Couple more new things

I forgot to mention that we got a Wii recently. Both Julie and I are suffering from Wii Arm, a condition similar to Nintendo Thumb, only much more painful. I try to get in a good tennis match and a couple rounds of boxing each morning. We are excited to get the Wii Fit and make our virtual selves the envy of all the Miis everywhere.

I also wanted to point out the cool little ESPN thing to the left. It displays what is going on in the life of Michigan State football. They are having a pretty good year as it turns out. I am not holding my breath for any kind of national title, but they should get into a pretty good bowl game.

New things

In the small chance that anyone still checks this blog out, here is what is going on in my life lately.
1. I started running back in August. I had quit during college because my knees hurt, but so far they are doing well. I ran my first ever official 5K in September. I usually run 3-4 times a week for 2-3 miles. My longest so far has been 4. I am very upset that cold weather is upon us as this will likely cut into my running schedule. Feel free to send me an elliptical machine.

2. My job as a foster care case manager continues to go well. The program is still growing at a somewhat alarming pace. Not that we have a ton of kids, but we are kind of bursting at the seams and continue to add more kids. I have 15 on my case load right now and will likely see number 16 arriving next week.

3. I am addicted to Dave Ramsey. For those of you who don't know, he is a financial advisor with a call in radio show. You can also download his podcast from Zune or Itunes. I am very gun-ho about getting our debts and house paid off. Julie is still unsure that this is possible, but with a few less video games a pairs of shoes I am sure we can do it.

4. I don't blog anymore. Fairly obvious to those who read my blogs.

Quote of the Year

Sorry to disappoint all the millions who have been dying for me to post again. I have been focusing most of my attention on my Meijer blog and quite frankly my life hasn't been all that interesting lately. However, I just stumbled upon a quote when reading a forum about the iphone. The users name is Yadmonkey, whatever that means.
He said,

Picking a cellular service feels like choosing a presidential candidate... you end up going with the choice which is slightly less nauseating.

I don't know that I have ever heard anything more true. I am actually pretty happy with my current cell phone carrier, but there are still far to many times that things don't work quiet right or the bill gets messed up and you have to spend hours on the phone with some guy in India, or your phone doesn't do half the stuff it should be able to.
It just seems that in the land of the free with both politics and markets driven by the consumer, we would have some better choices and better service. Do we just settle for mediocrity because we don't really get to choose, or is the majority of our citizenry made up of people who like junk?
Never mind, I just saw an ad for Wal-Mart.

Phew!

As you may be well aware by the lack of humor in you life, Julie and I have not been doing much blogging lately. Let me explain why.
First, we went on vacation in mid-January for a week. I know, not exactly the most stressful period of our lives and we probably could have written a blog or two, but we had no internet connection and frankly didn't really care to tell people that we were spending the week watching it snow and swimming in a huge indoor pool by ourselves.
Second, we get back from vacation and play catch-up at work and home. Then I took off for a winter retreat for the Jr./Sr. high students in Sunday school. I'm not really sure what Julie was doing all weekend that she wasn't able to write anything, but I'll assume it was really important.
Third, all of the water that dried up in Georgia this last summer landed on Fort Wayne. I think they stopped measuring it in inches. Of course everything flooded, including our basement. (Ironically, there was a boat show in Fort Wayne this past weekend. Initially I thought this was pretty retarded because first of all it's February and hardly a time to use a boat, and second there isn't a single decent lake within 50 miles. Turns out boats came in pretty handy during the flood and the Boat Show powers that be know what they're doing) Anyway, our basement flooded due to roots growing in our drain pipe and a river needing to pass through it. It wasn't a horrible mess but it did involve a plumber and a large check being written. Fortunately all we have to replace is our carpet, which we had planned on replacing anyway.

Please feel free to share any tales of water woe that you have experienced so we can commiserate together.

Hobby Lobby

I have a new co-worker, at work, obviously. I'll call him Marc G., because Marc is his name. His last name starts with G. but I don't know if he wants his identify to be fully know across cyber space and as there are about a million people who read this blog, I wanted to respect his privacy.

So, having said all of that, Marc and I recently took a trip to LaGrange, Indiana for a court hearing for one of my foster kids. On the way up Marc and I discovered that we both are very interested in model airplanes and radio controlled cars and the such. Marc then asked if I had been to Phil's Hobby Shop because it has some really cool stuff in it. I replied no, but that I really enjoy going to Hobby stores. I then recounted one of the saddest days of my life, the day I walked into Hobby Lobby expecting it to be full of really cool stuff and found that it was really full of...
"Junk!" blurts in Marc. He too had been fooled by the Hobbyish name of the store filled with nothing cool. Not even partially cool, just super boring lame stuff. Even the smell of it is boring. The sign however is somewhat cool. First of all it has the word Hobby in it. Second, it orange and kind of slanted, giving the impression of action. Completely misleading. If there is anyone who has not been duped by Hobby Lobby's signage, consider yourselves warned.


my wife loves Hobby Lobby...

