Today's Interesting News

Someone very hungry.

Somebody with a weird fetish.

Somebody who is avoiding being hungry, and winning himself a 14" TV set.

Well there you go.

Christian Sexuality and Relevance to Marriage

I know not all of the people who read this blog share the same opinion with me, but I felt like sharing an article I recently read discussing the battle of sexuality with the norms of society in postponing marriage.

I come from a family where all of the siblings have married pretty early in their lives (I think the earliest has been 20), and where all of the siblings are Christian. One of them even a pastor. Another hoping to be a family counselor. I, as most Christians, experience seasons where I feel closer to our savior/creator than others, but also those seasons where I am in the word often and thinking intently of his plan for us.

In any case, here is the article, I enjoyed a lot of it, and like how he ended it.

Interesting News of the Day

How much was that ball Dwight?


Best way to defend yourself from a mountain lion?

I Think We're Born Naked

I am sorry, I hate the idea of celebrities, but this is freaking ridiculous. Mother Teresa?

Say What?

I dare you to read this article, give yourself a minute, and then spell it correctly :).

Also, I have been spending time trying to refinance the house, and ever since college I have found this calculator very handy, it even lets you print out the amortization schedule.

In other news, second try this weekend to set up a playground set with my brother Chadwick for little Addison, Sophie, and upcoming niece Ruby Anne. Last weekend got a little tiring with an overnight lockin with the middle-schoolers from the Moundford Free Methodist Church, and Chadwick and I got to the morning and decided that tiredness along with the weather dictated that we give it another shot this weekend, so wish us well.

Peace.

Funny News

There seems to be a lot of weird or funny news going on today...here are some samples..

Crazy Deer

How to clean with gasoline

Want to get Deported? Are you gay?

How to discipline children riding your bus

The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of Larry.

Update

Well, I have been praying for peace around the world, even though I have not had time to update the blog on the specific countries. I will always continue to pray that the oppressed will find freedom. It is almost the end of Lent, and time to celebrate Good Friday.

The basement is still flooded :(. I have not had time to stay home to watch a waterproofing company take care of the problem yet, so I shop vac everyday. That has become a very exciting ritual :). The special exit pump wore out today, but Home Depot exchanged it for a new one, so my back is spared yet again :).

Staci blew me away in our bracket pool this year, and like most years, it comes down to who picks the right champion. My hat's off to the 4 of 6 people in our bracket that chose UNC to win it all. I just didn't want them to :). So, she gets a Papa Murphy's pizza of her choosing (I know, we don't bet big :) ), and a special little trophy thing in her Yahoo profile :).

The whole family is coming down for Easter this weekend, besides Darin, Cassie, and Mady, who I am sure would want to be here, but since Mady just came along, we will see them soon enough :). It should be a great time, with great food prepared by the culinary delights of Ms. Staci.

My new job is going well, adjusting to the smaller office of it all. It is great being so close to home, and cutting back at least an hour of my day. Staci and I also joined a local gym (Club Fitness, which was running a deal where it was $500 for 3 years).

Peace out holmes.

Pray for Somalia

So we probably all remember when Clinton and the U.N. tried to give aid to Somalia because of the civil war that it was experiencing in the 90's. What we all might not know, or have shown to us each day is that that civil war is still ongoing, and that Somalia is an impoverished country overrun by different ethnic groups, and run by warlords.

We hear about the different ships that the pirates take over each month. Those cruise ships or tankers, or whatever that are unlucky and unskilled enough to get taken over by somalian pirates usually payoff their captors so that they can continue on their way, and that just prolongs the conflict because it funds the pirates and different warring factions.

May God help these people sort out their problems and give them some sort of national pride to unite on, and help them focus on how to treat their fellow citizens well.

Pray for Darfur

Apparently the war in Darfur stems from decades of drought and over-population in the Darfur region of Sudan, with some of the reasoning also being that the Arab-dominated government of Sudan has been treating non-Arabs in the country in a discriminatory fashion.

That has caused some to rebel against the government, which started around 2003-2004 to bomb the villages where the rebels have been believed to be coming from, as well as raping their women, killing most everyone, and burning down the villages.

The war has thus become genocidal in nature, with the tribes being attacked by the government, and only slight rebel efforts to fight back. The UN will not label it as a genocide, despite mass murders and rapes, because the 'intent' of genocide seems to be missing. Some sort of limited peace was reached in late 2006, but the conflict continues.

Please pray for Darfur, that all people can live together in unity and not oppress each other when given the opportunity.

Pray for the Congo

As I pray for these conflicts, I will try to go from the conflicts with the highest current casualty or death count to the lowest, so please bear with me if I make a mistake.

Today I am praying for the Congo. The fight is similar as that portrayed in Hotel Rwanda, however this conflict is newer, and stems from an old general leaving the government with some troops to hole up in Eastern Congo, where he tries (or at least says he is trying) to prevent genocide over the ethnic Tutsis there.

There was a brief peace agreement reached in January 2008, but it was shaky because not all of the parties involved in the conflict took part in the agreement, and later the war erupted again. However, recently Laurent Nkunda, the leader of the rebel forces which protect Tutsis was captured (January 2009), so the end of at least the open war may be imminent.

