All Saints Beverly Hills

Our monthly Good Friends Get Together in December was at All Saints Beverly Hills. We had a delightful time worshipping (in a VERY cold sanctuary), then a great brunch at the Fiddler's Cafe, and an afternoon at the Grove in Hollywood. A great time had by all.

In fact, I think we're going to schedule a few more of these GFGT's on Sunday mornings. We'll all visit Saddleback Community Church, St. Bart's Episcopal, and Conejo CoC. Should be a kick.

The christmas tree in hollywood.

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Holiday Cookies by Madison

I told Madison I'd pay her $20 for some holiday cookies for my party this week. She got a bit carried away with the frosting, but you have to admire her spirit!

The joys of the academic life

This afternoon I posted grades for my last classes of the fall semester. I'm out of the classroom until January 5. That gives me a little less than a month to work on research, complete a few projects around the house, and enjoy some time to read and think. So, what's on my agenda for the next few weeks?

• Move some furnishing around the kids' rooms to make them a bit more spacious. Maybe a closet system for Tiny?
• Build some shelves for the boys' room.
• Finish a couple of research projects.
• Start a couple of research projects.
• Read the new textbook I've chosen for my Tech Ops class.
• Finish The Life of Pi
• Continue to visit the gym a few times a week.
• Go skiing with the family to Mountain High
• Re-establish a rhythm of devotion (any suggested texts? ).
• And most importantly...lots of downtime with the family including at least one movie.

I know...it's a long list. Let me know if you have any suggestions for what I've left out.

Daddy, don't let your babies grow up to be Code Heads...

As I mentioned last week, Matt and I have started learning C++. Here we are working on our "Hello World" program (which is the first program you write when learning a new language).

So far we're having a blast. I guess this is a good time for me to explain to Matt that he should spend this time learning how to calculate derivatives and costs of capital rather than structured loops and object inheritance?

The DPW's Festival of Lights ended its pedestrian-friendly period today. We took it in on opening weekend. It's a good time. If you haven't made your way to Griffith Park to see the lights...it's a fun LA experience.

I guess I spoke too quickly...

Doh!  Michelle is officially down with the nasty stomach virus.  She's been sick a half-dozen times since midnight.  Ouch!

The escalating costs of education...

Today's NYT ran an insightful story about the rising costs of education in America. Over the past 25 years housing, healthcare, and education costs have far outpaced wages. We are currently hearing much about healtcare and housing policies. It's time to give attention to our national policies toward educating our children and creating human capital, not just liquidity.

The Big Three...

Lots of news today about the Big 3 hitting up the US taxpayers for more money.

I have posted elsewhere that I strongly support deficit spending and am clearly not a libertarian.

However, I simply can not fathom how it makes sense for the American Taxpayer to protect the stockholders of GM, Ford, and Cerberus (the Hedge Fund that owns Chrysler). 

First, it is absolutely ridiculous to believe that these companies are somehow a matter of national security.  If these firms go into bankruptcy, they will eventually come out.  America will not lose its ability to design, engineer, manufacture and sell cars simply because they go into bankruptcy.  Bankruptcy is the legal way firms deal with the problems the Big 3 are facing.  I view their current tactics as shameless opportunism.

Second, it defies logic that automobile labor in Michigan deserves to earn $70/hr and life-time benefits while those who perform the same tasks for Nissan, Toyota, and Suburu in Tennessee, Indiana, and Alabama earn approximately half-that.  Why should all the US taxpayers subsidize these overpaid laborers?  To bring a sharper point to it... the Big 3 are asking the working families of those non-union auto-workers in Tennessee to subsidize the inflated values of Detroit unions with their tax dollars.  Is that fair?

Finally, I  doubt anyone gives much credibility to the Big 3's assertion that this "loan" will somehow be a "bridge to a brighter future".  In fact, these companies will continue to create low-quality products with little innovation and outsized energy requirements.  

I am not always so Darwinian...but in this case I say "let them eat cake."  The Big 3 have made this mess and we should let the management and owners who brought them to the brink of bankruptcy pay the price.  Externalizing the costs of their poor judgement on the rest of the country is short-sighted and wrong.

On the mend...

I think (cross-my-fingers) that everyone is through with this stomach virus now. No one has actually been sick in about 30-hours.  Michelle and I seem OK.  Thanks for your prayers and kind words.

