my haircut

bedtime now. more words later.

later: in case you missed it earlier, this haircut was a bit of an accident. I was cutting it down to my usual length when the guard popped off and mowed a patch clean. oh well. it reminds me of the college days when we'd make cool designs in my hair when it was haircut time. I'd always shave it all off in a few days (before church), but it was fun to be able to be stupid like that. some favorites were the checkerboard, the hand, the 2 hands (mirror images), the bass cleff symbol, and the best one: the MMW logo. dave was quite a hair artist after that year.

me four

Four Jobs I Have Had
Fast food cashier
Golf course mower
Kitchen painter
Greyfriar's barista/manager

Four Movies I Could Watch Over and Over Again (well, maybe a few times)
Chicken Run
O Brother
Pride & Prejudice (A&E)
Baby Einstein's Baby McDonald (not necessarily by choice)

Four Books I Could Read Over and Over
The River Why
LOTR
Shepherding a Child's Heart
Goodnight Moon (see above)

Four Places I Have Lived
Prospect Park, NJ
Boynton Beach, FL
Pittsboro, NC
Chattanooga, TN

Four TV Shows I Watch (I dont watch much, but when I do...)
MLB Baseball
NCAA Basketball
Football
SportsCenter

Four Places I Have Been On Vacation
Lake Bomoseen, VT
Bethany Beach, DE
Lucaya, Bahamas
Florida Keys

Four Websites I visit Daily
Chattablogs.com (and other various terrablogs)
CNN.com
weather.com
chattanoogan.com

Four Favorite Foods
beer
ice cream
cookies
more beer

Four Places I'd Like To Be Now
hmm, I think I like it here, actually, but if it weren't winter:
Lake Bomoseen, VT
the scottish highlands
a visit to Colorado might be nice
maybe the Grand Canyon or some other park I havent yet been to

Four Bloggers I'm Tagging
mama
andyp
lynnp
davidg (are you still out there?)

goodbye Marlins, hello Braves

this is weird: a post not about baby stuff.

I grew up in south FL, and I like watching baseball, so I've been a Marlins fan since they started back when I was in high school. of course I've been out of FL for about 10 years, but it's still fun to follow the team, and they've made it fun by winning 2 world series already. but now they've gone and tossed out all their good players. I understand that they needed to cut costs, but if they dont care about putting a good team on the field, I have a hard time rooting for them. and they say they're going to move to Vegas or somewhere soon.

this part of the country is now home, so I guess that makes me a Braves fan now. I really respect their organization, and they always put a good team on the field (plus they're always on TV around here, so it makes it easy to catch a game).

feel free to question my loyalty and my faith if you feel so led, but only over a beer down at the Hair of the Dog.

new pub downtown

there's a new pub downtown, and it is a wonderful thing to behold. it's called "Hair of the Dog" and is found on 4th and Market, conveniently located in the 1/2 block between where I work and where I park for work.

they serve all the right beers on tap: guinness, newcastle, boddingtons, red hook, etc (about 12 total) and have lots of cool stuff in bottles/cans too. they did a great job making the place look as close to a pub as I've seen stateside, which is impressive considering the space they had to work with. the decor is tasteful and there's lots of dark wood, and the woodwork on the bar is pretty nice. I love the fact that there's only 1 TV downstairs, and you have to be at the bar to see it, but there are lots of TVs upstairs if you're into that, along with pool tables and dart boards. and there was an acoustic band setting up in the corner (bonus points for a mandolin), so I flatter myself by dreaming of playing there for beer someday (although we may have to branch out from doing just church songs?).

by way of contrast, our latest local St. Elmo dive serves only guinness on tap (but that's a good choice if that's the only one), is cash-only, and seems to be generally populated by dirty old men (hence the porn on the walls I guess?). I salute Hoppy for making it a much better place then Safari ever was, but the Dog has done it just right.

I'm not big on the bar scene, but I think it's pretty cool to have a good place to go for a quality pint now and then. their prices arent great (which is to say high/average: ~$4 a pint), but hopefully they'll have some happy hour specials or something. their food prices looked ok, but I didnt try anything. the guinness was quite yummy however. hopefully soon we'll raise a toast to baby girl there.

properly celebrating a sunday

I had the honor of editing the student newspaper of covenant college, and with that weighty responsibility came the task of writing the bi-weekly editor's column. I hardly remember what any of these columns were about, but I do remember the old feeling of "I hate writing, but love having written." in any case, I'm sure I'd be embarrassed by most of them now. thankfully they werent online at the time.

anyway, here's a seasonal one I've kept around just for kicks. I dont think I'm very good at satire, but it was fun, and there's at least one or two lines I still enjoy. anyway, here's "Properly Celebrating a Sunday."

