The Emberoks website is open for business!
I built it to promote my dad's book, of which the first 10 chapters can be read online right from the website, and you can buy the book if you like what you read.
Friday, July 9, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Joseph
Joseph's Story
Joseph was called by God to a desolate, unreached area of South Asia. Year after year his self-sacrificing labor took its toll on his body. He endured beatings, stonings, insults and hunger for the sake of the Gospel. Despite the incredible hardship, he refused to give up. And today, Joseph has planted 25 thriving churches and 28 mission stations.
Joseph is just one of more than 16,500 Gospel for Asia missionaries, each with his own story. By sponsoring a missionary you can partner with one of these faithful and fruitful believers to impact Asia.
Help support a missionary like Joseph for $30 a month.
The video and all information borrowed from the Gospel for Asia website. You can see the original page here: http://www.gfa.org/joseph
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
What's in a name?
Well, Juliet, quite a lot goes into a name actually.
Don't get me wrong, I love thinking about names for my son and trying them out to see how they will sound. But it's complicated. For those of you that are parents, this is probably old news to you. Even for those of you who aren't parents, I know that most of us have thought about names and what all goes into a name. But it becomes quite real when you realize you have three months left to decide on a name that somebody will carry around for the rest of their life.
Let's review some of the pitfalls of naming that I've been warned about by others--many of these following the basic can-a-5th-grade-kid-make-fun-of-your-kid-because-of-his-name? rule:
1) no body parts or bodily functions as the name or part of the name.
2) no name or part of a name that can rhyme with unfortunate body parts or bodily functions ("Bart-fart")
3) opposite gender sounding names (this has become less of a no-no due to all the unisex names recently, but there is still an inherent danger of lots of teasing if you give a boy a very girlie name or a girl a very boyish name)
4) names that no one will be able to pronounce correctly on the first try (again, not a complete no, but you have to weigh the benefits of the name against the annoyance he'll have of telling every single person he ever meets how to say his name)
5) name combinations that cause their initials to be something bad. For instance, no one in our family will have a first name that begins with "S" and a second name that begins with "T". The resulting initials would be "STD"...
And those are just some of the things to avoid. When you get into this naming thing you start thinking about what the name means, how it sounds rolling off your tongue, etc. And you don't just want this to be any old name, you want it to be a good name, heck, a GREAT name. After all your kid is gonna be wearing it for a good 80+ years (enshall-yah).
Now that I've written an entire post about the difficulties and dangers of naming a kid...anybody have any suggestions? :P
You don't have to give me the name you've secretly been hoping to name your first boy or anything...just some names that you like. We have some ideas for names of course, but I want to make sure I'm not overlooking any name or groups of names in the consideration process. It would be fun to hear why you like the name too, if you have a specific reason.
Don't get me wrong, I love thinking about names for my son and trying them out to see how they will sound. But it's complicated. For those of you that are parents, this is probably old news to you. Even for those of you who aren't parents, I know that most of us have thought about names and what all goes into a name. But it becomes quite real when you realize you have three months left to decide on a name that somebody will carry around for the rest of their life.
Let's review some of the pitfalls of naming that I've been warned about by others--many of these following the basic can-a-5th-grade-kid-make-fun-of-your-kid-because-of-his-name? rule:
1) no body parts or bodily functions as the name or part of the name.
2) no name or part of a name that can rhyme with unfortunate body parts or bodily functions ("Bart-fart")
3) opposite gender sounding names (this has become less of a no-no due to all the unisex names recently, but there is still an inherent danger of lots of teasing if you give a boy a very girlie name or a girl a very boyish name)
4) names that no one will be able to pronounce correctly on the first try (again, not a complete no, but you have to weigh the benefits of the name against the annoyance he'll have of telling every single person he ever meets how to say his name)
5) name combinations that cause their initials to be something bad. For instance, no one in our family will have a first name that begins with "S" and a second name that begins with "T". The resulting initials would be "STD"...
