The Kyperman page

A new day

2008-11-05T12:12:00.000-08:00

November 5, 2008. The world is a different place today, not better, not worse, but different. Today, for me is jumble of emotions, I am sad, a little angry, dazed and confused, and a little scared. I am also hopeful, thankful, part of me is at peace today, these are the parts I want to think about, concentrate on, thank God for. It's hard to do...but I must.

I have been praying, fasting, reading the Word over the past few months like I never have before. It’s sad that it took a national election to drive me to do this. I have always felt as a though I was a fringe Christian. I wanted all the benefits but was pretty reluctant to put in much of the effort that being a follower of Christ demanded.

I was reluctant to lose some bad habits, some bad attitudes that I have held on to for years. I don’t know why it was so hard for me, but it was.

I suppose the stakes of this election really drove me to rethink my relationship with the Lord. It caused me to realize that my hope is not in things, not in myself and my own ability, and not in which party controls congress or the whitehouse.

I have always prayed that God would speak to me, give me assurance of my own salvation, give me some sign that he loved me, forgave me, and then when I did not feel much better, I began to doubt. Doubt is a powerful enemy. Doubt can cause you to feel like no matter what you do, it’s not good enough. Doubt can cause you to feel like giving up. Doubt is one of the worst emotions you can have, it destroys your hope, robs you of your joy, causes you to lose your will to fight.

This election was the catalyst I needed to get me back into regular prayer time, regular devotions. It was only when I started to come to God, seek him for a reason other than to ask him for some sign he was out there for me, that I started to really feel him.

I do believe that God wants us to pray for ourselves, we are ultimately responsible for only one person, us. But when we start to focus our prayers on someone else, some other cause, pray unselfishly, that we can begin to see God moving in that circumstance and then in our own. It’s like seeing the forest for the first time when you have only been concentrating on the tree right in front of you.

The election of Barack Obama as president is not a mistake, it’s not just chance, it’s not because of anything he did, anything anyone advising him did. His rise to power from a basic unknown over the course of the past 5 years to the most powerful man in the world is part of a plan, it’s a brushstroke in the painting that God started many years ago when Jesus Christ was born.

I am still disappointed, that probably won’t change any time soon. With all the prayers and petitions being made to God for this election, I really believed, or wanted to really believe that God would answer our prayers. He did answer our prayers, not in the way that we wanted or expected maybe, but none the less, he did.

Our hope, my hope is not in anything other than the Lord anymore. I feel a new calling, a new energy actually to get out there and get involved more than I have in the past. I think that many people, myself on the top of the list, were still hanging onto some belief that a man, in this case John McCain, could stem the tide, put a finger in the hole of the leaking dyke. This country and this world have been slowly slipping away down the slippery slope, and no man, no institution, no president can stop it, only God can do that. And he will, in his time, in his way.

I believe this country and indeed the world is ripe and ready for an awakening, a revival, and I just could not see how this was possible with anyone but the republicans or John McCain in charge. But I don’t believe that now. If I can feel a new energy, a new urgency, and a new motivation, than perhaps others can as well.

I am listening to the Rich Mullins song, my deliverer is coming right now. This song always get to me…it’s my anthem I think. I always picture in my mind, Jesus, on a white horse, right arm outstretched sword in hard, horse up on it’s hind legs, ready to charge into battle. An army of angels and saints behind him, ready for the word to come and save us all. God is a just God, he filled with mercy, but also filled with justice, and he will rain both down on us.

Feeling a little blue.

2008-10-16T12:35:00.000-07:00

I just took a look at the latest poll numbers and the electoral college map. It's pretty blue.

There are the red states of the heartland, flyover country as they say, but there are a lot of blue states on that map as well..too many.

I remember pretty vaguely, but I do remember 1984, when Reagan won his 2nd term in a complete landslide, the map was Red, all red, except for Minnesota and DC. That was great...I remember even then a feeling of happiness and peace. Reagan, 4 more years, we can relax, we are in good hands.

I look at this map now, all this blue, it makes me confused, it makes me angry, and most of all, it makes me blue.