In these troubled times of fear and uncertainty, it is good to have leisurely outlets to remind us of what is important. In fact, I believe that we must stand up and finally recognize the value of such outlets, and I propose that we lobby our congressmen and women to include among our national holidays a day that would be celebrated for its own sake, a day not prostituted by extraneous influences, a day that is already celebrated by millions (if not billions), a day that we would officially recognize as the ultimate festival of our times: Super Bowl Sunday.

The national holidays that we currently celebrate just aren't doing the job any more. Perhaps when they were originally implemented they had some semblance of their true purpose, but now they all serve a subsidiary function at best. Christmas is no longer the mass of Christ: it's everything from claymation Rudolph to brawls at the toy store. Thanksgiving has devolved into sanctioned gluttony, appropriately leading into the excessive consumption of the holiday season, and culminating in New Year's revelry. Independence Day is now a pretext to bring together the winning combination of alcohol and gunpowder, and Labor, Memorial, and MLK days are gratefully acknowledged as days off work for who-knows-what.

Super Bowl Sunday deserves recognition for what it is, and the Super Bowl deserves to be celebrated not only in our living rooms and barrooms, but all across the land, if not the entire world. If we implemented Super Bowl Sunday as a national holiday, we would finally have a holiday that we could celebrate in good conscience, and the true beauty of the celebration would soon be obvious. Of course we would have Monday off work, as is the case when one of our current national holidays falls on a weekend, but this would only be icing on the football-shaped cake.

Unlike many of our current outdated holidays, we wouldn't have to worry about any religious hang-ups. No color or creed would be left out, although those who are so inclined could summon their chosen deity to ensure victory for their team. The Super Bowl is already a global event, and if we (being the recognized leaders of the free world) declare Super Bowl Sunday as a national holiday, we might awaken the rest of the global village, and we just might have the first holiday celebrated by every tribe and nation on earth. We already have the common experience of the Super Bowl; now we must unleash and harness its power by proper observance, and thereby unify the all peoples of the world.

We wouldn't have to lie to our schoolchildren when they ask why we celebrate Super Bowl Sunday, for the true meaning of Super Bowl Sunday is the Super Bowl itself; nothing more, nothing less. Of course not even Super Bowl Sunday would be immune to the desecration that corrupts our current holidays, but it would stand a better chance of being celebrated on its own terms. Indeed, it would be the only honest holiday we would have.

If we celebrated Super Bowl Sunday as we should, we would finally recognize our true national pastime: watching sports. As people lucky and smart enough to have the money and technology to take care of most of our daily labors, we have every right to spend our time as we wish, and the celebration of Super Bowl Sunday would also be a celebration of our free choice to exercise neither body nor brain. Nothing would be more appropriate than the celebration of entertainment by actually entertaining ourselves in glorious unison.

Perhaps the best reason for the officialization of Super Bowl Sunday is its universal appeal: even those who have no interest in football watch the Super Bowl. If Super Bowl Sunday was a celebration of only football it would be absurd to consider it for national holiday status (if we were going to celebrate a sport for its own sake it would clearly have to be fly-fishing). Super Bowl Sunday is an event like no other, for many of the celebrants take part in the festivities for one special reason: the commercials. The ad companies must get a sinister chuckle out of this, but these viewers may be closer to the true meaning of Super Bowl Sunday than your local Eagles fanatic.