And those are just some of the things to avoid. When you get into this naming thing you start thinking about what the name means, how it sounds rolling off your tongue, etc. And you don't just want this to be any old name, you want it to be a good name, heck, a GREAT name. After all your kid is gonna be wearing it for a good 80+ years (enshall-yah).
Now that I've written an entire post about the difficulties and dangers of naming a kid...anybody have any suggestions? :P
You don't have to give me the name you've secretly been hoping to name your first boy or anything...just some names that you like. We have some ideas for names of course, but I want to make sure I'm not overlooking any name or groups of names in the consideration process. It would be fun to hear why you like the name too, if you have a specific reason.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Provoke Your Own Mind
"Always make a practice of provoking your own mind to think out what it accepts easily. Our position is not ours until we make it ours by suffering. The author who benefits you most is not the one who tells you something you did not know before, but the one who gives the expression to the truth that has been dumbly struggling in you for utterance."
-- Oswald Chambers
-- Oswald Chambers
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Google Search: "how to hang cabinets on the wall"
Researching skills that I had once upon a time in order to build some kitchen cabinets for my mother I came across the following article using the Google search from the title. I wish that I could say that I wrote this very funny piece, but since I didn't I will quote you an excerpt from the beginning of the article and then give you the link to the article so that you can read the rest:
How to Hang a Cabinet
The rest of the article can be found here How to Hang a Cabinet
How to Hang a Cabinet
"...recently I realized I needed a new medicine cabinet for my bathroom. When the salesperson at Medicine Cabinets Party Town Discount Superstore told me how easily I would be able to assemble and hang this piece of furniture, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to do a little bit of home improvement, and then brag about it unrelentingly for the rest of my life.
The salesperson assured me I would be able to assemble and hang the medicine cabinet with a few easy steps, in about 15 minutes. His estimate was off by only 13 weeks, two days, nine hours, and six minutes..."
Saturday, February 6, 2010
The Danger of a Single Story
I saw this on my friend Dan's Facebook wall and thought it was worth re-posting. It's 19 minutes long, but it's worth it, so find some time and watch Chimamanda Adichie's talk about the Danger's of a "single story". In what areas and about what people do you only have a single story?
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
These aren't your Grandparents' Christmas decorations
Every year around Christmas when the houses start getting decorated with Christmas lights I remember how much I like the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's rock versions of Christmas carols. Why do lights remind me? Most of you probably already know...
Sometime a while back (I think I was in junior high?) someone decorated their house with a ton of lights and set them to light up in time with one of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's songs. And then posted the video on the internet (or was it far enough back that it got spread around as filler news on nightly newscasts? I don't remember). Ever since then it's been the thing to do for people who have too many Christmas lights, too much money, and too much time on their hands. The results are often amazing.
I found what I think to be probably the best video I've seen of a Trans-Siberian Christmas House this morning, so I decided to share it with you:
Sometime a while back (I think I was in junior high?) someone decorated their house with a ton of lights and set them to light up in time with one of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's songs. And then posted the video on the internet (or was it far enough back that it got spread around as filler news on nightly newscasts? I don't remember). Ever since then it's been the thing to do for people who have too many Christmas lights, too much money, and too much time on their hands. The results are often amazing.
I found what I think to be probably the best video I've seen of a Trans-Siberian Christmas House this morning, so I decided to share it with you:
Monday, November 30, 2009
Intellectual Honesty and Articulating your Beliefs
"Since human resource managers and psychologists both value behavioral consistency as qualities of reliability and mental health, it would seem safe to assume that the choices people make tend toward an overarching goal or goals."-- JV
I think JV is on to something, but I would make an edit to his comment that changes the direction by 180 degrees. I would say that it is "safe to assume that the choices people make tend to reveal underlying belief or beliefs". This still fits with JV's examples, such as the first example of the scholar: The scholar believes in the importance of improving themselves intellectually or in contributing to a body of knowledge, and their consistent actions reveal that belief.
