Futbol Players

* Apparently I have a blog. Probably shouldn't go a month without updating it.

This school year has turned out to be an interesting list of firsts for us. First time we've had a kid in middle school and the first time our youngest has been in kindergarten. That also means it's the first time since we've had kids that they've all been in school for the full day. (This is leading to some wonderful ministry possibilities for us!) Well, another first came this morning: all three of the kids were playing soccer. Allison had her very first game and, while a little reluctant at first, she really got into it and had a great time. Meghan is the oldest on her team (and scored their only goal) while Caleb is the youngest on his (which he loves, his attitude is "Bring it on!")

Anyway, here's a shot of the three of them in their uniforms:

Family Fun

This past weekend was a lot of fun for our family. On Friday we got around to building a fire pit in our backyard and celebrated by roasting marshmallows. (As I type this, Karin and the kids are on their way to WalMart to pick up stuff for S'mores this afternoon.) On Saturday we got to celebrate the wedding of a former BSU student and then caught a Royals game - the kids' first!

It was a blast touring the renovated stadium with them. We got to check out all the "kid attractions" and maybe next time around we'll spend some money over there. Since that evening was "Christmas in July" (complete with powder blue Royals stockings as a giveaway) we got to pick up our freebies and also snap a shot with a melting snowman. We enjoyed the well known fountains (which obviously I'd never seen that close up before) and had a fantastic experience with customer service.

When I picked up our tickets, we were unable to get five seats together. I was pretty frustrated, but settled for a set of three and two. The cashier told me we could talk to guest services and see if there was anything that they could do. Upon walking into our section, the usher checked our tickets and immediately offered to do whatever he could. Less than ten minutes later he gave us a free seat upgrade, where all five of us were able to sit together in the shade! And if all of that wasn't enough, we witnessed a Billy Butler home run, Luke Hochevar notching 13 strikeouts, and the Royals pulling out a rare 6-3 win. I couldn't have asked for a better day!

Here are some pics of us at the backyard fire pit and the Royals game:

More on Winning and Losing

Competitiveness and competition will probably always be a part of my life in some fashion, so I'm very thankful for the insights I recently received and shared in regards to this topic. Since then I've had a few more thoughts I want to throw out there.

It has occurred to me that I could guarantee I would never lose another competition in my life. While I'm not a particularly good basketball player (haha, what an understatement) there's one way I could be certain to win every time: I'll only play against people ages ten and under. (Imagine how many blocked shots I could have!) This may sound like a silly idea, but I think it has some pretty sound implications:

• Winning against weak competition is not satisfying.
  It's just a fact. I've been on both sides of this one, where a softball game is completely one-sided and is more like practice for the dominant team. Sure it's nice to win, but it comes with the asterisk that the team you just pounded wasn't very good. Keep that in mind.
  
  
• Beating the Best is Better.
  It's obvious, then, that winning against equal or superior talent is much more satisfying, since you actually have to earn it. But there's a trade-off there: as the value of winning increases, so do the chances of losing. Some choose to avoid that chance and simply accept winning against inferior opponents. Be sure to properly evaluate which side you're choosing.
  
  
• You May Be a Big Fish in a Little Pond.
  Someone will rise to the top and dominate whatever local competition they may find. The only problem is that the competition doesn't end there. You probably don't have to travel very far before you find others that are at your level or higher. Only a handful of people (those making millions of dollars) ever actually reach the peak of their game. In other words, don't forget that you'd probably lose somewhere else.
  
  
• What Happens When You Do Reach the Top?
  A few have made it to the peak of that mountain. Countless others envy them and their achievements, wishing to be equated with greatness and all the spoils that come along with it. But in the end, does it satisfy? Is it really all it's cracked up to be? A while back I came across an interview Tom Brady did with 60 minutes that was very interesting. I was originally just going to link that interview, but found a compilation put together that tied in some other relevant elements quite well.

Hopefully thoughts like these will continue to help me keep winning and losing in its proper perspective and not allow either one to distract me from what matters most.

The Art of Losing Well

* This post is not about the Royals in any way, shape or form. But it is something that they excel at.