Michelle and the kids are at PU's Christmas Concert while I'm at home getting Tater to bed so he can get enough rest to go to school for the first time all week tomorrow.

This weekend should be interesting.  I have a variety of graduation related events Fri & Sat, Michelle is camping with the Girl Scouts from 7am Sat to noon Sun, Madison has three soccer games in the Regional AYSO playoffs about an hour from here, and we have two or three Christmas events at church.  Whew...I'm tired already!

It's going around...

As you know...Tiny was sick on Thanksgiving.  Lame-O.  We thought that was the end of it, but Matt got sick on Sunday night.  This morning Tater came to our bed saying

"Daddy...I think I have some chemicals in my mouth!"

Who knows where he got that? Anyway, he proceeded to be sick seven-times before I left for work at 8:45. Yuck... Poor guy.

So, who's next? Michelle or me?

A Chip off the old block...

Last night Matt wrote his first C++ program. :-)  It was so fun sitting with him while we installed a C++ compiler and IDE on the laptop.  Then read the programming book and began writing code.  It reminded me of my first days in the basement working on some Extended BASIC code on the old Ti 99-4a.

His "Hello World!!!" program worked flawlessly.  But what made me especially proud was his playfulness with the concepts.  Without blinking he started modifying the code and trying out new commands that weren't explained in the book (e.g., rand()) just to see what it would do.  I'm so proud.

Another reason to love ca. 81 deg on thanksgiving weekend.

Giving thanks...

It's an unusual Thanksgiving at our house.  Usually we watch the parade and spend the day with friends.  Well, for some reason, we couldn't find the parade anywhere online this morning.  And we don't get any "channels", so we couldn't watch it on TV either. This really bummed Michelle out.
Then about 10am, Daughter started throwing up. :-(  She's been sleeping or hugging the toilet for the last few hours and we're not sure if she's getting better or worse.  Michelle and the boys headed over to our friends' house for lunch, but Tiny and I are staying home and resting.  Not a typical Thanksgiving.
So, today as I sit around a quiet house by myself I have the opportunity to think about some of the things that I'm most thankful for:

• my health, and that of my family
• a family that loves me despite my foibles
• An incredible group of friends that magnify the impact of my life and make each day a pleasure
• a job I love in a place I've wanted to live since I was a child
• a faith community that gives meaning to the routines of existence
• a political system that, though imperfect, by in large respects the dignity of life and values of equality.
• the beauty of music, a well-told story, and the earth

How about you?  What are you thankful for this year?

Anybody seen Quantum of Solace?

If so…how does it end? Some buddies and I went to see it tonight in
Malibu. But the projector broke just as Bond and that unnamed girl were
hiding in the dessert waiting to make their move on the old General/new
President.

I guess he gets the bad guy and the girl, but I want to know how! :-(

I didn't like this one as much as Casino Royale, but it was good.  In the next one there needs to be a bit more dialogue.  This one was about a million scenes of Daniel Craig with a tough-guy look and then kicking somebody's butt.  I grew a bit weary of the action without meaningful dialogue.  I know...it's a Bond film, what did I expect?

It's raining again!

It’s finally raining in LA! It seems like it’s been a year, but it’s
only been about six months since we’ve had any measurable rainfall. It
has such a soothing effect on my spirit!

Using micro-blogging as KMS...

A recent article at the NYT describes the increasing utilization of mirco-blogging sites like SocialCast, FriendFeed, Tumblr, and Twitter as KMS systems for the enterprise.  Is this the future of KM?  I'm currently experimenting with each of these plus Yammer.

Busyness and Laziness...

Last week I read "The 4-Hr Work Week" by Robert Ferris.  It's an interesting book.  While some of it is hokey, much of it is self-aggrandizement, and a little of it is actually helpful.  Here are two things I took from it:

1. "Being busy is a form of laziness...lazy thinking and indiscriminate action."  Ouch, that one hurt because it is so true in my own experiences. 
   
2. Every knowledge worker in America can (and should?) have a VA (Virtual Assistant).  Ferris indicates that for $5-$20/hr you can find "YMII" (Your Man In India) to outsource a variety of tasks to.  From simple e-shopping for Christmas, to more complex research and collaboration, you could likely save yourself lots of time and be sure to get the basic stuff done that is over your head.  Check out www.elance.com for a variety of alternatives for YMII.

Now that you've seen that, you don't need to have your VA order the book for you and you can keep from being too busy (or lazy...whatever).

Thanks for a great morning...