Dave made a point that hits on what I think is one of the most honest parts of the Atheist position. He said that, "...one of the big reasons to have a religion (read: God) is to have the value set of the religion, and the comfort of the belief that someone or something is out there guiding us," And I think that most Atheists truly believe that is why most people "have a religion". Atheists, as Christopher Hitchens said in the debate JV introduced us to, as well as in an essay conversation with Wilson on Christianity Today in 2007, choose not to believe in God because it would be "too easy and too comfortable", but it would not be intellectually honest. To tie this in to the comments above, their actions reveal their belief that sound reasoning and intellectual honesty is something that can be attained and something to strive for, which I also believe. But what about those many many people, me included, that believe in God because they believe it is the most intellectually honest position?
Atheists and Christians, Buddists and Muslims, Democrats and Republicans (just to provide a non-religion example) all have their value sets. These value sets often, if not always, direct their actions. Obviously, value sets (read: beliefs) are not a simple thing. They are often convoluted and obscured and complex which makes it difficult to articulate what we believe and what we think other people believe. I think this is a good place to re-quote Sister Carlotta:
Dave made the excellent point that (difficulty aside) we should be able to articulate the positions of our counterparts [people who believe differently than we do]. And that's what I was trying to do with Atheism in my last post. So maybe using "god" was a little goading on my part, but I don't think that it was confusing the dialog. Because what I'm trying to get at is: what do you trust? Christians believe that there is a Truth out there and that it can be articulated and understood as God. Atheists believe that there is a Truth out there, but that God doesn't fit anywhere in the picture. The truth, as they see it, is that Nature explains everything.
To put it another way: Christians believe that God created the world. That at some point in time nothing existed but God and then He created the Universe. Atheists believe that Nature created the world. That at some point in time nothing existed and then the Universe came into being of its own accord. Does one of those things really require more belief than the other? And you can't get out of this question by saying that science proves one or the other. Christian sceintists believe that science provides evidence of a Creator's design. Atheist scientists believe that science provides evidence of Nature's development from nothing to the current state. Their assumptions and value sets affect how they interpret the scientific data.
The reason I keep pushing on this whole assumptions / value set thing is that I think it is crucial to being able to get anywhere with the next two questions. I don't think that we have to agree with each others' value sets in order to dialog, but I do think that we need to be able to try to understand (at the very least) our own value sets in order to have an honest dialog.
As JV mentioned and Dave alluded to, evaluating the "rightness" and "wrongness" of a person's value set is a lot harder than defining it or understaning it. But I think trying to evaluate the "rightness" or "wrongness" points to something that people don't always want to say directly, and that is that each person believes that her or his value set more correctly describes the world.
So what are your values? What are the rules that can't be broken? What can you trust and fall back on with any certainty?
Okay, I'll give it some time to get feedback from you on this latest one, and then in the next post we'll move on to the next question that I wanted to address: Is there a God?
Thanks in advance for your comments.
I think JV is on to something, but I would make an edit to his comment that changes the direction by 180 degrees. I would say that it is "safe to assume that the choices people make tend to reveal underlying belief or beliefs". This still fits with JV's examples, such as the first example of the scholar: The scholar believes in the importance of improving themselves intellectually or in contributing to a body of knowledge, and their consistent actions reveal that belief.
Dave made a point that hits on what I think is one of the most honest parts of the Atheist position. He said that, "...one of the big reasons to have a religion (read: God) is to have the value set of the religion, and the comfort of the belief that someone or something is out there guiding us," And I think that most Atheists truly believe that is why most people "have a religion". Atheists, as Christopher Hitchens said in the debate JV introduced us to, as well as in an essay conversation with Wilson on Christianity Today in 2007, choose not to believe in God because it would be "too easy and too comfortable", but it would not be intellectually honest. To tie this in to the comments above, their actions reveal their belief that sound reasoning and intellectual honesty is something that can be attained and something to strive for, which I also believe. But what about those many many people, me included, that believe in God because they believe it is the most intellectually honest position?
