that Obama's only being a Campaign and Chief instead of a Commander and Chief as well as being as an astute of diplomat as Neville Chamberlain could easily lead to being the person who most caused additional strife in the world.

But of course in this day in age ...It doesn't matter what you believe....just that you believe in something. What a pile of BS.

Hmmmmm

So I have been away from the blogging world. Honestly I'm not sure what my thoughts are on that fact. Everyday I see something out there in the realm of politics that makes me ill. That's the point though. It's everyday. Sometimes its several times a day. There is so much fuel that I see a topic and I could write a lot about it. Honestly I want to scream about it. I simply don't have that time anymore though. Work has been involved and intense since 8/1. I don't have time to take a break and pen a thought. I've been coaching CC which just ended and that takes a little time away as I used to write drafts in the early morning and then finish them up at lunch.

I don't really follow the crusader blogs anymore. I think I have determined that it is like how I watch sitcoms. I find one that often is old and maybe even not on the air anymore and I watch all the episodes. However when I have been through the series once I am done with it. I call that the "Everybody Loves Raymond", "King of Queens", "George Lopez" effect. There is nothing new under the sun in crusader land so it has ceased to be interesting. We have already determined debate is pointless in that crowd. It was fun sport for awhile but after a bit becomes like NASCAR. "Oh look he made another left turn...he keeps doing that..."

Also my family updates could almost just be cut and pasted each time. Tim is busy with work, Karen is busy with work and school, Kt is busy with school and homework and Phil, Zach is busy with Marine stuff and school, Ike is busy with sports and school. I have a good routine of cleaning the house on a regular basis 3 days a week.

So with that said, I feel somewhat constrained because what I would love to post on a regular if not hourly basis I do not have time for. For the things I used to be contentious and obnoxious about I am not really interested anymore. Oh well. I will work harder on short sweet points. I will not Twitter. God that would be annoying. What would I say, "Just noticed my mouth tastes skanky after the poor quality coffee they supply in the coffee room.." Did you need to know that? I doubt it. It does though..I could use some Altoids....or more coffee.

Perhaps we'll use a little time at lunch to post a short blurb more often. I'll now go to lunch. After lunch we'll practice this new routine.