Effective now, my blog will be going silent.  For no less than 30 days this blog will be untouched.  Comments are turned off.

I need to take some time to reflect on life and come to an understanding on where I need to go.

Vote McCain. I thought about giving a month of Obama bashing, but I think a time of reflection is more important right now.

Well as mentioned in my previous post, I spent most of my day helping friend Matt K move.  I am wore out.  Started at 9:30, went till 11:30... then started again about 12:30 and finished about 7.  Starting to really think I'll need surgery on my shoulder next year (when my Flex Spending account re-ups...) as it is not doing well at all... think I've got some rotator cuff issues.

One thing that really stood out to me today were the children helping out.  Matt K had his four children helping out, and another guy had his daughter helping out (more on her in a second).

Matt and his wife raise their children with the expectation of obeying (odd concept I know)... and they did a great job today.  They worked their tails off and hopefully made their parents proud. 

But I knew those four children, the other guy and his daughter are new to me.  He's had a bit of a rough way to go with it over the past year or so... so I'm not 100% sure of his current status in my church... but I've heard his name mentioned more than once by my circle of friends.  He had his daughter with him... and she was doing a great job... and during a down time I thought I would chat with her a bit and asked her what grade she was in.... was stunned when she said sophomore in high school.  I would have guessed (and felt good about the guess) 12 yr's old.  She was very small and looked very young.  But at 15, almost 16, (her emphasis) she did an unbelievable job.  I reallllly hope my baby girl is that respectful when she is that age.

I couldn't imagine how much longer we would have went without these five great children.

Well I stumbled across something on another blog and I'm stealing it.  With permission :-)

It has been called 40 days of focus.  Basically commit to doing things for 40 days.  Now when I saw this I had the idea that inviting some men from my church into the fold to go through this with me would be a great idea, so the invite went out to a few select men and here we are.

In August I will be involved in starting a new small group in Bethel and there are three of us guys (the fourth guy is a maybe for the small group) who for the 40 days leading up to the group launch will focus on our spiritual lives. 

Tom C, Scott W, Matt K, and myself have laid out our own goals and we will be moving forward with them.  I will post personal updates here daily, and on occasion will update you on the status of the other guys.  Plus I will encourage them to make comments on each thread as well.

From July 7th until August 15th we will be in focus.  I am really stoked about what I know God will do during this time.  I am scared about what I know the devil will do during this time.

So what are my goals?

• To read the New Testament.  ALL OF IT.  That equates to 6.5 chapters a day, so on dates that are odd I will read 7 chapters on dates that are even I will read 6. 
• To pray daily AND log my prayers. Sometimes we overlook our answered prayers.
• To wake up at 6 AM.  I am very inconsistent on my wake up time, six am gives me some time to do some of my list.
• To play with my kids when I get home.  Before I do anything else to see if they are clinging for my attention, and give it to them.
• To love my wife more.  She deserves it.

I could add more, but maybe that will happen after this 40 days.  As I could easily see this taking on a life of its own.

However I will also lay out one soft goal.  Things I'm just not sure if I can do it due to time, but we will see.

• Walk the dog (and thus walk myself) every night.

If you are a reader of this blog, are you up for the challenge?  If so grab a friend or two (or you can just do it yourself) and DO IT.

One more note to make, due to the nature of this challenge my blog will be silent of other things unless the other things warrant a double post. 

HT: Josh Young
HT: Aron

Its been a quiet blog lately.  I have been SWAMPED in life.  Have been working on a side project 97% done with that.  Have been swamped at work, just released 8 months of work to the wild... and have a lot on my plate. It is baseball season so we have to run from game to game for my two older son's.  And then there is church... lets just say its been less than peaceful there!  Some great, some not so great, but all have ended up pretty well. 

So how do I have the time to blog right now?  I'M ON VACATION!!!

Love it... no cell phone coverage, but available wifi!  We are enjoying a week in Gatlinburg.  We are at the base of the Smokey Mountain National Park.  Wife is out getting information for 'todo' stuff and shortly we will be off.

But with some things starting to settle down, expect the blogging to pick back up.  I really enjoy putting my thoughts to 'paper' and having them stored for historical purposes.

But one thing I need to start being aware of is that many in my church family have started to find this thing.... I guess I have to play nice :-)

What's up first?  How about a church update... will be available 6:00 AM tomorrow!

The saying goes, i fyou don't like the weather in Cincinnati... wait 15 minutes it will change. 

Well going to church this morning it seemed cold, just likes its been for a while... then I stepped out of church and took my coat off, it felt great!  So I decided I'd take the time to change the oil on my car (it needed it), also decided to change the oil on my van.  Got my car up on the ramps, drained the oil and went to get a filter.  My window's were down, and when I was pulling out of the driveway with our van I looked at the sky and had the thought... it feels like it is going to rain... but drove off anyways.  Sure enough it rained, had to call the wife to hide all my tools under the car and roll (really does this fit anymore now that things are done by a switch) my window's up.

Got home and got on the wet ground with it still raining a bit to finish the oil change.  It stopped in a bit so I started and finished the van.  Now on the van, the last time it was changed it was by a local shop... why in the wolrd do they feel the need to tighten things up so much?  I'm a 250 lb man and had a REAL hard time breaking the drain bold and filter loose.

Then I looked at the milage of each:

Van: 42,561 miles.
Car: 41,988 miles.  

We got both of these cars less then 16 months ago under or around 20K miles... man we drive way to much.

Well if you read this, the real reason for the post is so I have a record of when I need to change the oil again :-) 

A very under publicized boycott of Ford has been in place for several years from the American Family Association due to Ford's endorsement of several gay rights groups. 

Honestly I HAVE heard of this boycott... I did not use it as any basis for shopping for cars.  However the numbers given in this article are stunning to show that the boycott is likely costing Ford Millions/Billions of dollars!

Just look at this very basic break down of the numbers:

If just .5% of AFA supporters bought a Ford, instead of staggering losses they would have a $63 million dollar gain!

Generally for a boycott you will probably get 1% of your supporters to follow you, so it is very clear that the boycott is likely costing Ford some serious money.

So I'll close this post with a quote from the end of that article:

All in all, it would be much better if the suits in Dearborn had heeded the late Milton Friedman, who said that “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits.” One hopes for the sake of the company’s shareholders and remaining employees that it’s not to late for Ford to face this reality, and the mainstream media to recognize it.

Not going home anytime soon tonight.  It is just after six and this is what my commute would look like!  A car may make it through this stretch in five minutes, would take me hours to get home.

If only Global Warming were true and it was sunny and 60 out.

Normal for February 21 in Cincinnati?    22 degree's ABOVE what we have right now!

It amazes me who is reading my blog, as they will email me privately or tell me about it when I see them.

My landlord, boss, Elder at my church, wife, couple of preachers, old boss, and friends (though the previous people are friends as well).  And yet they all still talk to me :-)

So come on you lurkers, say hello!

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