Atheists and Christians, Buddists and Muslims, Democrats and Republicans (just to provide a non-religion example) all have their value sets. These value sets often, if not always, direct their actions. Obviously, value sets (read: beliefs) are not a simple thing. They are often convoluted and obscured and complex which makes it difficult to articulate what we believe and what we think other people believe. I think this is a good place to re-quote Sister Carlotta:
You are so convinced that you believe only what you believe that you believe, that you remain utterly blind to what you really believe without believing you believe it.'"
--Shadow of the Hegemon, pg 80-81
Dave made the excellent point that (difficulty aside) we should be able to articulate the positions of our counterparts [people who believe differently than we do]. And that's what I was trying to do with Atheism in my last post. So maybe using "god" was a little goading on my part, but I don't think that it was confusing the dialog. Because what I'm trying to get at is: what do you trust? Christians believe that there is a Truth out there and that it can be articulated and understood as God. Atheists believe that there is a Truth out there, but that God doesn't fit anywhere in the picture. The truth, as they see it, is that Nature explains everything.
To put it another way: Christians believe that God created the world. That at some point in time nothing existed but God and then He created the Universe. Atheists believe that Nature created the world. That at some point in time nothing existed and then the Universe came into being of its own accord. Does one of those things really require more belief than the other? And you can't get out of this question by saying that science proves one or the other. Christian sceintists believe that science provides evidence of a Creator's design. Atheist scientists believe that science provides evidence of Nature's development from nothing to the current state. Their assumptions and value sets affect how they interpret the scientific data.
The reason I keep pushing on this whole assumptions / value set thing is that I think it is crucial to being able to get anywhere with the next two questions. I don't think that we have to agree with each others' value sets in order to dialog, but I do think that we need to be able to try to understand (at the very least) our own value sets in order to have an honest dialog.
As JV mentioned and Dave alluded to, evaluating the "rightness" and "wrongness" of a person's value set is a lot harder than defining it or understaning it. But I think trying to evaluate the "rightness" or "wrongness" points to something that people don't always want to say directly, and that is that each person believes that her or his value set more correctly describes the world.
So what are your values? What are the rules that can't be broken? What can you trust and fall back on with any certainty?
Okay, I'll give it some time to get feedback from you on this latest one, and then in the next post we'll move on to the next question that I wanted to address: Is there a God?
Thanks in advance for your comments.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Happy Thanksgiving!
To everyone who is checking blogs and doing stuff on the internet today I wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving!
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. It all centers around giving thanks for what you have, family, and a communal meal. I love my big, weird family and can't give thanks enough for the privilege of being able to spend Thanksgiving Day with my wife, mom, dad, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, ancles, grandparents, nieces and extended family. I only wish Melissa's family and my family could be in the same place so that we could celebrate together.
I'll leave you with the words of thanks which I really like and are attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson (but I can't find anywhere that helps me cite where this prayer is from):
For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food,
For love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of the year. It all centers around giving thanks for what you have, family, and a communal meal. I love my big, weird family and can't give thanks enough for the privilege of being able to spend Thanksgiving Day with my wife, mom, dad, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, ancles, grandparents, nieces and extended family. I only wish Melissa's family and my family could be in the same place so that we could celebrate together.
I'll leave you with the words of thanks which I really like and are attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson (but I can't find anywhere that helps me cite where this prayer is from):
For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food,
For love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Does Belief Matter: Continuing the Discussion
Does it even matter if we believe in God at all?
If you're starting the discussion here the original post might be helpful to give you some background. You can find the original post, and the comments I am responding to now by clicking here.