Please pray that the war will end and that both the Tutsis and Hutus can live in peace once it is over.

Lent '09

This year for Lent, I'm going to do something different. Normally it is giving up something near and dear to me, so as to be closer to god. I remember giving up chocolate chip cookies (not sure how that applies) in high school, and more recently giving up TV or video games.

Another alternative for Lent is to actively do something to draw you closer to God. While doing devotions and reading the Bible daily are very good goals and something I want to do in life eventually, right now (and I'm talking the actual 40 days of lent) I have to be realistic and say that I honestly do not have the time, and the things taking up my time are all immovable, without a complete and disrupting life change (changing careers, dropping out of school, not finding a job, etc.).

Instead, what I've decided to do for Lent this year is to actively pray for peace, for all of God's children. Normally I'm not even the most peace-prone person, but I believe our country and our world are headed in divisive directions at the moment, and I don't understand it all. I want to try to understand the conflicts of all of the world's peoples, and pray for them to reach a peace in respect to each of those individual conflicts. I think God would want people to live in peace, and out of peace have a foundation for finding common ground in a relationship with him (some may disagree).

So it will be that I will try to learn about the various conflicts on earth (in Afghanistan, Darfur, Somalia, Iraq, Georgia, Chechnya, Israel/Palestine, Congo, etc.), and pray for each of them individually and for us as a race. I will utilize prayer by speaking directly to God, and seek personal peace as well. This is a very different theme for me.

Recent Events

Just got back from a nice weekend with the brother/sister-in-law (Chad and Sarah) and my beautiful nieces' (Addison and Sophie) house. We were there celebrating my niece Sophie's 1st birthday, and she had a fun party Saturday afternoon. The weekend was full of eating, playing Phase 10 & euchre, and talking.

My other brother Brady was also there to celebrate, it's always nice to get a chance to hang out with him as well.

Yesterday, after getting over an upset stomach, Staci and I drove back home to O'Fallon, did our Sunday ritual of grocery shopping, and I finished my homework for this week as she helped do the laundry.

Recent books that I'm reading or have read include Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini, Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama, and The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch. I have also just requested The Shack by William Young, because of the endorsement it received by my brother and trying to stay up on things. All of this would not be possible without the invention of CD-based audiobooks, which are my constant companions during my commute. Beyond these, I plan on trying to make it through most of the top 10 books from 2008 recommended by Amazon as soon as I get the chance. I haven't read anything besides school required reading for years, so this is a good change.

All of the rest of my time is spent doing things. I am really into time management these days, and my weeks consist of working, sleeping, job hunt, school, basement, and keeping all of my interpersonal relationships in order. Honestly I can't wait for 3 of these things to be over (school, basement, and the job hunt). Mainly the job hunt though, because then the others will be made easier.

This post has been a bunch of logical statements because right now my mind is in a zone :). I swear my next post will probably make less sense. Have a great Monday!

Wazzup NOW?

I know some of you probably expect me to blog about the crappy economy (personal situation), or wet basements (personal situation), or maybe even Obama's stimulus plan for our nation. But I think today I'll take it in a different direction completely.

I saw this article today and it kind of upset me, but not as it might some. I think that parents allowing a child to sample alcohol in the confines of their own home is not so bad as long as it is under a good deal of supervision (i.e. not letting them go drive somewhere, etc). However, in this article, all the mom is getting charged with is giving alcohol to a minor and reckless conduct. Hello, the FREAKING kid killed somebody! That is moronic. I can't believe all this lady is facing is a possible year and jail and some fines. That is definitely coming close to being an accomplice to manslaughter.

Anyways, to touch on wet basements. If you own a Ridgid wet dry vac, and have a LOT of water to vacuum, the pump is TOTALLY worth the $40 it costs to hook it up to a hose. However, the real solution (which costs $7K), may or may not be worth it, dependent upon if you have a job or not.

New Prez

Word up to our new prez, Mr. BARACK!

Seriously, you gave a good speech, and we all know that the 'flub' of the oath was really just you taking in the moment (which would have been huge for anyone).

Congratulations are definitely in order, although I'm sure a lot of press time in the next week is going to go to Lowery's words:

“We ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to give back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right,” Lowery prayed.

Of course we as white people should and will embrace what is right, just like everyone else :).

Communism

So after my favorite presidential candidate Mike Huckabee dropped out of the race, I found myself supporting Barack Obama for president.


I know our economy needs (or thinks it needs) stimulating, but doesn't spending a trillion dollars of deficit for the foreseeable future kind of make you think we live in a Quote-unquote Communist state, however unofficially? Giving these amounts of money to the entire nation certainly does seem like a re-distribution of wealth, especially when it is happening pre-emptively.

Oh well.

Nice kidneys, can I touch them?

I'm sure some of you have heard about this, where a man is trying to get his divorcing wife to settle $1.5 million for a kidney he donated to her a few years ago.

I see a different angle on this. I know that in China and other shady places around the globe, people can go to sleep one day, and wake up the next in a bathtub with a few of their organs removed, while certain people collect the profits. What I think this may lead to is Chinese (or other place) mail-order brides, who come over to the United States at the behest of some really rich single person in need of an organ, donate it to that person, and then collect their fee in the divorce through a big hush-hush settlement. Scary future...