Ethan Playing Basketball 11/24

He lines it up

He shoots!He SCORES!!
He goes in for a lay up.

Jacob's Play-Dough Art

Here is a shark swimming in the ocean underneath a moon & star-filled sky.

A flat sculpture of Ethan

 

In light of all of my recent grumbling I have decided to post a list of things I am thankful for.

So here it is. I am thankful for...

1. A God that loves me enough to die for me.
2. My amazing wife Jenny and my 2 wonderful little boys.
3. My Parents and family that are too many to mention but you know who you are.
4. My friends that I have had since High School and Junior High who haven't gotten tired of me yet.
5. My job. Despite the new arrangement I do love my job and I am thankful for it everyday and I recognize that it is a gift from above.
6. Living in a country where I have the freedom to worship without fear.
7. The Church we have been attending, Wheatland Mission.
8. Our home.
9. The big sky and the open plains.
   
10. Coca~Cola, Mmmmmmm...

"Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." - 1 Thes 5:18

What are you thankful for?

Blog Outing

I have another blog that I have been working on for a few months that is more of a spiritual/faith discussion, but up until now I have just been talking to myself. Nattyman Blog includes those elements sometimes but as more of a personal nature. The newer blog is a place for me to say what I have been thinking about spiritually. It isn't separate to compartmentalize my faith but rather to focus it. You may have already noticed it in my profile but now I am officially "outing" it. Feel free to tell me how wrong I am ;-)

myUndoing

Reasons I Hate My New Office Setup.

1. Very low cubicle walls, no privacy... makes me feel naked
2. It is stinking hot in here all of the time. we used a thermometer to check and it was 79 degrees at my desk... it is even hotter now. *(see below)
   
3. Hardly any view to the outside world... the stupid smokers courtyard doesn't count.
4. I am surrounded by a bunch of boring white people. Before I was surrounded by a rich diverse group of Indians, Asians, Latinos, Blacks and Whites.
5. I am crowded. I went from one desk in my cubicle to 3, which you would think would be nice but I can't move them and so I am stuck this way and my monitor is right in my face!
6. I took the stairs to the fourth floor as my only means of exercise so now I have none and I will probably get overweight and out of shape now and die young... all because of this move to the second floor.

I think that is it with the complaining for now.

Proof of the temperature:

Change is bad!!

Our department is growing and today we had to move from the 4th floor to the second.  I don't like it.  It probably doesn't help that I am sick and it is about 80 degrees in here. 

There is way less sunlight and it is much more closed in.  Plus the cubicles have this low wall thing going on and there is no privacy... I feel naked.

Exercising my civic duty

I voted today at lunch.  I think it is the first time I have voted anywhere other than the Library in Garden City.  When I lived in Manhattan I drove to GC and back the day of the 96 election.  It was also my first time to use the digital voting machine rather than the archaic 2nd Millennium pencil and paper method.  I can imagine that it saves a lot of time and man power in counting votes.  The Church I was at was pretty busy but I am fairly sure I was the youngest person in the room by a good 20 years.  Kind of sad, but I am one of the few people that see low voter turnout as a good thing.  It just means that my vote counts more, plus who wants a bunch of people voting that don't know what or who they are voting for.  Everything went fine, the strange thing though was when I was at the review screen somehow I had voted for Pat Buchanan for Kansas Governor!

Phone Pictures

This was taken a few nights ago when I left work. Wished I had had my real camera with me.
These next 2 are Ethan and Jacob at Chucky Cheeses, I think 2 weekends ago. I meant to bring the real camera but I was glad to at least have my phone. It was the first real cold Saturday of the season and they were PACKED! We spent most of the time playing a race car game, but neither of them can reach the peddles so they had to take turns sitting on my lap so I could press the gas for them.
 

Time To Pull Out Of California

The American Enterprise: Eye of the Beholder

As a fifth-generation Californian, I deeply love this state, but still imagine what the reaction would be if the world awoke each morning to be told that once again there were six more murders, 27 rapes, 38 arsons, 180 robberies, and 360 instances of assault in California—yesterday, today, tomorrow, and every day. I wonder if the headlines would scream about “Nearly 200 poor Califor­nians butchered again this month!”

How about a monthly media dose of “600 women raped in February alone!” Or try, “Over 600 violent robberies and assaults in March, with no end in sight!” Those do not even make up all of the state’s yearly 200,000 violent acts that law enforcement knows about.

more...

Trick or Treating - 2006 (Taking To Much)

Jacob & Ethan trick or Treating on our street - 2006 Here is another funny video from last night

2006 Halloween - Photo Album

Global Warming Skepticism Grows!