I have met people in my life that handled losing well, but I don't think I've ever met anyone that enjoyed it. And if they did, I'm sure they weren't all that interested in winning in the first place. Winning matters most when competition is involved, and you don't have to go very far to find that somewhere in life. The unfortunate side effect of competition is that little phenomenon called losing. Even at age 33 I find it difficult to deal with and my kids find it almost impossible.

Recently a friend at church, Mike, gave me some advice in dealing with losing. A lot of times I find myself getting very frustrated, although I do a pretty good job of keeping it inside. (Maybe Karin would say differently, I'll have to ask...) But keeping it inside isn't really the best way to deal with it, it just keeps you from socially embarrassing situations - and for that reason alone I still recommend giving it a try! But whether its explosions and resulting rage or managing to keep it bottled up, these are just the symptoms of the problem. Getting to the root means learning to look at losing differently.* So here are the two tips I was recently given that have helped me out tremendously. I'm doing my best to try and instill them in my kids as well.

* I do think another major problem with winning and losing is that our identity is usually tied to our performance and to acceptance by others. I could go into another long post on this subject as well, but as a Christian it's imperative that we find our worth in Christ alone.

First off is to recognize what is and what is not within your control. I don't know that this really registered for me, but far too often I get upset about things that I have no impact on whatsoever. One of my hobbies is a collectible miniatures game that involves rolling dice. While you can do a few things to improve your chances of getting a good roll, it's entirely possible to roll an epic fail. It definitely can be frustrating, but what can you do? If you knew it was outside of your control before you rolled the dice, you'd know there was a distinct possibility things wouldn't go your way.

This is also true in team sports. If someone drops a fly ball or the shortstop boots a grounder, there's nothing you could have done about it. It may be natural to get upset (since your chances of winning are tied to their performance) but it's really pointless. And while the anger is welling up inside, it naturally translates into negativity towards that person. Chances are high that it will only go downhill from there, especially if you open your mouth.

This certainly runs counter to Ephesians 4:29 which says, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen." Recognizing that I have no control over their performance will help me to focus on what I can control: my attitude and my speech. Now I'm in a position to encourage them, which is far more important in the long run than winning or losing anyway.

This leads right into the second point, which is that winning comes through something else I can control: dedication and hard work. The scene is all too familiar: one player hits a high, routine fly ball to the outfield and the defender settles under the ball to chants of "Miss it! Miss it!" The way to win isn't to hope your opponent fails or messes up, although winning often happens that way. (I've certainly played games where I said, "They didn't win that game, we lost it.") But the best course of action for us to pursue in competition is to try and improve our own game rather than hope our opponent doesn't bring their best.

I see this all the time with the kids, where they're actively rooting against each other. After lunch today there was an incredibly exciting game of wii bowling where two of the kids were tied with 82 pins in the seventh frame. In the eighth, they both got spares. Then in the ninth they both got strikes! It was a blast to watch as they matched each other throw for throw, the excitement in the room growing with each round.

In the tenth frame the first player bowled a strike, followed by netting seven pins with the two extra throws. The pressure was really on player two, who wasn't able to match the strike and ended up losing 157-177. At first all was good, as we simply basked in the fun of an exciting game. But it wasn't long before sore losing took hold and complaining ensued, especially against the performance of the winner. I imagine it will be a difficult road to get them to embrace these two principles (after all, here I am struggling with it as an adult), but I'm going to keep impressing it upon them and trying to demonstrate it in my own life as well.

On the side, a third competitive tip I've picked up is from another friend, Jake. We've played racquetball together a few times and it's always intense. After one particularly challenging match he let me in on a little secret: he never says anything during a game, good or bad. This eliminates both grumbling and bragging, including comments that weren't meant as such but might come off that way. I sometimes forget this principle but need to work on it as well.

So there you go. For those of you that will find yourself participating in competition sometime soon, I hope these tips might help you out. And for any parents out there, maybe they could help your kids as well.

The Best Part of Summer

(Once I saw Marsha with the glove on her head, I knew I had to include this picture.)

