Guys night In

So webbie and I were having a bit of brew-ha-ha upstairs here. He was a man eager for the feast - went through a few iterations of the bottle and now chilling with his legs out. Wow it is a miracle all that guy needs to survive is supplied by the air and his Mom. His feet are so tiny - so amazing. I look at him and immediately know there is a God who loves him so much.


     We learned he definitely responds to high voices - someone said that the other day but it was proven today statistically when Becky was experimenting at a time when he needed feeding. He was bawling, but when she would talk in a high-pitch voice to him calmer times were had.

      Did I say what a great time our family had yesterday? It was perfect, Matthew ate just before and after the hike. It was nice to give Amy some time away from taking care of him, and we were able to refresh our thoughts and outlook for the next 2 weeks. Amy's just a really awesome Mom, she loves the little guy so much and takes care of him so amazingly!

     As for me, did I say I needed to drop a few pounds? Amy definitely is beating me on the weight loss bet. This is what I've come to below:

Looking Glass

The imagination is quite amazing, don't you think? The great thing about books is that 1000 people could read them and each would imagine different physical features of the objects in the book.

      Well my (David) perception of what a delivery room would look like was probably based on TV shows. Where you have the see thru glass as everyone is watching the baby be delivered, and the Papa is inside holding his (hopefully) wife's hand while she's having contractions and pushing, and is in lots of pain and sweating, all in all like a controlled laboratory environment.

      When we walked into the delivery room on Wednesday, it was exactly not what I had thought. A bed with a drip machine on one side and monitors on another. A TV in the back middle and 2 lights on top. A curtain in front of door as it opens. A sink a bit from the bed (where the laptop would rest) and a chair on the other side of the room (a place to sit for the queasy no doubt). Where was the looking glass so we could examine the subject?

      It was a lot cozier than I thought! We had Dr. Gopal, 2 nurses, Amy,myself,Katie, and 2 other nurses at times. Amy was in a bit of pain (before the Epideral) but afterwords she wasn't cringing at all, until she was pushing. Considering how big Matthew was she didn't show the pain as much I had imagined she would. And, contrary to many stories I've heard from folks, she wasn't yelling at me defiantly "This is your fault" and the like.

      It was exactly not how I thought it would be. But looking back now it's exactly as I wish it were.

Photos from Oct 01 and 02, 2009

Hey all!
We've just uploaded 30-some picts from the last 2 days. Use the directory link below and you can select pictures to view. They should be full screen but not too long to load.

Click on the following link:

Pictures Oct 01 and 02 2009

I'm looking at a better interface, but here you at least get the nicely detailed photos.

The Earth

just screams of our Creator. The sun rising and setting - letting us sleep and giving us photosynthesis and vitamin D. The water - allows us to survive, Animals,plants to eat. Mountains proclaiming His majesty. Raw materials everywhere to build tools and shelter. A hospitable planet year-round with seasons and asteroid-sweepers to protect us from disaster. Friends and families to share our lives with and the institution of Marriage to model His nature.

Everything that has breath praise the Lord (Psalm 150:6) He's created a universe and designed it - all billion years long and as many light years wide, just for you and me! He would have done it just for you!!!! The love that our Lord has for us cannot be put to words. His sacrifice on the Cross - can't be fully understood the price that was paid and the love that Jesus has for each of us!!

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:13-14)

I am continually amazed at the love our God has for each of us!!!

Great story from Winchester

So on Wednesday I decided to head to Winchester to get some tax advice from an accountant recommended on a facebook post to my friend Amy F's page. It's a 1-hour drive from my house, and in the "toxic" minivan, quite a long stretch. So I go over there expecting to pay $60 for the consultation (as I had asked when I spoke to her on the phone).

I get there a few minutes late (I was frantically printing out at the time 80 pages of IRS forms before - I only printed out 20 and luckily that was enough) She works out of her home, so I knock on the door, go in, and immediately notice "The Smell". This is, of course, the smell of a house of someone who smokes incessantly. I think it rather funny (if it wasn't for the health damage) that I'm driving in a car spewing exhaust through the vents and then going into a smoke-filled house (so much that I had to replace clothes when I arrived back at home). Well anyway, I won't dwell on this because this is a great story as I said in the title.

So the accountant (Pat) is helping me look over my forms and making sure I'm doing everything right with all of my forms - and I'm asking her questions and everything. So a little into it, when we're talking about expenses related to rental property, she says "Now here you would put tax accountant fees, so for example $25, but you wont need any here since I'm not going to charge you". Now I heard that and thought "Well, that just means I'm not getting charged the full tax accountant fees since she's not doing my taxes". Didn't think anything of it for a while.