There's a big fire in the Valley, so we're staying in the house all day to breathe cleaner air.  It's been nice to have some quiet time at home.  I spent the last two hours catching up on all my friend's blogs!  I've seen more photos, read more stories, and seen more recipes than I have in months.  I feel like I've spent the morning with friends even though I've barely spoken to anyone (except the occasional "Daddy, can you fix this?" plea).

So, thanks for a great day.  Look out...I left lots of comments everywhere! :-)

Waking up to the smell of smoke...

View Larger Map

At about 4:30am on Saturday I awoke to the strong smell of smoke. The winds are blowing really hard this weekend, so we're all on edge anyway. I immediately went to the LATimes.com site and found this story and the map above. As you can see, we're not really in any danger right now, but the smoke and smell is awful. I suspect soccer and other events will be cancelled today and we'll spend the day in the house reading and playing games.

Happy Birthday, Tater Tot

We had a wonderful time celebrating Tater's Sixth Birthday this week.  Chuck E Cheese's and home for presents.  His "friend party" is next week.

The Marching 100

I spent the weekend in Indiana for the Christian Business Faculty Association meeting and to see some old friends. The conference was good and time in Bloomington with CBC & BCW was even better. On Saturday we went to the IU/Wisconsin game. The first half was close, but it was COLD! The second half we didn't really watch, but chose to go visit some friends in the (warm) luxury box.
The game highlight was definitely the Marching 100.  Final score...55-20.

Tiny's Donut Show

Yesterday we made the delicious 500-calorie Apple Strudel.  Before doing so, we watched several YouTube videos about how to prepare Apple Strudel.  Madison loved the shows, and as soon as we had a few minutes she asked if I would help her with something.  So, here is the beginning of the next "Rachel Ray"...

Tater's Theme

We had just seen Rocky 2 a few days earlier when I spied Tater performing this original composition on the stairwell...

Apple Strudel - DELICIOUS!

We had a big "Root Beer & Apple Strudel Festival" today at church as a fundraiser for the youth group's trip to San Felipe.  Well, after 48-straight hours of Halloween parties, birthday parties, and sleepovers, Kids #1 & 2 were too pooped to go.  But I had already bought all the stuff to make the strudel (the recipe is here).  I did make one change though... I soaked the raisins in Bourbon and microwaved the bourbon & Raisins for about a minute to soak up all the juice.

Holy-moly!  It's so good.  The only problem?  As you can see from the recipe...500 calories a slice!

Jack-O-Lantern & Halloween photos

Not sure what to say about this...

Just over one week...

Next week is the election.  Those of you who have cable/satellite/local TV must be delighted to be near the end of the protracted campaign season.  Yesterday I watched the Redskins game with a friend and was amazed at the number of ads for various CA propositions and offices.

With one final week to go, I thought this op/ed piece from the NYT was well-timed.  Why can't we create a simpler ballot process?  It's insane.

Choctoberfest

Photos from the Cruise

We went on a 3-day cruise to Ensenada last week. My parents came out and joined us. None of us had cruised before and we were a little unsure what to expect. It was WONDERFUL! We're already looking forward to our next cruise. We just can't decide between Alaska, Hawaii, or the Caribbean.

Here are a few photos of the trip...

Death, War and Families

This morning before 6AM my 11-year old came to our bed crying.  Hard.  Balling really.
He had waken from a bad dream. 

In his dream, our country had gone to war and needed soldiers.  His mother and I did not have to go, because we were parents and our national leaders somehow recognized we had more important responsibilities.

However, he was so shaken because his grandparents had been drafted and one of them was killed in the war.  He was near tears all morning until he left for school.

This made me think about the thousands of Americans, and tens-of-thousands of Iraqi's who have died over the past five years in this awful war.

According to the DoD, over 30,000 Americans have died in Iraq since 3/19/03, and nearly half of them in combat.

I've been opposed to this war since well before t began.  However, this morning I was struck anew by the incredible sacrifice of these 30,000 fellow citizens.  Each of them has left parents, children, siblings, and friends waking at night with tears imagining the life that could have been.

Hurricane Norbert is making our

Hurricane Norbert is making our first night at sea a bit tough. :-

Randy Travis

We saw Randy Travis at Smothers Theater last night at Pepperdine. He put on a terrific show blending some of his oldies, with a few newer cuts. It was a blast. Even Michelle liked it!