Ok, I was going to try to respond to a few of the comments with a comment of my own, but I want people to keep engaged in the conversation and I know that some people don't go back to read comments on a blog after a day or two. So for clarity's sake and to see if I can get more people's input I've decided to post my reply to JV, Nate, Ariah, and Dave as a new post.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Believing in God: What's the point?
Is there a God? If there is, does it matter which God it is? Does it even matter if we believe in God at all?
I know, each one of those questions above has been the subject of whole books, of entire categories of books even, and here I am putting all three of them at the top of one of my blog entries. Who does this guy think he is, right? I don't plan on writing a book here on this blog, but I do want to talk about these questions for several reasons:
1) I know that many Christians come to a serious questioning point in their faith over one of these questions, or a similar question about who God is and how He (She? It?) relates to us.
2) I know people that would answer these questions exactly opposite to the way that I would.
3) I know lots of people that have no idea how to answer these questions, or don't think that there is an answer, or never even thought about these questions.
And...
Saturday, November 7, 2009
Jesus Answers the Question
Thanks everybody for your answers, they were great! I purposely tried to ask the question using today's language so that it wouldn't be an automatic tip-off that I was asking the exact same question that a Pharisee asked Jesus in the Bible. Aleya started us all off with the right answer, but the conversation continued because people rightly understood that it needed to be a little more clearly defined. Rachel and Ariah worked to define "love" a little more clearly and Whitney and Robin both seemed to then begin working out what exactly it would look like to "Love God". And Whitney, I think you are right that to love Him we must know Him. Robin, I love that you brought up the point that while Loving Him is the correct answer, the acting out of that love is going to be a form of worship for us. I think you meant worship through music, but you stated it so well when you said, "love manifests itself in worship". I think our love for God, in it's full and complete sense, will have a very strong element of worship. How could it not if we truly know Him as Whitney mentioned.
But Jeremy saw my question and recognized it as the same one from Matthew and Mark where the Pharisee asks Jesus what was the most important commandment. Rachel summarized the answer in her comment, but thanks to Jeremy for bringing out Jesus' full answer. When the Pharisee asks Jesus his question, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:5 for the first answer, and then summarizes whole chapters of Deuteronomy for the second part of His answer:
I mentioned that the Pastor was talking about this passage on Sunday. He was actually focusing on the second part of the answer that Jesus gave. The teacher asked for a single answer, and Jesus gave him two. Why? Because they are so closely intertwined that they really shouldn't be separated. The pastor began his sermon with an anecdotal story about a Mennonite man who was asked by a stranger one day if he was a Christian. And the Mennonite's answer was, "I'm the least qualified person to answer that question. You should go ask my neighbors."
Now, I talked with David and Melissa about it a little, and David commented that he didn't necessarily subscribe to the whole "preach the gospel, and if necessary use words" philosophy. I think he's right, and I think too often people use that as a "way out" of speaking about our beliefs and our God.
But I think that Jesus made the point clear: Loving God is specific, it's all out, no-holds-barred. It's not just with words, it's with your heart and your mind and your soul. In Deuteronomy is says, "with all your strength".
So thanks everybody for your answers. Keep the conversation going.
But Jeremy saw my question and recognized it as the same one from Matthew and Mark where the Pharisee asks Jesus what was the most important commandment. Rachel summarized the answer in her comment, but thanks to Jeremy for bringing out Jesus' full answer. When the Pharisee asks Jesus his question, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:5 for the first answer, and then summarizes whole chapters of Deuteronomy for the second part of His answer:
Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, [a teacher of the law] asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"
And [Jesus] said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depends all the Law and Prophets." (Matthew 22:34-40)
I mentioned that the Pastor was talking about this passage on Sunday. He was actually focusing on the second part of the answer that Jesus gave. The teacher asked for a single answer, and Jesus gave him two. Why? Because they are so closely intertwined that they really shouldn't be separated. The pastor began his sermon with an anecdotal story about a Mennonite man who was asked by a stranger one day if he was a Christian. And the Mennonite's answer was, "I'm the least qualified person to answer that question. You should go ask my neighbors."