If you know me at all you know I love to play softball. And hopefully you also know that I love college students. So what could be better than putting those two together? Getting halfway through the summer means that very thing will be getting started next week! While I do enjoy the game itself, the best part is seeing how it develops community and brings people closer together, ultimately serving to grow us up in Jesus.

For those who aren't on the team, we'd love for you to come cheer us on! All games will be at Donaldson Park on the Northwest field. Here is the schedule, although I'm sure we'll hit a rain out or two along the way:

Tue 7/14 - 6:00 vs Pirates & Wenches
Thu 7/16 - 8:00 vs Laura Street Baptist Church
Tue 7/21 - 8:00 vs The Sandlot
Thu 7/23 - 7:00 vs Hometown Auto Doctor
Tue 7/28 - 6:00 vs Walmart Dominators
Thu 7/30 - 8:00 vs Pirates & Wenches
Tue 8/4 - 6:00 vs Laura Street Baptist Church
Thu 8/6 - 7:00 vs The Sandlot
Tue 8/11 - 6:00 vs Hometown Auto Doctor
Thu 8/13 - 7:00 vs Walmart Dominators
Tue 8/18 - 7:00 vs Pirates & Wenches
Thu 8/20 - 6:00 vs Laura Street Baptist Church

Finding a Spark

Like nearly every other person out there, I've often had the desire to "get in shape." While we all generally understand what that means, there are a few different aspects to it. There's losing weight, building muscle and developing cardiovascular endurance. While I'd like to see all of those happen, I'm currently working on the first: losing weight.

Before I go any further, let me make a disclaimer. I find it very annoying when someone responds with, "You don't need to lose weight!" I appreciate the intentions when we say that to someone, but unless you suspect them of anorexia you should let them be the judge of that. I am quite confident that I'm not at my ideal weight, and I know that the challenge will only get harder the older I get.

As I write this, I've been actively pursuing this for almost exactly one month. In that time I've lost 10 or 11 pounds and have about that much left to go. I simply wanted to share a few of the things I've found to be helpful along the way.

First off, I got serious about utilizing Spark People. It's an online community of over five million people striving for a healthier lifestyle. There are tons of resources on there and many different ways to find help and support. For me the most useful tool has been the nutrition tracker. All I have to do is keep track of how much I eat and enter it into the website. It keeps track of how many calories I've had, including breaking it down into fat, carbs and protein. And since I told it how much I weighed when I started and what my target weight/date were, it tells me the calorie range I need to stay within.

In order to best measure the food I've eaten we picked up a digital scale. I got this one at Amazon.com for $25 (and another shout out to Amazon Prime for free shipping). It's very simple and since you can zero out the scale at any time, you can easily keep track of each thing you add to your plate.

Another thing that's been instrumental is drinking more water. Spark People (along with many many others) suggests drinking at least eight cups a day. A while ago we picked up this Brita water filter which does a fantastic job in making Maryville water drinkable. I also have a large drinking "jug" that is marked off to let you know how much water you've had.

Another useful development has been the increase in fruits and vegetables as part of our diet. It's certainly frustrating that this leads to an increased grocery bill, but the health benefits are worth it. And having our finances in order simply means we'll have to make a cut somewhere else.

It's been very gratifying to see results as I follow a tried-and-true method of weight loss: making wise choices daily and seeing the cumulative effects. I enjoy the fact that it doesn't require absolutely cutting certain things out of your diet, but rather endorses moderation. It's like having a calorie paycheck and a calorie budget. You know you have this much to spend each day, and if you make a large purchase in one area you're going to have to cut back somewhere else.

Now that I'm getting this area under control, I'm soon going to add in some work to strengthen my lower back (a constant source of frustration) and work to develop more softball related areas.

For anyone out there in a similar pursuit I want to encourage you not to give up. I weigh in every day, and some days the number on the scale goes up instead of down. However, the method is proven and if you just stick with it the results will come!

Happy Birthday, America!

I built this two story playhouse a few years ago and it originally was painted camouflage, but recently Meghan suggested we paint it red white and blue. After playing around with a few different designs this is what we all decided on. It would have been finished on the 4th of July but I couldn't find any cardboard big enough to make my star stencil.