Merry Chirstmas

I know we all hear this over and over about the true meaning of Christmas, but I found this quote to be kind of neat. I also thought my Catholic audience would appreciate it.

With Christmas fast approaching, Pope Benedict XVI is warning Catholics
about the temptations of materialism, saying children are being raised in a
consumeristic culture that trumpets "false models of happiness." The pontiff
laments that consumerism keeps youth from searching out real truth and meaning,
and that "adolescents, youth and even children are easy victims of the
corruption of love, deceived by unscrupulous adults who, lying to themselves and
to them, draw them into the dead-end streets of consumerism." [AP, 12/8/07]

I teach Sunday school to 9th and 10th grade students. Recently we have been talking about the five love languages. If you don't know what they are go here, then take a quiz here to find out what you are, then come back and finish reading.
I was very surprised to find that out of the five languages; gifts, quality time, acts of service, words of affirmation, and physical touch, not one kid had gifts in his/her top three love languages. In fact, almost all of them had quality time. Something to think about when trying to decide what to give those you love this season.

Julie and I have found ourselves especially busy this year with all the stuff that "has" to get done. I hope you are able to find some quiet time this year.

Puppy Chapter 2

Maggie continues to make herself at home with Julie and I. She has progressed from a shy meek tiny little creature to an antagonistic loppy attention seeking conniver. Just a few minutes ago we gave her a brand new rawhide bone because it appeared that she had eaten all of the previous one. Well after about 5 minutes of chewing on the new bone, she gets bored and starts playing with the skirt of the couch. Or so we thought. Turns out she was really trying to get the bone we thought she had finished. After reteiving that one, she goes back for another bone. Then she decides that she needs the bone that Sam is chewing on as well. We will be spending the better part of this Christmas teaching her about sharing and giving instead of taking and hording.

Meijer

Wanted to let everyone know that I started a new blog today. I realize I do a poor enough job keeping this one up, but I am much more passionate about my new one. It is all about Meijer stores. Pretty much the best store every invented. Check it out if you have a chance.

Puppy

So, anyone who has read Julie's blog is already aware that we have a new puppy. I don't know how many of you have had puppies before. Despite having had several dogs in my life, this is the first time I have really been responsible for a puppy. I had absolutely no idea what I was getting into. Below is a list of things I have learned about caring for a dog.
1. breeds with boxer in them are extremely stubborn.
2. puppies are extremely orally fixated. If it is living, it goes in her mouth, if it is dead, it goes in her mouth, anything else, goes in her mouth.
3. puppies need to pee every 2-3 hours, and lots of time in between.
4. there are two settings on puppies, sleeping and terrorizing.
5. there are two settings for responses for everything puppies do, awwwww, and NOOOO!!

More to follow I am sure. Please respond if you have any great dog advice.

New Job

First, I want to thank all the many readers who contributed to my survey of what to do on Saturday. Despite the fact that everyone who contributed was a female and everyone leaned more heavily to wasting their Saturday but not doing anything but relaxing (lame) I feel that in reality most people truly feel that Saturday is a great day to do work.

Now that I know more than one person reads my blog, I thought I would take the opportunity to announce that I am changing jobs at the end of this month. I will be going to Gateway Woods and taking a position as a case manager of the Foster Care program.

Saturdays

I realize that only about 2 people read my blog, and I haven't written anything in a long time, so now it is down to one, but for anyone that does still read this I want to conduct a scientific pole.

My question is; Is Saturday a day to do work around the house and get caught up, or is it a day to relax and do nothing?
Please submit your vote today.

Things I learned during High School Girls Camp '07

Okay, just so everyone is clear, I didn't actually go to girls camp, but my wife did and while she was gone I learned many things.
1. The bachelor instinct is not easily lost. The house was less than clean within 1/2 a day.
2. Despite how much I complain about Julie taking up most of the bed, sleeping in a big bed all alone is even more annoying. I was never sure which side to put my head on.
3. If your wife says she is going to make chicken salad for lunches and such while she's gone, have a back up plan. It may not happen.
4. Despite giving him more attention than ever, Sam will never love me as much as he does Julie.