FREE online tax return fun

thanks to dword over at crumleydotorg (and often either 4 feet to my right or 4 blocks north, depending on the time of day) for finding this link for the IRS's new free electronic filing program.

that link brings you to a page of links to various service providers, and none can be much better than TurboTax for the Web, which I've used for 4 years now. previously they stepped you through all the questions for free, but you had to pay to file and/or print it. now apparently the whole thing is free if you're in the know. even if they charged the $20 for filing, it would be worth every penny.

note that you WONT find mention of the free deal on their main site...only if you go to taxfreedom.com.

not all our papers are in yet, but so far we're getting a decent refund (the funnest part of the online forms is the refund tally in the corner). yay! another joy of parenthood I guess. enjoy.

carnival study group

what follows is one of the most fascinating emails I have ever received. firstly, it's in dutch, which is rather cool. I have lots of dutch heritage, and I'm somewhat proud of it in a not-quite-thoughtful way. I love dutch sweets and tulips and such, but I dont speak the language, nor have I been there yet.

anyway, it came to my wiegers at gmail account, so I assume there's some confusion on the part of the sender. so I ran it through freetranslation.com and got the following interesting, entertaining, and yoda-esque result (names withheld).

whatever this carnival is, it sounds like a good time:

Just an e-mail from the carnival study group. We are come yesterday with each other a temporary program fixed to put.

The proposal is follows as:
8.30 - 9.00 hour
Children come in the own class within and about it becomes a kind of fashion show held each other the clothing to show.

9.00 - 10.30 hour
I---- is in the own class busy with games, puzzles etc only then just even something differently than normal. "The class on stilt" For Instance murderer, normal you are will sit finished and you on the ground, are will sit now that you finished and you on the chair etc. Ideas are collected yet by us.

10.30 - 11.30 hour
We a procession will walk. Over the route etc, we will have it next week.

11.30-12.30 hour
I---- closes the morning self off in the own classes. The onderboouw goes goes 12.00 hour to house and the superstructure to the main building that jointly to have lunch in the hall. Until end is there yet hossen in the hall. We want to use hereby further no other spaces.

Do now that we have single questions at you:
* there extra budget Is for knutselmateriaal? AS is there vague much too little colored paper in the colors yellow, white and red.
* Is there a possibility that we with the superstructure a fries can eat or a roll bent sausage or peas soup? Hears for our feeling awful by carnival.
* Do you REGULATE the drinking and something well for the children of the base in the mornings?
* Do you See to for the lootjes and the drinking and the chips for the superstructure of the noons?
* By the family of S---- becomes there prevent a group of parents with each other sought, that in the harmony with want to play, is there prevent a possibility that they single crates beer get and for the family of S---- a flower as bedankje?

Gladly we hear so fast possible an answer on above questions. You may speak to me also always on school or ring me home. With kind greeting, C----

twinkle

one of my favorite christmas tree activities was and is simply looking at the tree out of focus. as you may remember, I have but one functioning eye, so I wasnt even sure this was possible to do with two eyes, but I'm pretty sure it is. I'm never quite sure how everyone else sees things.

anyway, I like to just look at the tree lights and bring everything to a blur. it makes the twinkle and sparkle all that much more fun. of course I cant hold it that way for very long before I get a headache.

similarly, I also like slow-shutter photography, with which I entertained myself for quite a few years. my old SLR is long gone, and the abilities of our little digicam are limited, but I had a little fun with it this evening, taking some funky shots of our tree. Michelle made an ink-blot kinda game out of it, seeing ballarinas and dogs in various shots. what do you see?

blogiversary

I dont usually like posts about blogging (like "I'm up to 100 entries" or "sorry I havent posted in a while"). something about such things seems too self-promoting or ingrown or something.

but on the day after my son was born, I had my first blogiversary. as I look back at the archives, it was slow-going until the news of Caleb came, and then I started posting just about every-other-day. lots of baby thoughts. I hope someday that my kid(s) will read this and know how faithful God is to us. it's also nice to be able to keep up with folks, and the interaction is a lot like the first year I used email...still exciting with each comment posted. I wonder how many lurkers there are out there? any of you silent types care to make your presence known?

far more importantly, it's our 5th anniversary on saturday. I always promised to take Michelle to Scotland for our 5th anniversary, but I think we'd both rather have Caleb than a trip, so we're staying home. maybe a picnic. I hope to gather more thoughts on this milestone soon, but until then, check out our wedding pictures here.

not only tough but silly

thanks to steve for the link to this article about a woman who played for the chattanooga lookouts and, in her only appearance, struck out some players you may have heard of. and then the jerks fired her.

my favorite detail is the quote from the NY daily news at the end: "The Yankees will meet a club here that has a girl pitcher named Jackie Mitchell, who has a swell change of pace and swings a mean lipstick. I suppose that in the next town the Yankees enter they will find a squad that has a female impersonator in left field, a sword swallower at short, and a trained seal behind the plate. Times in the South are not only tough but silly."