As an aside, one thing that I've been learning recently is in the area of being a better dad. The Lord has made it clear to me that as I'm doing my every day normal activities I can simply invite the kids to join me in what I'm working on. Here they helped with painting and last week they helped me finish hang drywall on the living room ceiling.

So often I'm in such a hurry to get things done that I'd rather shoo them off so I can finish the project instead of seeing it as an opportunity to spend time with them. I know it's not rocket science, I'm just a slow learner sometimes =) To any other parents with young kids out there, I encourage you to find ways to include them in your every day life too.

Review: Free Prize Inside

Here's my relationship with books: I like them, I collect them, and once in a while I actually get around to reading them. At one point I had hoped to read a book a week this summer, with the included expectation that I would write a review here on the blog. I might have picked the wrong book to get started, because it's one that's challenging me to find a lot of application.

Right off the bat I want to acknowledge that a book like this may be a bit controversial in a ministry setting. Some folks aren't fond of taking a popular business book or concept and trying to apply it to the church or some other ministry. While I agree that the church is not a business, I think it would be foolish to ignore wisdom or ideas that could help us serve the Lord more effectively. While I do believe the Bible is the infallible authoritative word of God, I don't think it's the only place we can find useful knowledge. With that said, here are a few thoughts I have regarding this book and its author.

I got to hear Seth Godin speak in person at Catalyst last fall and was very impressed. He's not the most striking or dynamic speaker, but he understands that. So instead of his face on the video screen, he had the best powerpoint presentation I've ever seen. I don't know how many slides he had, but it definitely numbered in the hundreds. They were all (as far as I can remember) images, and if there was any text it would be a single word. The images were gripping, interesting and illustrative. In this particular book he includes some advice for making quality powerpoint presentations on pages 102 to 107 that would probably be worth the price of the book for a lot of people.

For anyone in the realm of business, especially in a non-leadership position, I think this would be a very useful resource. The second section of the book is all about championing an idea and getting those above you to buy into it. Well, I don't personally have to deal with that, since I have a great deal of freedom in my job to try all sorts of new things. The third (and final) section goes into great detail about finding the edges you can exploit to make your product remarkable. Again, I had a bit of a tough time finding a lot of application here, although it probably best serves as a long series of examples to help you better assess your own situation.

But I'm probably getting ahead of myself here. What is the main point of the book? Quite simply it is to make your product remarkable. By remarkable he means that which causes people to make a remark, something that people will talk about. His idea is that you do that by having a free prize inside, an unexpected extra, just like you used to find in cereal boxes as a kid. (Do they still do those today? We just buy cheap bagged cereal...) And when they get that free prize, they'll tell others.

I've seen this in action and know that it's true. Nowhere was this more evident than in our Dollar Dinner ministry last year. Getting a cheap meal isn't a new idea, and there are several churches/ministries in town where you can do that. But what started drawing in larger-than-normal crowds was the free prize: excellent homemade food. I found that we didn't have to advertise the event at all, because the food itself was the advertisement. It went above and beyond their expectations, which led them to tell their friends and bring them along. A second, lesser free prize was the amount of food that was provided (variety, not necessarily quantity), also much more than you'd think to get for a dollar.

The idea of practicing excellence in our ministries shouldn't be a new or difficult concept. The Bible says as much in Colossians 3:23, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men." The Lord is certainly worthy of the very best that we can give (and much more!) A similar statement would be that "if something is worth doing, it's worth doing right." Ministry is certainly worth doing! But some times we're so busy doing a bunch of things okay that we're not doing any of them with excellence. For some, it might be best to cut out what's just getting by and focus on hitting a home run with a smaller number of things.

While that's the primary thing I got out of this book, there were a few other ideas that got my attention. Here's one: "We buy what we want, not what we need." I think that statement has some pretty radical implications for ministry. How do we best meet people's wants in order that we can ministry to their (in our eyes) more important needs? And how do we do that without compromising what really matters? To not simply become a fun club for people to be a part of? I think it's a tough balance to strike, but one that we must seriously consider since all that ministries do is based on volunteer attendance and involvement.