I feel like I did when Michigan was playing in the national championship game against North Carolina in what, 1992? Michigan was down a couple of points, but you just knew that it was not over. You had the feeling of apprehension, nervousness, yet some excitement cause you just had a gut feeling everything was gonna be ok.

Then Chris Webber gets the ball, dribbles a few times..and timeout..what..ok, he just called a timeout, that's ok.....wait..what..what a technical foul...what the heck...HE DID NOT KNOW HE HAD NO TIMEOUTS!! YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING..!!!!! OHHHHH...there has to be some mistake, maybe it was a mistake call, yes there has to be an explanation for this. But there wasn't, it was over, a couple of free throws from North Carolina and it was all over.

I feel a little like that now. I truly felt that this election was gonna be ok. The night of the Republican Convention when Palin spoke was electric, I felt on top of the world. This was going to be OK. Something will come out on Obama, the American people will wake up. There is no way that we could elect someone so radical. I was wrong...this past few weeks has been a nightmare, bad debate after bad debate, smooth talk by Obama, the media refusing to cover his problems with Ayers, ACORN, Wright.

But yet, even last week, I had real hope, just like when Webber got that pass and started to dribble down the court. I was so sure that he was gonna be the hero. He wasn't..it was all just a big disaster.

I am trying to put on a brave face, I listen to Rush and Hannity, they keep saying 19more days, anything could happen, it's not over, keep your head up. Well maybe it's not over, but it's close. These polls may be off a little, but the people of America seem to have spoken. I am not a negative Nelly, I have been so optimistic, I have been making myself sick. But at some point, you have to face the reality that it just might be done. Don't flame me for saying this, cause you are all thinking it to.

They would rather vote for a smooth talking snake oil salesman who promises everything, but has no real intention of delivering on much of anything. Even if Obama really believed some of the things he is saying, where is he gonna get the money for all this stuff. He will rob you and me for it. Spread the wealth around is what he told Joe the plumber. Not to mention what he is gonna do to the supreme court. It is truly very disheartening.

No, just like in 1992 and 1996, we are gonna get what we pay for. I am so confused by a lot of what I am hearing from people out there. I have heard things like, "I know he is not telling the truth, and I know I will hate it when I vote for him, but I will never vote for another G*DD#$M republican as long as I live." That makes no sense to me. People admit that his past associations with Ayers and ACORN and Wright are troubling to them, but we just need a change. It's like another world, I feel like I am living on Bizzaro Earth or in some other dimension or something. We are all gonna wake up and President Reagan will tell us that we are a shining city on a hill, America's best days are still ahead of us. Sadly, Ronnie is no more, all we have are our memories.

I keep telling my wife how upset this is making me. It's like standing by while you watch a friend being eaten by a bear and you can't do anything about it but shout at the bear, maybe throw a rock or two.

Hey America, wake up...this is wrong, you are being suckered...don't be a fool. No one listens, no one cares, we just need a change...any change even if it's the wrong change. Well, America, if this is what you want, you will have to live with the consequences...oh and so will the rest of us.

The only thing giving me comfort right now is my belief that God knows what he is doing. He has a plan and we have to believe that he is smarter than we are. It's hard for me, it always has been hard to just let go, let go and let God as they say. So really this is good for me..maybe God is teaching many of us to just trust him more. Lean not on your own understanding.

God puts people in positions of power and his time and for his plan. Really if you look at it this way, Obama and everyone voting for him are the ones being used. They are being used by God to fulfill his ultimate plans for this country and the world. Barack Obama is where he is, not because of anything he has done, not because of who he is, and not because he is the master of his own fate. He is where he is only because God is seeing fit to put him there. He rules ONLY because God sees fit to allow it.

That actually makes me feel a lot better...Obama and everyone voting for him are unwitting players in some game that God is ultimately going to win, for himself and those of us who trust and believe in him and his wisdom.

I am gonna still get out there and vote my conscience, and am still going to pray that in the next 19 days God might change his plan and use John McCain instead. But if he doesn't, he knows why, and I will trust him, he is way smarter than me.

