Saturday, November 15, 2008

The Wisdom of Wine....

My brother sent this to me in an email...

To my friends who enjoy a glass of wine... and those who don't.

As Ben Franklin said:
"In wine there is wisdom, in beer there is freedom, in water there is bacteria."
In a number of carefully controlled trials, scientists have demonstrated that if we drink 1 liter of water each day, at the end of the year we
would have absorbed more than 1 kilo of Escherichia coli, (E. coli) - bacteria found in feces.

In other words, we are consuming 1 kilo of poop.

However, we do NOT run that risk when drinking wine & beer because alcohol has to go
through a purification process of boiling, filtering and/or fermenting.

Remember:

Water = Poop
Wine = Health

Therefore, it's better to drink wine and talk
stupid, than to drink water and be full of sh-t.
There is no need to thank me for this valuable information:

I'm doing it as a public service.

Bobby Bowden

Like I've said over, and over ad nauseam, this has been one of the toughest years of my life. Definitely top 5, probably top three. Florida St. coach Bobby Bowden shed some light on this today.
He was answering questions about problems in his football program. He explained that all the teams have problems somewhere along the way. He called them "disappointments", not problems...interesting. Then he personalized things, and got philosophical. He said, "life in many ways is a series of disappointments. It doesn't matter so much that we have them; what matters is how we react to them. And how we respond to them will determine whether we fail or succeed". He closed by saying they would deal with the team's disappointments, and turn them to their advantage. I really needed to hear that. I try to be proactive with disappointments, but to "deal with them and turn them to my advantage"? Very timely, so I wanted to post those words. It helps me to remember them. And maybe someone else will benefit from them as well.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

World of Warcraft

Dog and cat are bored....

This is crazy! The cat usually fights with the dog. (The dog thinks they are just playing when the cat goes after her.) So I get my video out and they just sit and look at each other!
I'll try again though...cause the fight/play is funny.

Friday, November 07, 2008

It's all good, right? This boring, but I'll post it anyway.

When my son (Luke) was five years old, during his bed time prayers one time he said, "Dad, pray that my dresser moves from that side of the room to the other side of the room."
"Why on earth would I want to do that?" I said.
"Jesus said, if we have a tiny bit of faith, we could tell a mountain to fall in the sea, and it would....so will you pray that about my dresser?"
"Maybe Jesus meant something else when He said that." I fumbled around with concepts like "metaphor", which mean nothing to a five year old. Luke finally concluded, "We don't have faith, do we dad." Wow.
I was humbled. I have always remembered that conversation. He was right, we don't have faith. Or rather we (I) don't have the kind of, or level of faith that I wish I had. (Much smaller than a mustard seed, I suppose.)
Jesus gave that example in response to a request, "Lord, increase our faith!" The context is Jesus teaching His followers to be completely forgiving! It's Luke 17, I think; and is an incredibly rich piece of scripture. He followed up His example of faith with two practical applications. To first, obey Him, learning to take Him at His word. And second, to cultivate an attitude of unworthiness in our relationship with Him. There is much more there, but that's most of what I get out of it...
Bible study is now dismissed... :-)
I promise not to turn this blog into a Bible commentary...I actually have a point here...but what was it? Hmmm...have you quit reading yet? :-)
Here's my point.........
I may not have faith. (When I say that, I don't mean I have some kind of atheistic mind set. I just mean compared to the kind of faith I think I should have I am quite pathetic...I also think God sees most of us like that...and He is merciful anyhow.)
When I am pressed/stressed etc. I quickly demonstrate the truth of my small faith. However, even though I don't have faith, I need faith...if you are in the same boat here, then WE need faith. Faith has to do with what we don't know, and with what we don't see. "What is going to happen next?" I don't know! But I/we who don't have faith, have to CHOOSE faith. At the end of the day, that is where we end up. It is true of everyone, all of us, and them (even Bill Maher :-). So I will choose faith...in what? (See where I'm going?) It's not enough (for me at least) to put faith in myself, or "the good" (It's all good, right?), or that things will work out (when is that?). I must choose to put my faith in more. That's my point here. That's what's been stewing in my head today.

Sunday, November 02, 2008

1000 points of light............

1000 points...Remember that? It was Bush Sr, and his new world order. We had the 1000 point experience this weekend. Sydney, Luke, Max, and myself helped start a Habitat house. You have like 50-60 people. Each one pounds a few nails, cuts some wood, and helps each other. It's a lot of people each doing a little work each, and presto, a house appears! At least the frame, and yes, we had three professional framers on sight. It was fun. And Luke and Max each got 1000 ataboy points...these can be redeemed when they are on the shit list... :-)
And that's NOT all, but it's all I think I want to write here. Time for WOW.