Another big idea for me was this simple statement: "Fix what's broken." Sometimes the best way we can make something excellent (and therefore remarkable) is to simply remove the barriers that block its way. After all, we seem much more likely to remember that one thing that went wrong than the ten that went right. Maybe it's parking or a bad flow of people traffic. It could be as simple as the buzz in your sound system. It shouldn't be too hard to find out what needs fixing, just ask around or have a non-regular come and watch with a fresh set of eyes.

The last thing that I'm still working on is the idea that people have been trained their whole lives to do what they're told. He makes the statement that, "the easiest way to avoid pain is to follow someone else's lead." As a minister I want to empower others to make decisions, embrace their ideas and take chances. This isn't natural for very many of us, so I need to figure out how to help students do this more and more. Any advice or thoughts on that?

So all in all I found the book to be very interesting and somewhat helpful and challenging. For those in the business sector I think it would be a great read. For those of you in ministry, I tried my best to pick out the best parts so you could just read this blog post instead =)

Discipleship Essentials

Next year we're strongly considering using the book Discipleship Essentials by Greg Ogden as our small group discipleship material. In order to test it out, I'm going through it this summer at a quicker pace with one of our student leaders. Tonight is technically our second session, although the first may not have really counted since we did it via Facebook while I was in Turkey.

The second session is on being a disciple, and it's a very good one. Two separate passages of scripture are examined, using an inductive method of asking good questions and requiring the learner to think. The "right" answers are never given, so there's no chance for peeking or cheating - real thought and prayer must be applied.

It's always good to be reminded that to follow Jesus is to "deny [your]self and take up [your] cross daily, and follow." If anyone is looking for some good discipleship material, this is definitely worth checking out. Thanks to Jason Allen and Brian Lautenschlager for pointing me in its direction.

Bible in 90 Days

A while back I began doing my daily Bible reading on Biblegateway.com. Just before leaving for Turkey, I saw that they were going to be starting a 90 day reading plan on June 1. If today's reading is indicative of the whole plan, it looks to be about 16 chapters a day.

I generally don't like to read the Bible in giant chunks like this, mostly because I like to take a small section and dive in as deep as I can. But this is a nice change of pace, and will likely help me remember a lot of stuff that I've forgotten or have neglected in the past.

If anyone wants to join me or just wants to learn more, you can do so here.

Creative Anti-Smoking Campaign

When I went to Turkey back in January, I was surprised to see some of the cigarettes for sale in the Ankara airport. Specifically, I didn't expect to see over half of the carton's packaging to display the words "SMOKING KILLS." Not being a fan of smoking, I was happy to see this truth displayed a little bit larger than the American Surgeon General's warning we have.

Well, this time around I found a whole new set of statements on the cartons, going into greater detail than simply saying, "Smoking Kills." Here are some samples for you to enjoy.

Quick Shots

Here are a few photos Andrew has taken, presented without commentary:

Culture of Chai

I never got around to posting a lot of thoughts about my first trip to Turkey, here's one of them:

Of course there were many cultural differences to be found, but I've been thinking a lot lately about chai. In some parts of the world chai is a milk/tea/spice drink, but in Turkish it is simply the word for tea. After every meal they sit and have hot chai. I was only there in the winter, so I don't know if that's just a cold weather thing or an all the time thing. I suspect it's the latter.*

* It is, in fact, the latter. I was very happy to find this time around that chai has nothing to do with the weather at all. It's just as popular in May as it was back in January.

What strikes me about being a chai culture is what it represents. Why would anyone sit around after a meal (and we're talking all three meals of the day here) just to have tea? To sit and visit, of course! Relationships are highly valued there, so sitting and talking is a great way to spend more of your time.

It's not that relationships aren't important in America, but we seem to have something we value even more: efficiency. Most of us don't sit around and visit after a meal because we don't have time for it. There are just too many other important things to do with the time. At my house the process of eating dinner together might not take more than ten or fifteen minutes. I know others are so busy that they often don't have time to sit and eat at all - it might simply be grabbing something from a drive through and eating in the car on the way to somewhere else.