Now, I talked with David and Melissa about it a little, and David commented that he didn't necessarily subscribe to the whole "preach the gospel, and if necessary use words" philosophy. I think he's right, and I think too often people use that as a "way out" of speaking about our beliefs and our God.
But I think that Jesus made the point clear: Loving God is specific, it's all out, no-holds-barred. It's not just with words, it's with your heart and your mind and your soul. In Deuteronomy is says, "with all your strength".
So thanks everybody for your answers. Keep the conversation going.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Most important thing for a Christian to do
So rather than a long involved "part 2" post today (don't worry, that's coming soon) I have a question for you instead. This is a question that I'm curious to hear your answers to after having listened to a sermon related to this on Sunday. So here it is:
"What, in your opinion, is the most important thing that we are called to do?"
I'll give my answer in a bit, but I'm interested to see your responses first.
"What, in your opinion, is the most important thing that we are called to do?"
I'll give my answer in a bit, but I'm interested to see your responses first.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Writing about not having anything to write about...and other things
So my last post where I wrote about anything worth writing about was over two weeks ago. You'd think that in this self-obsessed day and age I'd be able to think of something about my self or my life that I figured was worth writing about. And I did. But then I got back home and thought to myself, I don't really have anything to say. The blog should be witty and clever and thoughtful and God-honoring and...list a bunch of other cool adjectives here. And so now I should talk about how people, especially of our generation, are self-absorbed and focus on themselves all the time. Or something like that. But the reality is that I'm bored. I'm actually waiting to go pick David up from the airport and his plane has been delayed until midnight thanks to the cool front that moved through Houston and brought a lot of rain and wind with it. So I thought, "now's a good time to write something in your blog."
Now that you've been warned what kind of post this is: read on at your own risk.
The other reality is that there are about 7 people that read this blog other than me, and they are all friends and family of mine (Hi Mom!). So really it doesn't matter if this blog is hip or cool. It's basically just my journal. And you happen to be reading it.
Alright, contrary to the evidence presented in this blog I have been doing some interesting things and I'll try to catch you up:
First in chronological order is the fact that we lost our cat. That was Sunday night on the 11th, right before I posted about finishing my cardboard chair. I spent my free time that week either looking for her, posting flyers about her, or updating my resume and cover letter to start looking for assistant or substitute teaching jobs again.
Jump forward to the next weekend (life happened in between of course...work, Shwey searching, etc). Melissa had found out about something called Free Night at the Theatre. We managed to score tickets to a one man performance of Hamlet and Jeremy and Amanda (Jeranda? Amandremy? ...I'm asking for Jeremy's sake) came with us. Melissa went all out and made some amazing lasagna for us for dinner beforehand. The performance was intense, and the actor was impressive. He managed to convey so many emotions, delivering so many lines spot on (at least, in my uneducated opinion) and must have been completely worn out after being so physically and emotionally active for 2 straight hours. We think that he only forgot his lines once, and he recovered in such a way that it could have been an intentional part of the scene, so we're not actually sure (Jeremy would say he is sure).
Tuesday night (Oct. 20th) Mom and Dad took Melissa and I out to Cheesecake Factory as a belated birthday gift. It's a bit of a tradition for them to take us out to eat on our birthdays. I think it started because it was one of the few ways to have guaranteed one-on-one time with them without being interrupted by life and the immediate crisis of one of the other 8 siblings.
...oops, it's 11:40. Time to go pick up David from the airport. Yeah, it's awesome. He's coming down to hang out with us over the weekend. So I guess I'll have to catch up to the present in another post.
Peace.
Now that you've been warned what kind of post this is: read on at your own risk.
The other reality is that there are about 7 people that read this blog other than me, and they are all friends and family of mine (Hi Mom!). So really it doesn't matter if this blog is hip or cool. It's basically just my journal. And you happen to be reading it.