Back on track

I realize I don't post on this blog very often, and I am quite sorry for that. After reading my wife's latest post, I am filled with renewed vigor to be a beacon of truth. Anyone who reads my wife's blog should first check here before falling into a deception, such as buying our toaster. I will be double checking for anything else she may have put on the market that I would like to keep. In the meantime, read responsibly.

I have pretty much decided that it is going to be tough to keep this blog on the cheerful side. There is just so much to be cynical about.

Now that the snow is gone we have been having people soliciting door to door. Included in these poor soles who will never get my money is a girl from Verizon who let our dog out when she opened the screen door. She then proceeded to try to sell me verizon internet services and didn't seem to realize that I should be helping my wife chase our dog. If anyone reading this is a door to door sales person. Please don't continue to try to sell stuff once the customer's dog has run away. Not going to do you a whole lot of good.

On top of that, we often get people from ADT security try to sign up back up for service. Not even sure why they exist in this part of the county because I don't think anyone even locks their doors around here. Well I have this old "Protected by ADT" sign in our front yard from the previous owners and it seems to have been constantly suffering damage until it finally was broken in half. I am convinced that the ADT people were destroying it. Very conniving if you ask me.

The nerve

It has been a while since my last post and part of it is that I have been having a hard time coming up with something else to write about besides our dog. However, I feel it necessary to dive into this dreadful topic once more to correct the complete falsehood of my last post indicating that sam and I were bonding. Notice now that I am not even capitalizing his name.
So, the other sam and I were hanging out and I decided to leave for 10 minutes get something at the hardware store. Normally I would have put sam in his room but felt that he had been behaving rather well and wouldn't get into trouble... yeah, not so much.
So, I come home to find that sam has gotten into the trash to eat the entire wrapper from the bacon we had made earlier. Turns out dogs can't digest Styrofoam and plastic and the wrapper was promptly thrown up all over our couch. Yes, the same one that sam loves to sit by me on. Not only did he throw it up, but he did twice on the couch, and once on the living room floor. Not sure why he felt the need to puke on the most absorbent surfaces he could find. The culprit was found lounging in the sun beam of the living room window. Needless to say, the bonding process has come to a complete halt.

Today we had a glorious thunderstorm in the early morning. It is truly amazing just how dark it can get at 10 am. Either way, it was very exciting! After the storm it cleared up significantly and was very warm. Spring is here!!! I love spring. I can't even imagine someone who doesn't.

In addition to spring being here. Sam and I are finally starting to bond. For those who don't know, Sam is my wife's Jack Russel Terrier. He didn't like me very much at first and made his feelings towards me quite obvious. (If anyone should ever pee on one of your favorite jackets, I would guess it is safe to say that there is some turmoil in the relationship.) Recently Sam has taken to sitting next to me on the couch while I read or type. I think he is pleased that we are not getting a second dog and knows that I played a big part in this decision.

Creepy

Today, Paul Fischer, someone I have fellowshipped with at church for the past four years, told me where I can pick out my own casket...

I am not really sure what else to say about that.

I didn't realize...

that I would actually get comments on my blog. I thought my wife would read it out of pity, but to receive five comments is truly amazing. Unfortunately I suppose this means that I will have to come up with clever things to say every so often.

So I suppose I should start by continuing to counter the lack of cheer in my wife's posts. For instance, she does not have pneumonia, or anything even close to it. She coughed... twice...
If you felt like sending a get well card please don't, it will only encourage more made up diseases.

As for the puppy. I realize this may sound cynical, which does not follow my mission statement, but I need to warn others out there of the dangers of mentioning the word "PUPPY". It immediately ignites a flurry of activity revolved around dog books, internet searches for dogs, and conversations with total strangers about dogs. To make matters worse we went into a pet store with several obnoxiously cute puppies. I have to admit I was a bit embarrassed when my wife pushed all of the little children out of they way to get to the viewing glass. We barely made it out of there without taking one of the $300 pee factories home with us.

My first blog

Hello to all of Julie's friends who will be the only people who check this place out. This is the first time I have ever blogged...I feel a bit exposed...oh well.
I have decided that the mission statement for my blog is, "To right all the wrongs that are posted on my wife's blog and stand as a beacon of light against the cynicism of the world."

I have to admit though, Her last post about there only being a select few Hoosiers who like day-light savings was right on. It is pretty much the coolest thing in the world to still be playing outside at 10pm in July. Not sure why anyone wants it to be dark at 9 so they can wake up with the sun at 5:02am. Does anyone really care if the sun is up then?

I guess that is it for now. Have a blessed day :)