In trying to invest in international students at Northwest, I've found that the most important issue is simply spending time together. Sure it's great to help meet a need like providing furniture or a ride to WalMart. But then what? Is that the end, or is it a means to something more?

Maybe this is so intuitive to others that it's laughable to even post this. But while we're so busy trying to squeeze the most out of our time, we too have this same cry for relationships. It's almost as if we have competing desires, between being productive and connecting with people. Unfortunately our schedules are packed with important commitments which usually mean we have to sacrifice the relationships first.

I'm realizing more and more that I need to trim some responsibilities from my plate so I have more time with people. And even when I am around people, I need to make a greater effort to actually connect with them, and not simply be "around" people.

A second trip to Turkey has simply reinforced this truth.

Seriously?

By now I'm sure most people know that Manny Ramirez tested positive for a banned substance and will be serving a 50 game suspension from baseball. I realize I only have a few selected clips from the paper, but I want to throw this one out there:

In a statement, Manny said, "Recently I saw a physician for a personal health issue... He gave me a medication, not a steroid, which he thought was okay to give me. Unfortunately, the medication was banned under our drug policy. Under the policy that mistake is now my responsibility. I have been advised not to say anything more for now. I do want to say one other thing; I've taken and passed about 15 drug tests over the past five seasons."

What's the deal here? Are we really supposed to believe Manny had no idea what was going on? Apparently the substance is "a female fertility drug that can also be used as a antidote to diminished testosterone levels at the end of a cycle of steroid treatments."

It's quite possible that everything he's saying in there is true. He had a "personal health issue." The doctor gave him "medication, not a steroid" that the doctor though "was okay to give." Those could all be true statements, and yet still be a complete cover to hide what was really going on.

And the way he says "that mistake is now my responsibility" makes him sound like a victim. Yet he's not going to appeal the results or the punishment dealt out by MLB. It's hard to believe an innocent ballplayer would sit back and take something like this quietly, which further leads me to believe it's true. Especially one who has "taken and passed about 15 drug tests over the past five seasons."

It's amazing how easy it is to own up to something without really owning up to anything at all.*

* Yes, I realize this comes off a bit self-righteous, and who knows what I would do if I were a professional ballplayer. And yes, I do have plenty of struggles of my own, so it would be perfectly legit to say something about planks or stones. I was just struck by this statement this morning and wanted to throw some thoughts out there.

New Family Fun

We picked up a new game the other day that has turned out to be a lot of fun. It's called Slamwich and here are the rules. It's one of those types of games that requires pattern recognition and quick hands and lots of slapping the table!

Productive Day

At 8am this morning, Zach and I began moving furniture around and proceeded to tear up our old carpet and pad. Then we spent an hour or so pulling staples out of the floor along with random nails and things. When that was finally out of the way, our local flooring expert Kevin came over and helped us install laminate flooring! We wrapped up our day right at 6pm, knocking out the living room and dining room. Tomorrow we're going to try and finish the kids' rooms.

Here's our wonderful old carpet on its last day:


Here's a shot of the amazing tile that was hiding under the carpet in the dining room:


And here's a glimpse at the finished product:

Ah the Memories

So here we are getting the kids ready on Wednesday morning. One of the kids makes a comment about peaches, which naturally leads Karin to sing a song. I had to load up the video on YouTube so they could enjoy the song in all its glory. The ninjas at the end are classic!

Quick Wednesday Morning Thoughts

• Go Royals! - when I signed up for DVR last spring, I only did it because the Royals had a new deal with Fox Sports KC that would put almost all of their games on TV. Last year was fine, but this year it's really turning out to be a great decision. I don't know what's going on with the team, but it's a lot of fun! They're winning games they never would've won in the past, including last night's slugfest against Chicago. I was really tired and went to bed at the end of the 10th, but I'll catch the 11th on DVR here real soon. Great job out of the pen last night by Jamey Wright!


• Greinke Fun Facts - If you read my blog, you know by now that I'm a big fan of Joe Posnanski. Much of what he writes is must-read in my book, but you've got to check out these stats on Greinke so far. I especially like 5, 6 and 8.