We leave in a few hours for a cruise to Ensenada with my parents. Should be a kick!

The Obligatory Malibu Seafood Photo

The clams at Malibu seafood in prep for the cruise.

Further along with Ms. Palin

Boy, am I conflicted about Sarah Palin.  There are so many things I love about her.  But, holy cow, did she do poorly in her recent interviews with Gibson and Couric.  If you are a serious-minded person, this interview will drive you crazy.

If you're not so serious, take a look at this one...

Either way...she's got a long way to go before tomorrow's debate with Joe Biden.  BTW - here's some good advice for Mr. Biden.

It's so beautiful out here in the mountains. But it sure is cold.

I am so depressed...

Holy cow.  I just can't quite shake the feeling that the economic events of this week have forever changed the future of our country.  I simply can not believe we are nationalizing the financial system and bailing out those who have made record profits for the past eight years while the working person's wage has remained flat.  UGGHHHH!!!

I am too frustrated to say anything coherent about this mess.  So, let me just post a few related links:

We're all French Now: This article from this week's Time Magazine compares our current situation to the socialized capitalism France has endorsed for the past 20 years.  Arguably, we are even more socialized now...and it has been to benefit the richest Americans.  Ugh.

Bonus Heaven at Goldman-Sachs: This article from 2006 gives a bit of an image how much money was being made by these Wall St. fat-cats over the past decade of decadence (up to $50 million in one year by some traders).  Incredibly, we are now rushing to give them another $700,000,000,000.

Bailout would take away change: This podcast from NPR discusses how this enormous economic burden will essentially eliminate the opportunity for change that McCain or Obama have before them.  With the additional economic burden here, they simply can't do much with healthcare, social security, tax change, or social programs.

A useful service...

I just found a neat service...slydial.  It allows you to connect directly to someone's mobile voice mail without ringing their number first.  It's a great (and free!) way to connect with someone when you don't have time to actually talk to someone. :-)

Our first surfing adventure...

My friend Samurai took us surfing today and got all three kids up on the board within 90 minutes! Here's a photo of Tater Tot on his first wave. Matt and Madi did equally as well.

Wrapping up the MotoTour

Mark and I made it home safe from our CA MotoTour.  Wow.  What a wonderful trip.  I seriously can't remember the last time I had so much fun.  In summary, we rode back roads up to Ojai, over the mountains to Bakersfield.  Across the South Central Valley up to Sequioa National Forest, through the forest and across the Central Valley to Monterey.  Then down the PCH from Monterey to Malibu.  950 miles in all.  Absolutely incredible.  Both our bikes handled flawlessly and we had such a wonderful time.  Mark created a neat slideshow here (beware... it's long).

Here are a few of my favorite things about the trip...

3 - The joys of being on the open road on a powerful bike for days at a time.  It's a great feeling just being out in the world with little traffic, comfortable cruising speed, and no interruptions.  I listened to "Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond, and "The Long Tail" by Chris Anderson, as well as a few great NPR podcasts (check out this interview from Fresh Air).

2 - The amazingly diverse scenery of Southern and Central California.  As you can see from the slideshow link above, CA is an amazing state.  From breathtaking Alpine Forests, to vast agricultural plateaus, rocky, sea otter filled coasts to barren deserts, we have it all within a few hundred miles of our house.  It was amazing how much we saw in 950 miles and 30 hours of riding.

3 - Quality time with the most faithful and steady friend of my life.  Those of you with close siblings understand this, and those without...I don't think I can explain it.  My entire life Mark has been my best friend, trusted advisor, and playmate.  I'm so grateful to have had this time with him.

Crossing the Central Valley

In front of the millions of fruit trees near Fresno.

In Bakersfied

We made it to Bakersfield and found a Sonic.

We hoped to get about one hour further than this. But with the late start we stayed at the Hammpton Inn in Bakersfield. A wonderful first day. No problems at all. But we're ready for bed.

Making progress

Over the mountain and onto Bakersfield.

This is the scene from the last overlook in the Los Padres Forest before descending down into the Central Valley. All the rocks on Mark's right are from recent rock slides.

First stop Ojai

We finally made it to lunch in Ojai. Great ride so far. Bonnie Lu's Vegelicious!

We're on our way...

At about 10am the bike finally arrived. It's a beautiful black yamaha stratoliner 1300. Enormous, loud, and beautiful. Here's the truck it came on. What a sweet ride.

We're off!

Stumbling out of the gate...