ok

I use "ok" a LOT on AIM, and I suddenly realized I have no idea where the phrase comes from. I'm delighted with what I found on dictionary.com:

OK is a quintessentially American term that has spread from English to many other languages. Its origin was the subject of scholarly debate for many years until Allen Walker Read showed that OK is based on a joke of sorts. OK is first recorded in 1839 but was probably in circulation before that date. During the 1830s there was a humoristic fashion in Boston newspapers to reduce a phrase to initials and supply an explanation in parentheses. Sometimes the abbreviations were misspelled to add to the humor. OK was used in March 1839 as an abbreviation for all correct, the joke being that neither the O nor the K was correct. Originally spelled with periods, this term outlived most similar abbreviations owing to its use in President Martin Van Buren's 1840 campaign for reelection. Because he was born in Kinderhook, New York, Van Buren was nicknamed Old Kinderhook, and the abbreviation proved eminently suitable for political slogans. That same year, an editorial referring to the receipt of a pin with the slogan O.K. had this comment: “frightful letters... significant of the birth-place of Martin Van Buren, old Kinderhook, as also the rallying word of the Democracy of the late election, ‘all correct’.... Those who wear them should bear in mind that it will require their most strenuous exertions... to make all things O.K.”

humble baseball greatness

these days I'm somewhat of a closet baseball fan. I grew up liking the yankees (back when they werent so good) since all my family lives just across the river, but I have since outgrown that affliction. the marlins came into being while I was in highschool in south florida, so I was into them until I came to college, where I promptly stopped caring about sports. a byproduct of no TV, I suppose.

but we've had a TV for a while now, and I discovered mlb.com too (the gamecasts are one of the coolest internet inventions in a long time). plus some of the guys at work are passionate about either the cubs or the cards. and then my old team started grabbing headlines, and I was hooked (groan) once more. and go figure, they won the series! michelle's even got nicknames for some of the fish now. crazy.

but something in me thinks I shouldnt care about baseball. it's just a game. and it's played by overlarge millionare children that I would otherwise care nothing about. plus there are so many other worthy pursuits. yet I can get into the games. rooting for my guys. and the pace and culture is quite relaxing, with thrilling punctuating moments (much like my own life I suppose). any other good reasons that I shouldnt feel guilty about watching baseball?

all that to lead into a refreshingly humble and Christ-centered speech by Paul Molitor, the newest member of baseball's hall of fame.

so anyway, go marlins, and go lookouts.

in the name

not that long ago I found out that our last name (Wiegers) means "cradle rocker" and/or "lullabye singer" in Dutch. of course if anyone reading this actually speaks Dutch, please feel free to affirm or correct. but I guess back in the day we were the nursury workers or something? is that why my parents have been baby crazy for all these years?

I for one am looking forward to fulfilling the family name. so far I haven't lived up to my first name, which means "bright fame," although my middle name, meaning "God is gracious" has been demonstrated a lot in my life.

so, I guess that makes me a brightly famous lullabye singer to whom God has been gracious? two outta three aint bad.

I want a hippogriff

buckbeak is awesome. for CGI, a really beautiful and cool creature. if you have no idea what I'm talking about, go see Harry Potter 3, or better yet, read the book, as it's the best one in the series.

I really liked the movie. I had high expectations, and they were met on pretty much every count. knowing that they'd have to leave out some stuff, they still did a really good job with the story, and the cinematography was much better than in the past. so go see it.

motherhood scam

I make it a point to seldom rant in this webspace, but I'm a little ticked at a scam from Motherhood (maternity clothes store) and Parenting (magazine) that just tried to snag us.

we bought some stuff at motherhood a while back. they pretty much have a monopoly on nice maternity clothes. their prices aren't too terrible if you shop carefully. we paid with our checkcard, and apparently signed up for 2 free issues of Parenting. all fine and dandy.

then a $20 charge from Parenting shows up on our check card statement. apparently we had to call to cancel the mag if we didnt want them to charge the card we used at Motherhood. I'm sure no one bothered to tell us this.

to their credit, the lady at Parenting was very nice when we called to cancel and get a refund. but this is clearly a scam, and I'm wondering how many people are snagged, especially those who don't keep a close eye on their statements. of course we'll see if and when we actually get our $20 back.