• Worth Repeating - I hope to see a few more of these this season, but the other night Billy Butler had an outstanding game: a single, a double and two home runs. Once again, Joe Poz comes through in splendid fashion, giving me a genuine laugh-out-loud moment, terming such an accomplishment as a "Billy Cycle." To quote Joe, "Billy is a terrific young hitter but, to be brutally frank, that triple probably isn’t happening." I'll take a Billy Cycle any day!


• Cool Hand Luke? - Like many others, I'm wondering what in the world Sydney Ponson is doing as a continuing member of the Royals rotation. Interesting stat today: Royals without Ponson = 16-6. Meanwhile, Luke is tearing it up in AAA with a 5-0 record and a 1.13 ERA. What I really don't get is this quote from Trey: "I’m thrilled for Luke. I hope at some point we do get to see him, but I don’t want it to be because somebody is not performing or because we have an injury." Uhhh, is there a third option? Death? Abduction by aliens?


• Idol Rocks - Last night was Rock Night on American Idol, and it was AWESOME! I definitely enjoyed it more than any other Idol so far, I think it was enough to completely wash the taste of Country Night out of my mouth. I agree with Randy that Kris and Danny sounded AMAZING together in their duet, even if they didn't do so well individually. Hard to guess who goes home tonight. Danny's never been in the bottom three and is probably safe. Adam was in his element last night and is probably safe. At this point I actually like Kris more than Allison, although that's like saying you like peanut butter cookies more than chocolate chip. They're both really, really good!


• New Project Today - We spent a sizable amount of money yesterday on laminate flooring, and today the project begins! We ended up getting a great deal, so we decided to go ahead and do the kids' rooms as well. We've heard of many, many people that have done this themselves, hopefully it goes as easily as we are expecting it to. It will be nice to have some guys helping out, too, especially Kevin who has a background in flooring.


• Spoils of War - I got my new set of Wow Minis, and I'm really excited about these figures. Even better was the fact that I got several loot cards I could sell on ebay. One went for over $100! I don't know why someone would pay that much for a Foam Sword Rack, but it's a great trade for me!!

Adventures In St Joe

Quite awhile ago we got connected with Dave Ramsey's financial advice and have been big fans ever since. In that time I've also seen Dave speak in person twice at the Catalyst Conference and thoroughly enjoyed him both times. In fact, the first year I went he was the best speaker there.

Dave has some very simple steps to get people headed toward financial freedom, and it's something I wish we would've learned before we got married. First off is to set up a $1,000 emergency fund. The reason for that is that if you decide to immediately try to get out of debt, what do you do when an emergency comes up? You likely get into more debt. So you do whatever necessary to get your $1,000 emergency fun in place as quickly as possible.

After that you start working on paying off your debt. Dave suggests the "debt snowball" method, which is a very good idea. Basically you pay the minimum on all your debts except for the smallest one. On the smallest one, you pay as much as you possibly can each month. Once that one's paid off, you take the amount you were paying on the smallest and apply it to the new smallest. As you pay off debts, the amount you're paying toward each one snowballs until you've got them all paid off. Sweet!

After you're debt free (except for a mortgage, that comes later), you start working on an extended emergency fund. The amount depends, but it should cover four to six months of living expenses. We've had this done for several months and have been dragging our feet in moving on to step four: investing for retirement.

The main thing about investing is that I don't know anything about it. It seems like you could go in a thousand different directions, which left us paralyzed. Where do you start? A few weeks ago a Dave-approved financial adviser was at our church to talk about investments and we set up an appointment with him for yesterday.

Things didn't start out so well. Our appointment was at 9am in St Joe, so we took Allison to school and then hit the road. The office is in downtown St Joe, which is an area we're unfamiliar with. That being the case, we arrived early since we were able to find the place with no problems. He wasn't in the office yet, but the secretary assured us he would be there at 9am. No problem, we'll just wait for ten minutes.

9:00 comes and no adviser. 9:05 rolls around and the secretary starts to act surprised, so she tries tracking him down on his cell phone. No luck. 9:10, she tries him at home. No answer. 9:15, I decide to start reading some of these Forbes magazines laying in front of me. I now understand what's wrong with Nascar's financial set up! Finally, at 9:30, we decide to leave. This is very disappointing, as we've set up somewhere for Allison to go after school just to make this trip, and now we'll have to do it all over again.