God/Jesus 08

Christians for Obama

2008-10-13T13:32:00.000-07:00

I was cruising my Facebook page the other day and I came across something that I found troubling, at least to me. I noticed that someone that I know of and have respected from a distance has decided that they are supporting Barack Obama for president.

I know what you are probably thinking, come on Todd, all you ever do is talk about politics, can't you just give it a rest. I am feeling that way myself! I want to start to think about other things too.

I wish I could just forget about this...but for me, there is too much at stake in this election. When I see someone, who at least in my mind, should know the seriousness of what is on the line in this election, out there for Obama, I just have to ask why that is.

I don't want to pick any fights, I don't want to judge if anyone is a real authentic Christian or not...there have been times in my life where I did not feel very authentic myself. I have done enough judging and been judged enough..that I don’t want this to come across that way.

I am just trying to understand. I want to hear the other side. I am not so set in my ways that I can't listen and consider what other people have to say. Maybe I can learn something. I sure don’t have all the answers, just ask anyone close to me.

First, my perspective. To me, in order to support Obama, and cast your vote for him, you really have to leave the faith you claim at the door of the voting booth. Unless my understanding of being a follower of Christ is completely wrong, in which case, I have some real problems myself that I need to iron out.

It just can’t be for no reason, that people out there, people that we can be pretty sure don’t share our Christian faith, support Obama. The Larry Flynt’s, the Bill Maher’s, the Hugh Hefner’s of the world, they all are endorsing Barack Obama. Does that not speak volumes to you..it sure does to me.

Never in my life have I seen the lines been drawn so clearly between two candidates. The question of life and the issue of abortion are very important to me. I know I have brought this up before, in detail, and yes, I am unusually focused on this issue. Please indulge me further.

There is one candidate who believes that the question of when life begins says it’s above his pay grade, meaning he does not know or does not want to think about it. There is another candidate who stated without a moment’s hesitation that life begins at the very moment of conception.

Let’s also get one presupposition on the table right now. (A presupposition is the beginning point for someone’s worldview). If you don’t believe in God, Jesus Christ or have a Biblical worldview, your presuppositions are different from mine. If you are an atheist or a Buddhist or anything else, we are using two totally different measuring devices and we cannot come to any sort of understanding. In that case, we probably should just agree to disagree.

My presupposition or starting point is my belief in the Biblical God and his son Jesus Christ. My definition of a true authentic Christian is someone who trusts in the Lord Jesus as his savior, understands that without a personal relationship with him, he or she will not reach our ultimate goal, life with him in Heaven. There is no middle ground here, no substitutions and no compromise to my worldview. So if you don't believe these two things, you can stop reading because we can never agree on a starting point.

If you do believe these two things, than you also should believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God. It was given to us as a guidebook to God's thoughts and feelings and requirements for our lives. If you don't believe that the Bible is inspired and completely and without question 100 percent true and accurate, you can also stop reading now.

However, if you believe all three of these things, our presuppositions on God and faith in Jesus Christ are probably, basically the same.

Now if our worldviews are basically the same, and we are starting from the same point, but you are supporting Barack Obama, I am talking to you I suppose. After saying that you believe these three basic truths, please, please explain to me how this is possible. I really want to know..because if I am missing something, I need to understand, I want to understand.

To me, the single most telling sign of a person’s worldview is his or her stance on abortion. I am not a one issue voter; there are many other things that concern me as well, gun control, taxes, and foreign policy. All these things however are secondary to me, and someone could still share my worldview and believe that raising taxes is ok. None of these things really matter Biblically in the grand scheme of things I don’t feel. But abortion is the litmus test for me to into someone’s true character.

There is no doubt in Gods word as I understand it, that children are important to God. If you are reading this far into my post, you understand the Bible better than I do probably. David talks about how we were known to God before our birth, we are beautifully and wonderfully made. Jesus tells us that if we harm a child, it would be better to have a millstone thrown around our necks and dropped in the water. There are many other verses and passages that speak to the miracle of birth, children...you know them, you have read them.