I remember being disgusted by the wedding industry back in the day (except for DJs of course). the baby industry is no better.

pretty pictures

I like flowers, birds, bugs and whatnot. I especially like good pictures of these things. So this entry is basically a bookmark for me: www.photoportfolios.net

next homestar?

check this out, thanks to steve for the link. clearly homestar inspired, but too bad they'll be shut down for copyright infringement before they get anywhere.

got the trellises up for the garden, and now it looks something like a jungle gym. I'm sure it will look nicer when there's greenery on them.

in other news, the dog has taken to peeing on the carpet, and it's, er, ticking us off. I expected this kind of behavior when the kid comes along, but before?! we're trying to figure out what the issue is...perhaps it's b/c I've been cutting back on her morning treats? we love her to death, but it's got to stop.

your tax dollars at work

if you're a homeowner here in chatty, or looking to be one, you may find this interesting. all the property info you can ever want (who owns what, how much they paid), plus arial photography and all sorts of goodies.

here's a view of my house (before they moved the shed back 30 feet or so), as well as my neighbors (Kirk and Rhonda to the north, Dave and Sara to the southeast).

photoblog?

there's a request at the end of this, so skip down a bit if you'd rather.

I enjoy photography, but I havent spent much time with it for a while. I'm not sure how good I ever was, but I had fun with it in highschool and college, taking classes and lots of pictures. I even had a rudimentary darkroom in my bathroom, which was quite cool. but then my old pentax spotmatic was lent and came back broken, and all the lenses and whatnot have long been sold on ebay.

so I was condemned to a crappy digital camera for a few years, which sapped most of the artistry from the pictures I took. more acurately, I took an entirely different approach to taking pictures: it was only about documenting whatever the heck we were up to. I did take some flower shots now and then, with moderate success, but thoughts of composition, color, etc we're fleeting.

now that our first kid is on the way, we got a pretty decent snapshot digicam (sony dsc-p72 - 3.2mp). the color and contrast aren't exactly to my liking, but that's why I've got Photoshop, and I'm thankful for it. so today I tweaked some of my latest flower pics, and I was pretty happy with the result. so I'm toying with the idea of a photoblog. I'm no Monty, but I can at least try.

which brings me to my request for you: what do you think? are these pics worth looking at? should I bring more to blogland, or just keep them to myself on the family site? I do post lots of our snapshots there, but I seldom shoot for aesthetic reasons. I guess there's lots of different reasons for a photoblog? so dear readers (as the cartalk guys would say: both of you), any thoughts?

three things

Hopefully the battle with the rats should be coming to an end. I boarded up their main entry point and put some poison under the house. We shall see.

---

Jeannette came by for a visit this weekend. It was very good to hang out a bit with her and Sarah, as they always make us laugh. We're very thankful that she's an old friend who keeps in touch. Though it was a little weird, since we read eachother's blogs, all the usual "so, how is this going?" kinda chit-chat was unnecessary.

---

I'm already weary of baby magazines. I think I've learned some useful stuff, but the consumerism and the level at which they keep my thoughts is troubling. I like to think that I'm immune to all the ads, but after reading a bunch of the articles, I find myself focused on trying to be the perfect parent. And I tell myself that I CAN be the perfect parent, and these 5 tips on how to soothe a screaming child WILL make me perfecter.

Which of course is a load of crap. All the articles focus on the "taking care of business" level of things, which of course is a necessary level, but I'm realizing I need to remember there's more to it than that. Am I being idealistic? Sure. That's what this time is for, right?

bagel recipe

this is mostly for jeannette. we got it of the web somewhere and it makes GREAT bagels. or at least Michelle makes great bagels with this recipe.

Bread Machine Whole Wheat Bagels - Regular Size Batch

Recipe By : More Electric Bread
Serving Size : 5 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories : Abm Breakfast
Electric Bread Bread

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
3/4 cup water -- lukewarm
1 1/4 cups white bread flour
3/4 cup wheat flour
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 1/3 tablespoons gluten
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast


1. Insert ingredients in bread machine according to manufacturer's instruction
s. Remove the dough from the machine after the first knead - approximately 20
to 30 minutes.

2. Place dough on a floured surface. Divide into 5 parts. Form balls, gently
press thumb through center of ball and slowly stretch into bagel shape.