Mark and I have been planning this awesome motorcycle weekend for about three months.  He flew in last night and is renting a Stratoliner (pictured to the left), and I'm taking my V-Star (below).

We're planning on riding up to Sequoia today, then on to Yosemite tomorrow before heading back down on Sunday.

 

 

To make this much riding possible, we planned an early start today.  The Stratoliner was supposed to be delivered by 7am to my house.  However, by 8am, still no bike.  So, we called and they said "Oh, we were planning to deliver that at 4pm."  Doh!  After some quick negotiating, they said they would get it here by 10am.  Unlikely.  I bet it will be more like 1pm.  Anyway... not the start we had in mind.

We thought by 9am we'd be to Ojai.  But instead, we're sitting at the bar of my house working on our PC's.  Doh.   (Take a look at the site Mark built to document our ride.)

The Big Dessert Bake-Off

We had a Bake-Off tonight after dinner.  It was great!

Vegetarian thoughts...

My daughter doesn't like to eat meat. I wouldn't exactly say she's a vegetarian though. She's more of a "desert and breaditarian".

So, I've decided to try and help her eat more healthy by going Veggie with her until mid October. We've been eating vegetarian now for a week. It's not been hard, and it's been really yummy! Last night we made a terrific vegetarian chile. Here's the recipe if you want to try it.

A great choice! (I think...for now at least)

First, I confess I know almost nothing about Sarah Palin (including if that's the right spelling of her name).  But based on what little I know (mostly from here (which btw, I never read that paper)), McCain hit the nail on the head with Palin.  Here are some of the things I like about the pick.

• She's younger than dirt (which is 15 years younger than McCain).
• She's a she.
• She's conservative fiscally.
• She's an "outsider".
• She brings new ideas and hope to contrast the "four more years of Bush" mantra we've been hearing from Obama's camp.
• She's willing to criticize her party leadership (just like McCain prior to 2007).

In short, she's a great choice!  Without question, this is a GREAT year to be an independent voter.  Both parties have put together strong tickets with excellent candidates.  I'm glad I am not affiliated with either party so I can sincerely weigh the policies, personalities, and visions of these two potential administrations and do my part to move our country forward.

Kindergarten is around the corner

Son #2 start Kindergarten next week.  Hard to believe.  Wow, the time went quickly.  There have been a few events lately to help us mark this transition. 

At church last Sunday we had a "Kindergarten Blessing" for all the kids starting school this year.  As you can see, there's a good sized group for such a small church.  5% of our church is starting Kindergarten this year!

Then today, we went to Webster to find Marcus' teacher.  We were so happy when we discovered it was Ms. Cronrod.

Here's Tater in his new classroom.  He is SO excited.

 

One more thing...#1 starts Middle School next week.  We had "Get Your Stuff Day" at MHS this week too.  But no photos, sorry. 

WWJD? Really? HDYK?

Recently, I posted a long comment on a friend's blog about something I've been thinking a lot about lately. The basic issue is this...being at a "Christian University" (whatever that is), and having served full-time as a "professional minister" (whatever that is), I've run across a fair share of people who are skeptical of "organized" religion (whatever that is).

A common line-of-argument is,

The church is hypocritical because it does X (whatever that is). If Jesus were here, he would absolutely positively not do X. In fact, he would do Y.

Now, I think I know where these people are coming from. I appreciate that they disagree with something that the church is doing and are willing to root that debate in their understanding of the nature of Christ. In fact, many times I agree with them on the issue.

However, I find the argument to be rather superficial. Their logic seems to be that they have some special knowledge of Jesus that has escaped all the "irrational, organized religion folks" and is only apparent to them...in their private, mystical setting.

I just don't get it.

Why do people feel that they a clearer understanding of Jesus simply because they haven't bothered with the challenges of gaining agreement with others in an organized fashion? Two quick examples here...

• one friend recently posted their perspective on the Lambeth Conference of the Episcopal/Anglican Church. At issue here was that the Anglican Church asked the first openly gay bishop to stay home from the conference to reduce some of the hostility that was already present over the issue. My friend argued that what "Jesus would do" is to accept and embrace the bishop, not shun him.
• Another friend recently forwarded an email from a very conservative political organization that argued that Sen. Obama was unfit for the Presidency because he took too liberal a view of scripture. The material on the related web-site had one quote that especially troubled me. "I can assure you, Sen. Obama. Christ would never turn the other cheek to terrorists and enemies of America".