Liberals have done a good job with their assertions that they are the real champions of the poor, the downtrodden, and the weak. Jesus was indeed concerned about these things as well. He was a friend to the weak, the oppressed. So should we be concerned about them as well. Conservatives have not done a good job shaking the label that all they care about is money, the rich, big business at the expense of the poor, and the environment. I don't want to argue that, because frankly, I do believe that conservatives have some work to do there. But..consider this…

Who is without question the weakest of all...I would say unborn babies. What can they do to defend themselves? Nothing. If you do believe the word of God and what it has to say about us, being made in Gods image, all with a purpose and a reason for living, I believe there is no other conclusion than to believe that these fetuses are real people. Real people, just smaller and basically helpless. They are made after the image of the one true God. It does not matter if they were not wanted or expected. Heck, I was not wanted or expected. The circumstances of our birth are beyond our control, but I bet that most of you reading this are pretty glad you were born regardless of those circumstances.
So unborn babies are really people with rights, they are not just tissue. If you need visual proof , just look at a modern 3D ultrasound picture. They are in my estimation, people.

You can disagree when personhood happens. I think at the moment of conception myself, as does John McCain.. You could argue when brain waves start I suppose. You could argue that when the heart starts beating a guess…but I won’t argue that because I don’t think that is really truly debatable and knowable. But, when you don’t know something, I believe that is a reason to be extra cautious. We need to ere on the side of caution when dealing with something as profound and unique as the life question is. So the safe place to start is conception, it’s the only absolute knowable variant to this question. Anything else is a guess. One thing I do know is that no matter what stage of a pregnancy an abortion is done, its ending life.

Getting back to what I said previously, I would think that if you really believe that the issues of the poor, helpless, and weak are important and should be addressed, why you would not follow that conclusion to its ultimate end. Liberals are concerned about the planet, as we all should be; they are concerned about animal rights, as we all should be. But how did unborn children get overlooked? It's quite the paradox to me. .

Barack Obama is by all accounts not pro-life. He has one of the most liberal and dare I say vile voting records out there on the issue of abortion. He voted 3 times against a measure to provide medical coverage to babies born alive after a botched abortion attempt. Many of these babies were not going to survive outside the womb, but some may have. Babies have been born and survived that were barely as old as 25 or 26 weeks.

Please, don't just blow that off...think about it. A baby is born alive, possibly burned by a chemical induced abortion, maybe missing arms or legs from a botched D and C. And that baby is put into a bucket, alive and kicking, trying to communicate its pain to someone. The doctors and nurses walk away and close the door. That baby slowly bleeds to death, or slowly suffocates, or dies of hypothermia. Think about your own children. What would you do if your own child was treated like that? It’s inhumane and it’s plain evil to treat an animal like that, but a human being? Yet Obama votes against any measure that would even ease the pain and suffering of such a baby, let alone work to save her life.

I really could go on…but this post is already way too long for most people to want to read. We don’t even have to discuss how liberals view the family structure, how they view the institution of marriage. None of its Biblical is it? But let’s not even go there for sake of my sore typing fingers.

I just want someone to give me a clear answer, if you are a Christian, please tell me how you came to your conclusion that a vote for Obama is in line with what we know about the nature of Jesus Christ, his compassion for the weak and helpless, his views on the family, marriage, the church as a whole? Tell me how the democratic agenda is closer to the true nature of Jesus Christ. While feeding and clothing the poor are important, while housing the homeless is important. We all can agree that we all should do a better job in these things…myself included. But, how can we just look the other way when the abortion clinics are still open, when whole generations of people, made in the very image of God, are denied the chance to live for the sake of our own convenience.

I am glad that someone talked to my own unwed mother, talked her out of what she was going to do in July of 1973. I am here now, have a great family, two beautiful children, a loving and beautiful wife, only because someone decided to speak up instead of looking the other way. Don’t look the other way…don’t say to all the unborn children out there, sorry we needed a change, or sorry but I just don’t like Bush, or sorry but the economy is more important than you right now.