So we take off, and after we're about five minutes down the road, I get a call on my cell phone. Somehow he thought the meeting was at 10 and promised he would be at the office soon. We turned around and got there at about 9:45.

As we pulled back in to the building, we parked at the same two hour parking we'd been at before. The exact same spot. I wondered aloud if that was a good idea, but was already a little bit annoyed at having left and returned, so I was just eager to get inside.

Once we finally connected at 10am, things went quite well. I'm now the proud owner of a Roth IRA with a pretty diversified portfolio. It's not worth much, but it feels good to finally be started. He did a very good job answering our questions and I think he gave us some great advice.

Our initial plan was to hit Home Depot and Target while we were in St Joe, but we were now out of time and would simply have to head back to Maryville. As we're walking back to the van, what's that on the windshield? It can't be! Yes, it is. A $7 parking ticket. Apparently leaving for ten minutes in the middle of your 3 hour stint doesn't keep you from getting a ticket.

No, $7 isn't a big deal, it's more of the principle of the thing. We were never there for more than two hours and shouldn't have a ticket at all. Of course we'd have to go back to St Joe to protest the ticket, and it's cheaper to pay $7 than the gas (and time) we'd lose otherwise.

It's funny how annoying something like that can be. A simple mix up of our meeting time kept us from getting to Home Depot (to buy some laminate flooring) and also got us this irritating ticket. But what happened today? Since we missed Home Depot, we decided to try our local Sutherlands out. Not only did we get a better deal (who knew?) but the stuff we bought ended up being on sale as well! That right there saved us another $100.

So now I'm glad we got detained in St Joe yesterday, but I still wish it hadn't cost me $7 :P

Wednesday Bullets

Some random thoughts on this overcast Wednesday:

• A Good Morning - It's really been quite an interesting day. At the start I was very discouraged and frustrated, which tends to happen this time of year. As the school year ends, my schedule undergoes shock as I try to figure out what to do with myself without the structure that I've had for the past nine months. I've been feeling that for a few days, wondering what I should be doing, feeling quite useless and unmotivated to do much of anything.
  
  This morning I had a good heart-to-heart with the Lord, and as He always does He Himself encouraged me before dropping someone in my path who did a great job with more of the same. It sure is great to know the Lord.


• Whitlock Suggests Adding Barry Bonds - As I've said before, I know his primary job is to stir the pot. In my last commentary on a Whitlock article I pointed out that very little journalism seemed to be happening. Well, in his most recent work, he actually appears to have talked to a lot of Royals players. Good job! It was very interesting to read different players' takes on Barry Bonds and the possibility of him joining the team. While I may have missed on my Tony G prediction, I feel quite confident in this one: Barry Bonds will never play for the Royals. There's simply nowhere for him to play, as he'd be a major liability in the outfield and the Royals are already stuck with two DH's that barely play passable 1B defense (Mike Jacobs and Billy Butler).


• Zackkkkk Greinkkkkke! - Man, this guy is really becoming a national story. He's going to appear on the cover of Sports Illustrated (which hasn't happened to a KC Royal since David Cone in 1993!) and there probably aren't any good adjectives to describe his season thus far. If it weren't for an unearned run, the best word would likely be "perfect."
  
  Anyway, if you don't know anything about Greinke then you need to do some reading. Great story. But today I simply wanted to share a quote from him that I found both refreshing and extremely encouraging:
  

  “We’re not even a month in, not even a month. Everyone has hot streaks. (Mike) Aviles was the best player for a week a couple times last year. (Brian) Bannister was the best player for a month a while back. The good players do it all year long, and then all year long the next year, and the next year after that. The key isn’t one week or one month. You have to do it longer.”

  
  Here's hoping he can do it for a lot longer. Both he and Royals fans deserve it!


• Deep Thoughts - I have way too many half-written blog posts sitting here, waiting to be finished. I will try and get those done before I leave the country on May 17!