Renowned Scientist Defects From Belief in Global Warming – Caps Year of Vindication for Skeptics

Paleoclimate scientist Bob Carter has noted that there is indeed a problem with global warming – it stopped in 1998. “According to official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in the UK, the global average temperature did not increase between 1998-2005.
...

Earlier this year, a group of prominent scientists came forward to question the so-called “consensus” that the Earth faces a “climate emergency.” On April 6, 2006, 60 scientists wrote a letter to the Canadian Prime Minister asserting that the science is deteriorating from underneath global warming alarmists.

“Observational evidence does not support today's computer climate models, so there is little reason to trust model predictions of the future…Significant [scientific] advances have been made since the [Kyoto] protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases. If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary,” the 60 scientists wrote.

Find much more here: http://epw.senate.gov/pressitem.cfm?party=rep&id=264777

Another day at the office

"We have been notified and are fully aware of the skunk smell on the first floor.  Animal Control and the building manager have been notified."

- A memo from the front desk sent out to the 900 people in my office.  Makes me glad to be on the 4th floor  :-)

Middle America

Anyone that tries to tell you that we are worse of today than we were yesterday or that our kids are not going to have it as good as us needs to read this article!!

http://www.forbes.com/home/economy/2006/10/16/demographics-income-population-biz_cx_tvr_1017median.html

Four Dollars Worth of Torture

We spent the weekend in Medicine Lodge for the Peace Treaty Pageant. We watched the Parade Saturday morning that included 3 or 4 of the Indian Tribes that took part in the treaty. They were at the front of the parade and they danced along the way with big drums and most of them wearing the authentic dress. Then they had all the different characters from the Pageant, but I couldn't help but laugh wondering when the fake Indians came out at the end on horses, they consisted of just local people dressed like "Indian Warriors", if the real Indians where offended by the fake ones. We also saw Martina McBride. She is the lady on the back of the motorcycle with her dad in the pictures. That evening we went to the carnival. The boys had fun on the kid's rides and then we went downtown to get what we hoped would be a cheaper funnel cake than at the Carnival, it wasn't. There we watched some of the stage events. A man and woman were singing folk music with a guitar. I thought, man that looks like someone I know so I asked around and found out that yes it was Willis Pracht (I hope I am spelling his name right) who was my 5th and 6th grade principle at Garfield. He was very good; I wish I could have heard more of it. I was disappointed that he wasn't playing with his Hummingbird that he bought back from Linda. Instead he was using a 12 string which was probably more fitting for playing solo before such a large crowd. After the music they reenacted some Medicine Lodge history including a bank robbery in which the town citizens carried out some good old fashioned mob justice :-) Then they had a historical Congressional election debate between a big city proper Republican and local Populous candidate. About half way through it I thought man that Republican looks familiar, so I asked Jenny who said it was Mr. Germes. He was my AP History teacher my Junior year. From this I concluded that they couldn't have put on this event with out people from Garden City ;-) Then we went back to the Carnival to finish off our tickets. We waited in line for the Tilt-A-Wirl for probably 30 minutes. Jenny and the boys and I all rode on it. The carni taking tickets was like "All four of you? OK...." Like he thought that was a bad idea but wasn't going to stop us. About 30 seconds into it I realized why. The more weight the faster it spins. All the other carts either had 1 person in them or 2 smaller people. From about that point on I spent the rest of the time praying that it would be over. Apparently I am too old for spinning in circles fast anymore. Jenny and Jacob loved it though and couldn't stop laughing the whole time. Ethan had a poker face through the ride. I just kept thinking "Why did I stand in line for half an hour and pay four dollars to torture myself?" I am pretty sure that they would not be allowed to do that to the prisoners in Gitmo. Although I think an hour or 2 of something like that would be pretty effective in getting information on anyone. I am pretty sure I would have told them whatever they wanted to know. The family picture is of us in the torture machine before it started and the blurry pictures of Jenny and of Jacob laughing are of them during the ride. After the ride of pain we went home. It took me a good hour to recover to where Jenny and I could go back downtown to the street dance where Jenny was wanting to meet some friends, and we left the kids with Bonnie at the house. Later I had a chance to talk to Mr. Germes and his wife. I told him who I was and when I had been in his class but I am still not sure that he remembered who I was. At least he was very friendly and we talked for a good 20 minutes. It was a fun weekend though and now it is getting late. I wanted to put the pictures throughout this post but it would only let me do 4 at a time so I just opted for the one and you can see the others in our web album. No time for proof reading now :-S Good night.

Medicine Lodge Peace Treaty

Sep 30, 2006 - 11 Photos