3. While bagels rise, bring three quarts of water and one tablespoon of sugar
to a rapid boil in a large saucepan. Drop test dough (see hints below).

4. Using a slotted spoon, drop 2-3 bagels into rapidly boiling water. Boil on
each side for 1/2 minutes. Remove and cool on rack 1 minute, brush with egg
and sprinkle with sesame or poppy seeds, if desired.

5. Bake at 400 on a baking sheet sprinkled with cornmeal, until golden - appro
ximately 15 minutes.


** Bagel Success Hints

** When forming the bagels, set aside two 1/4" balls of dough. When the bagels
have doubled in size, drop the test dough into boiling water. The dough shoul
d pop to the top right away. When this happens, it is time to boil the bagels.

** A quick spray of non-stick vegetable coating on the top of the bagel may be
substituted for the egg wash.

** To make bagel sticks, cut bagel before rising and lay out in a straight line
. Roll sticks in a combination of sesame and poppy seeds with a pinch of garl
ic powder. Let sticks rise, boil, and bake as described in the above direction
s.

** To make bagel chips, slice leftover bagels horizontally into thin slices. B
ruish with butter or margarine on one side. Lay (butter side up) on an ungreas
ed cookie sheet and bake at 325 for 12-15 minutes until golden brown and crisp.

missing settlers pieces

did I loan you our copy of settlers of catan recently? because the pieces (settlements, cities, roads) are missing, and we can't figure out where the heck they are. and it makes us sad.

blogland weirdness

there's some strange things going on around blogland. if I go to bob.chattablogs.com or chattablogs.com/bob then I can see my new entries. but if I go to www.chattablogs.com/bob it's only yesterday's stuff. and something happened to my comments thingy too?

JQ, rescue us!

calling xml/rss/mt/asp experts

thanks to JQ for the big brotheresque move of adding the comments thingy to my index page. people, it's frightening the power that he wields. be very afraid.

so here's my next request to the blog masters:

I want to display some of my category archives on my family website, which is hosted on a windoze server (iis 5.0). I've come to understand that I can do this with the RSS and XML stuff, but I havent been able to figure out how. do I need to parse the XML myself, or is there some (asp) code out there that I can use?

revival, anyone?

on the subject of "The Passion," this from a rabbi:

"...the faith of millions of Christians will become more fervent as Passion uplifts and inspires them. Passion will propel vast numbers of unreligious Americans to embrace Christianity. The movie will one day be seen as a harbinger of America's third great religious reawakening."

shall we pray that this comes true?

organ for sale

if you know anyone who wants one, I'm selling one of my organs. really.

states details

see the previous entry for the map. in no particular order, here are the highlights for each state:

NJ: born there, raised til age 3, lots of family still there
FL: raised there age 3-18
VT: summer home away from home, honeymoon location
GA: went to college there 1995-1999. lots of friends and flights in and out of atlanta
TN: live there 1999-present
NC: parents live there 1995-present
PA: wife born and mostly raised there
KY: sister lives there 2002-present
TX: sister lived there. spent a christmas there
MO: in-laws live there 1995-present
AL: college roommate's home state. a few good visits.
SC: fall break with another college roommate
VA: many many I-81 travels. honeymoon stopovers
WV: highschool missions trip
OH: bought our car from a nice couple there
IN: visited college friend for a weekend
MI: cousin's wedding, niagra falls visit
NY: many visits, including NYC for spring break, Cooperstown long ago
DE: aunt-in-laws beach house
IL, MS, LA, MD, NH: various drive thrus

while we're on the subject:
just went to the Bahamas with the family for a brief vacation
went to Scotland for spring break senior year
went to chile and mexico for 2 different HS missions trips

and there you have the best of travels with Bob

states and such

here's mine:

create your own visited states map

but I have a question: am I allowed to include states I've simply driven through? louisianna, for example, I doubt I even stopped there for gas on the way to/from texas.

in other news, we had a good partay last night, and it only marginally involved a certain football game. the usual alias crowd and a few more, and we did tex-mex food, which was so utterly yummy. plus good beer, birthday cake and ice cream: what else does one need?