I will leave it to your discretion to agree or disagree with either position here, but that is not really the point.

The point is that both of these lines of argument--though taken from opposite sides of the political/social spectrum--are rhetorically the same.

They both argue that the "real Jesus" would behave differently than other believers think he would. This is a very weak argument that merely plays to the audience's emotional desire to "be like Jesus" with any evidence or rhetoric that supports the intellectual journey to arrive at the preferred destination.

So the next time you feel passionately about a subject, try to avoid the "WWJD" (What Would Jesus Do) type of argument...after all, "HDYK" (How Do You Know)?

Some photos from Lassen Volcanic National Park

Perhaps you've never heard of Lassen Volcanic National Park?  We hadn't until last year when Son #1 did a report on it for school.  It seemed like such an interesting place that we have wanted to visit ever since.

Well, this week while we're vacationing in the Tahoe/Reno/Carson City area we figured we were as close as we'd ever be, so we took off yesterday for an overnight camping trip to Lassen. 

We're glad we did.  It's an amazingly beautiful place.  Here's photos to prove it.

2008-Q3-Lassen

Wild Horses in Carson City

Matt & i saw these wild horses during a bike ride on a trail in carson city. The picture is a bit small...it's about a half-dozen wild horses just grazing in a field near the Carson River. I don't think I've ever seen wild horses before. I believe these were wild...there were no fences or anything around the place. In any event, it was a wonderful sight.

A Day at Tahoe

2008-Q3-Tahoe

Our first day at Lake Tahoe was amazing. We hiked, relaxed, and fished. Fun, fun, fun!

Lake Tahoe's Emerald Bay from my mobile phone

Lake Tahoe emerald bay. From my Mobile Phone.

King's Kamp...Captain's Log Videos

I was Dr. Spaceman at King's Kamp this year.  It was a blast.  Each day I created a "Captain's Log" video summarizing the events of the day before and highlighting tonight's activities.

Here's a sample...

King's Kamp - What we're up to

We had a great time at KK yesterday. We're all having a blast playing with old friends, making new ones, and enriching ourselves spiritually and physically.  There's something nearly magical in the power of the mountain forest to renew one's spirit.  I feel like whistling "Rocky Mountain High" all week! :-)

This year at Kamp we're all going different directions...

• Marcus - is pretty much the baby doll of the camp.  All the kids, counselors, and staff have adopted him and argue over who he is going to sit with at meals.  Today one of the staff saw him digging in the dirt and asked what he was doing.  When Marcus replied "digging for treasure", our friend Tom Black actually made a treasure chest, painted it gold, filled it with costume jewelry (gold and silver), and buried it.  Since Marcus discovered it, he's not put it down (or stopped talking about it).
• Madison - is a camper for the first time this year.  She's having a blast!  I see her only at meals.  The rest of the time she's out running around with her friends.  We're so happy about her cabin...they are all girls from our church.  She's the youngest of them, but she's fit right in and is having a blast.  We're so happy about that.  One of the reasons we went to Conejo was because there were no girls at our old church.  Now, two years later, Tiny is finally getting some strong relationships with the Conejo girls.
• Matthew - is, I believe, at camp this year.  I'm sure he rode up here with us on Sunday.  Since the time we arrived I've only seen him a couple of times.  Once, he asked me if I would be on his soccer team for the soccer tournament on Thursday.  "Oh, man.  I'm happy to.  But, I'm no good at soccer."  I told him.  He went back to his team and talked it over.  Later he came back and said, "I talked it over with my whole team, and we still want you on the team."  I felt really proud.  Inexplicably so.  As if I had somehow been weighed and counted "OK" on the scales of jr. high ratings.  Unfortunately, I'll probably blow the game winning goal or something.  Oh well.
• Michelle - is teaching 4 & 5th graders.  She's teaching with a young woman from the Smith family and seems to be having fun.  It's been so long since she's been in the classroom that she feels a bit rusty, but is doing a great job.  We're taking turns caring for Marcus while the other one works. 
• Me - I'm one of the "barn guys".  That means I'm one of the themed characters that guides the evening activities.  I'm working with another member of the Smith family, Tyler.  We're having a blast.  He's about 20 years old and full of energy.  We've got some awesome space suits (Thanks TOM!) and props, and we've adopted the personas of "Dr. Spaceman" and "Junior Spaceman" (pronounced Speh-Che'-Mun).  We're exploring the universe and bringing the knowledge of God to different planets each evening. 
  • Sunday - Planet Game-O-Tron
  • Monday - Planet Leadertron
  • Tuesday - Planet Nananananana
  • Wednesday - Planet Misbehavioron
  • Thursday - Mother ship for a send-off
  • Friday - Revisiting each planet to see how God has changed.