So the only thing Pat didn't know was how to deal with my ISO's wrt AMT (but being a tax accountant in Winchester, how many times do you have to deal with ISO's). So she said she'll look at that Saturday and get back to me.

I got some good advice and now have almost finished adjusting my taxes. I feel much better now. Anyways after the hour or so session, I ask "So how much do I owe you?", seeing as she hasn't mentioned anything about it. She says "Nothing" ?! And then says "Look at this stack here", as she's pointing to a stack of account sheets and books, "I spend most my days doing bookkeeping for companies, which is boring to me. This was a break for me - I really enjoy looking at taxes!". As I was walking out, I felt like maybe I should drop a 20 somewhere, but I thought maybe we'll just send her a gift card or something.

So what could have been just a normal going-to-the-tax-lady experience became an anything-but-normal experience. Small-town America gave me a surprise, and hopefully I can spread the word of this nice tax lady (check out www.patsfasttax.com) and the business she runs out of her home. Definitely worth the drive!

Good 'ol Chuck

Remeber the old Chuck Norris movies? Well, you probably don't remember any specific titles, or any of the "Plots", but I was a young kid enthralled by his characters. Part of it was the cheesy one-liners. Most of it was the underestimation people had of him and then quickly how he just dominated thereafter. Now TBS had lots of his films on TV so I was able to watch most of them with appropriate editing for TV (not the case anymore surely).

And then later, I encountered Chuck on "Walker Texas Ranger". Again, I was drawn to the show, but here he had more of a law-abiding family-type character.

And then fast forward to a few years ago when I find out he is a born-again Christian. I saw some of the more recent "Walker Texas Ranger" episodes, and there he is quoting the Bible. Wow! Who would have thought, the guy I idolized growing up is someone I could still look up to now.

Even crazier, he has a weekly column on humanevents.com and wnd.com. I've been reading those for about a year now, and I have to say, I have agreed with him moreso than any of the other writers on those sites.

And the recent letter (Chuck's Column) talks about what Obama promised a while back, which is that the 1st thing he'd do as president is sign the "Freedom of Choice" Act. This would eliminate all state laws wrt abortion (i.e. partial birth abortion restrictions), would help lead to taxpayer funding, and would force religious hospitals to perform abortions,etc. There is a link at the bottom to an online petition at fightfoca.com (great place to read up about this)-> I just signed this because it is just too important to me. With this Pro-Abortion president and his probably 2 pro-abortion nominations to the supreme court the Pro-Life movement has hit a huge setback probably for the next 30 years.

Once again, how my boyhood idol and I think the same on so many things I'll never know. Amy and I instituted part of what he does every night with his wife - that is, reading a Psalm together. I know what you all are saying - "When are we getting the Total Gym?" Well, it's not on the table yet, but who knows what the year will bring :)

While Sick Observing Craziness

Well everyone I've been quite under the weather the last few weeks, and that has given me some time to realize I can't do everything I want to do and forced me to relax, gets lots of sleep, get some good work done, but also look at current events and news. The latter has been the most interesting part, however it has brought me to a point where I can no longer listen to the national news at any depth any more. I've heard the story from Pres. Bush defending the auto-bailout: "I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system" (?!?) and the LA Times front-page headline "Obama clears himself and staff in Blagojevich case" (?!?) and with an incoming President unwilling to present his credentials for office and no judge or secretary of state willing to ask for it so far I've realized the following: there no sense in being angry that our political,judicial,media,congressional,etc systems are broken and off-kilter from where the constitution demands or where they should fairly be. Instead I shall take from the wisdom of Dave Thomas (no, not eat a triple-cheeseburger or a Cube-of-power), who founded my current employer. In response to those who wanted to sell off his company a few years ago he told me that the battles aren't going to take place over the company-wide emails, instead they need to be fought on an one-on-one basis within offices - essentially taking the time to change decisions one at a time. Well we did fight off the sale then, and I don't know how many were affected by the email that I did send out, but I do know that one person in particular was affected in part by a personal conversation that we had.

And this is exactly how Jesus wants us to bring people to Him - His example of being with the people at their houses, meeting the people where they were and challenging them - this is how we are to spread His message. It only makes sense then that the best way to change anything about the collective thought of a nation is to do it one person at a time. Being angry about the way people think and act just like being angry that so many don't believe in God does nothing - more importantly it is compassionless unless there is action to correct the problem.

So that's where I'm heading - I've seen enough problems. Now what?