I love turbotax.com

lately I've been very tired of the internet, even though it's the reason I have the job that I do. seems like a big waste of time overall. I guess it's just my fault for being prone to wander (Lord I feel it), but there's been too much espn.com, cnn.com, weather.com, and yes, chattablogs.com around here these days.

but I still love some of the online tools (such as netbank, amazon, etc), and the latest favorite is turbotax.com. I have no idea why anyone would bother doing their taxes any other way. If you got all your stuff in front of you, you can have your taxes done in and hour or two, for only $20, including electronic filing. worth every penny, as they step you through every little thing.

maybe I'm just giddy b/c we thought we were going to owe this year, and it turns out we get a bit back. bless the person who thought of having student loan interest be deductible (or a credit. or something).

dean and gillian

did any one else notice that howard dean is married to gillain welch?

blog vs. website

or: I think I'm outta here, but not quite sure.

I got this website, and I got this blog, and I think they're redundant. I like my site a lot, and I can update it just as easily as the blog. And I've trained old friends and family enough to go there and check it out now and then.

I like the community idea that's here at chattablogs, but I'm more into commenting on others stuff than anything else. So I think I'm going back to the family site. But maybe there's a way to feed the blog into my site directly? I don't know much about that.

Any thoughts?

puzzle for ya

Chris McCartney found this in a book:

Why are the following numbers in this order?
8 5 4 9 1 7 6 3 2

shameless promotion: rarecoffee.com

I happen to work on rarecoffee.com, which is Greyfriar's site for selling the bestest coffee around. I'm sure some of you out there in blogland have heard of it.

I recently worked up a promotion for saving 10% off your coffee purchases there. After you order from your account, you can send-a-friend a 10% discount, and when they order, you'll get 10% off your next order. So check it out.

neil postman is gone

On my way into work today, NPR told me that Neil Postman has died of cancer. He's the author of Amusing Ourselves to Death, a great book about the effects of TV on our society. I read this book my freshman year, and it changed my life, at least for a while.

Now I'm feeling guilty that, after seven years without, I've got a TV again, and extended cable no less! At least I've got good excuses to have it. Now back to Trading Spaces, and go Marlins!

need a ride?

I'm looking to sell one stylish hooptie that has been entrusted to me by none other than Joe Staven. It's a 89 Mercury Grand Marquis. Very fast. Lots of charm. Consider your investment in this amazing vehicle as a way to support Joe and Rachel as they're on the quasi-missions field in Honduras for a year. More details forthcoming.

T for your tulip

Have you seen the Stanford Prison Experiment?

My initial thoughts on first read-thru:
1. I never want to go to prison. Ever.
2. Same goes for being a prison guard.
3. As much as I'd like to believe otherwise, I too have that capacity for evil. Yikes.
4. How the crap can people think people are "basically good"??

taste and touch

I ache to taste and touch your beauty
Where faith, hope, and love remain,
So I might know and love you truly.

But my wandering heart is often unruly,
Seeking my own as I groan and complain,
Yet I long to taste and touch your beauty.

You freely forgive, release me from duty
That threatens to stifle my passion with shame,
So I might know and love you truly.

To die to myself, to turn from the fury
and take up what Jesus has gained,
so I can taste and touch your beauty.

Enlivened again, I take up with newly
Filled vigor the wonderful task: to attain
How I might know and love you truly.

I yearn to enfold you, take away worry
And love you so much you forget all the pain:
I live to taste and touch your beauty,
So I might know and love you truly.

boynton beach

I'm not too keen on sports these days, although growing up I took some interest in most. Speaking of growing up, my hometown boys are in the finals of the Little League World Series. That's right folks, Boynton Beach, Florida is officially on the map. All the hoopla almost makes me miss the place. I think I miss the memories more than whatever it's like now though. Anyway, here's hoping the boys can beat Tokyo tomorry...

opening salvo

So I've decided to add my two bits to the noise known as blogs. Although I am already endowed with a lovely website, I thought I'd give this medium a shot. I've been accused of being a writer now and then, and I'll let you, the anonymous blog reader, be the judge, jury and executioner.

I see that I've got a lot of friends (or at least friends-of-friends) here on the chattablogs site. Hopefully we'll be able to have a bit of encouraging community via this site. I may have a lot to get off my chest, specifically invloving life with chronic pain (my wife has fibromyalgia), so watch out for that. No telling if it's going to be pretty or not. Hopefully the conclusion will remain the same: God is faithful, even amid the crap.