"I talked to my whole team, and we still want you on the team."

I'll post a few "Captain's Logs" on YouTube in the next few days.

We're off...

We're off to King's Kamp and Carson City, NV for the next two weeks. I may blog from there...

King's Kamp Day One

  Today was Day One at KK 2008.  We left home about 7am and arrived at Idyllwild around 11 (with a stop for McGriddles on the way...btw...if you ever need to order a sausage McGriddle with cheese...forget about it.  It took them 7 minutes of trying different things on the computer to get it figured out.  Finally, I just said, "forget it!  Just give me a sausage, EGG, & cheese McGriddle and I'll remove the egg.  Of course, if you know Madison, you know she was not okay with that.  If an egg touched her McGriddle...).

Anyhow, we finally made it to Idyllwild and worked hard from 11 am to 11pm to get the camp ready, finish building the space ship (above) and devising a way to crash land the ship.  It was really tiring...but what fun. 

I'm Dr. Spaceman (Speh-che-mun) and my colleage Jr. Spaceman is helping me teach the people of this planet about God's will.  It's really fun.  Big props to the amazing crew that put this all together.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Nicholas Carr has an excellent article in this month's "Atlantic" that describes the impact of the Internet on our ability to concentrate.  I recommend reading it...

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

Wal-Mart supports "the man"

 

Today's WSJ reports that the world's largest retailer is "warning" employees that if the democrats take over next year it will likely hurt their bottom-line, as well as their employment levels (see article here  Wal-Mart Warns of Democratic Win - WSJ.com ).

Why the fear of dems?  Won't Obama's tax-cuts for the poorest Americans increase the spending of Wal-Mart's key constituents?  One word...Unionization.  W-M is one of the most aggressive in fighting unionization (and one of the worst Fortune 500 firms in terms of benefits for hourly employees).

However despite their concerns, W-M leaders are covering their bases with the PAC support of Dems almost equal to their support of the GOP--in stark contrast to the 2000 and 2004 elections.

It would be easy to interpret this as W-M pressuring their employees to vote GOP-or else.  Thoughts?

The Obligatory Earthquake News

For any of you who are wondering...yes,  we did feel the earthquake this week.  At least, the boys and I did.  Somehow Michelle missed it all together while walking around the house talking on the phone. 

The boys and I felt it...and it was pretty cool.  Just a couple of waves of rocking earth.  About 5 seconds...

None of us were hurt and we feel like official Californians now.

Guilt-free play

My wife and I have a consistent discussion about the value of "play" and "down-time". This often occurs when one of us starts a new book. Its hard for us to fall into the book for hours on end without lots of guilt. Same with most any other leisure activity.

This week's "Speaking of Faith" addresses this issue with an interview with Stuart Brown, the Director of the National Institute for Play. He argues that "play prepares us for an evolving planet," and that without sufficient play time we will find that we are fixed and rigid in response to complex stimuli. Play is universal across the human species as well as almost every other intelligent form of life on the planet.

Take an hour and listen to it. You'll be glad you did.

How the rich get richer

This week's Word for Word has an interesting speech by David Cay Johnston about how the US tax system is one of the most regressive in the world. Interestingly, he notes that professional sports team's owners essentially buy their franchises for free after tax rebates.

Providence in the Key of B

It was a pleasure to preach at my home church this week. I truly enjoy preaching a few times a year. Every week is pretty tough...but every six months is wonderful.

If you're interested, here's the text of my sermon. (Props to Ed for the great food for thought for this sermon).

Thanks to Sys Admins...a tribute in song.

The Brain Thrashing Threshold

OK...Facebook must have reached critical mass this summer.  It seems that what started as a social app for college students a few years ago has somehow become the platform of modernity. 

Over the past eight weeks several friends and family (some who would be classified as Luddites) have suddenly shown up on FB.  Surprisingly, this has had an impact on my own productivity.  I find myself checking their status throughout the day and commenting on their interests.  Totally a distraction.  I'm nearly at the point of "Brain Thrashing". 

Here is a wonderful article about the direction this is heading...