Alright, contrary to the evidence presented in this blog I have been doing some interesting things and I'll try to catch you up:
First in chronological order is the fact that we lost our cat. That was Sunday night on the 11th, right before I posted about finishing my cardboard chair. I spent my free time that week either looking for her, posting flyers about her, or updating my resume and cover letter to start looking for assistant or substitute teaching jobs again.
Jump forward to the next weekend (life happened in between of course...work, Shwey searching, etc). Melissa had found out about something called Free Night at the Theatre. We managed to score tickets to a one man performance of Hamlet and Jeremy and Amanda (Jeranda? Amandremy? ...I'm asking for Jeremy's sake) came with us. Melissa went all out and made some amazing lasagna for us for dinner beforehand. The performance was intense, and the actor was impressive. He managed to convey so many emotions, delivering so many lines spot on (at least, in my uneducated opinion) and must have been completely worn out after being so physically and emotionally active for 2 straight hours. We think that he only forgot his lines once, and he recovered in such a way that it could have been an intentional part of the scene, so we're not actually sure (Jeremy would say he is sure).
Tuesday night (Oct. 20th) Mom and Dad took Melissa and I out to Cheesecake Factory as a belated birthday gift. It's a bit of a tradition for them to take us out to eat on our birthdays. I think it started because it was one of the few ways to have guaranteed one-on-one time with them without being interrupted by life and the immediate crisis of one of the other 8 siblings.
...oops, it's 11:40. Time to go pick up David from the airport. Yeah, it's awesome. He's coming down to hang out with us over the weekend. So I guess I'll have to catch up to the present in another post.
Peace.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Should this be my next project?
Photo courtesy of www.inhabitat.com
Just kidding! We don't even have a lawn at the moment. And do people actually do this? Has anybody seen anything like this in person?
Oh yes, it's real. Here's where I found the picture:
http://www.inhabitat.com/2005/06/04/lawn-couch/
http://www.inhabitat.com/2006/05/28/grow-your-own-grass-furniture/
Monday, October 12, 2009
Extreme Home Makeover: Project Complete!
Yep, it's done! And, as promised I've got lots of pictures of the process and the finished product. Obviously we will still be improving it -- Melissa has some great ideas which she talks about on her blog. But the furniture is complete. I've even got pictures of Melissa sitting on it, just in case you are skeptical.
So, are you ready? Here we go (click on any of the pictures to see it full sized):
Here's the before shot. This is where the loveseat is going to be.
So, are you ready? Here we go (click on any of the pictures to see it full sized):
Friday, October 9, 2009
Looking for a Job? Do what this guy did
LONDON (Reuters) - In a pinstripe suit, silk tie and polished shoes, David Rowe has all the trappings of a successful London city worker, except for one stark difference -- he is wearing a sandwich board that says "JOB WANTED"....
Wish I'd thought of this. Now I'd just feel like a copycat. Or a creeper, since I'd most likely be doing it outside of Elementary and Junior High schools.
Here's the rest of the article: http://bit.ly/yXMPD (it's a link to Reuters website)
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
She's here! I have another niece!
Text message i received from my brother a few minutes ago:
--ORIGINAL MSG: The human has arrived
--ORIGINAL MSG: The human has arrived
Monday, October 5, 2009
Birthdays!
My birthday was Saturday.
Saturday I was busy doing other things and just posted some Hassaniya rap music here for you. You don't have to understand it, just appreciate it for me. It's my birthday after all. But I promised to tell you all about what I did for my birthday, and even though I'm a day later than I might have said I'd post it, here it is:
Saturday I was busy doing other things and just posted some Hassaniya rap music here for you. You don't have to understand it, just appreciate it for me. It's my birthday after all. But I promised to tell you all about what I did for my birthday, and even though I'm a day later than I might have said I'd post it, here it is:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)