If you are a Christian and you are still on the fence, listen to that still small voice inside you. A vote for Obama is a vote against what you really believe, and I think you know it.

Ray Boltz

2008-09-22T12:34:00.001-07:00

This is not new news, by I just heard it yesterday, so it's news to me. One of the most inspirational singer / songwriters that I know of has "come out" and announced he is living a homosexual lifestyle. You could have told me the that the grass outside my window was purple and I would have been less surprised...

I guess I should not be surprised...we are all sinners and only by the grace of God are we forgiven...but Ray Boltz..he has sung some awesome songs that have touched me and many many other people.

How is this possible...I mean he was married for like 30 years, has several grown children. This man has been in hundreds of churches and concert halls, Christian TV, how many funerals has "Thank You" been played at with not a dry eye in the house.

Eben though I have never met the man, have no real connection to him whatsoever, I find myself just plain mad at him. He has given the church and Christians another black eye. To me this is worse than Jim Bakker, Ted Haggard..this is like a sucker punch from behind.

He says he has been fighting these tendancies since he was a kid...he is tired of fighting them any longer. What? He said God made him this way so why go against what God intended? What? Has Ray ever read his bible? Has he ever thought about what this would do to not only his family, but the Christian church, to unbelievers who are looking for truth anywhere they can find it?

Frankly, I have little opinion on if homosexuality is learned or genetic...either way, it comes down to a choice to engage in that behavior. The act of being a homosexual is the sin, being tempted is not...Ray has chosen a lifestyle that puts him at direct odds with God..he is in my mind making a choice that insults God. I have more understanding for someone who chooses this lifestyle and has never heard the Truth...but Ray Boltz knows the truth and is rejecting that truth for selfish desires.

I am by no means without sin myself...And I am not saying that Ray's sin is worse than mine. To God, sin is sin...but I guess what frustrates me about this is the message is is sending to us all. If it gets too hard, if you can't fight the temptations of life...don't fight them..God is not big enough to bring us through. I think Ray should really listen to the words of his own song..The Anchor Holds.

Moving video from an Iraq war vet

2008-09-06T17:13:00.000-07:00

I was surfing around today and found this video, it was good...don't forget to watch the man walking away...

Sarah Palin

2008-08-30T09:00:00.000-07:00

First of all, I am very happy with the choice of Sarah Palin as McCain's VP nominee. Most of all, I am glad she is pro life. She not only talks the talk, she walks the walk. She just gave birth to a baby with Downs syndrome. Many many people would have chosen to abort the baby.

I would like you all to read the below quote, this comes from a poster at the Democratic Underground, it's a hate filled forum that I occasionally lurk at to get a feel for what the other side is thinking....usually I feel like I have to take a shower whenafter I read the crap on it... go to the link above and see for yourself and you tell me if voting democratic is still an option.

humbled_opinion (1000+ posts)
Fri Aug-29-08 03:36 PMResponse to Reply #134
151. What its as nuts as her!
She should have aborted the tissue and moved forward with her life... Stupid is as stupid does.

Birthday blues

2008-07-31T17:52:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was my 35th birthday, and to be totally honest, I could have done without it. When I turned 30 it was not a big deal to me. I know some people get upset at 30....it didn't. 35, well, yeah...it made me a little down for some reason.

I think its cause my kids are just growing up so fast...but what are ya going to do. Time stands still for no man.

I was watching a Star Trek the other day in which Captain Pikard was feeling bad about his life and that he was getting old...he described time as a monster, stalking you your whole life until it finally gets you...no one can escape it. Through a bunch of different circumstances that happen in the movie, Pikard realizes that time is not a monster it is a companion that goes with you and provides you with opportunities and adventures. It's all comes down to your own perspective..well, I am still working on that. Time is ticking away...life is what you do between the ticks i guess.

Yuck

2008-06-14T17:37:00.000-07:00

I like our dog Moki, he is a good dog for the most part. He is even better since we got our invisible fence...he wears himself out playing outside.

Like most dog owners, I allow Moki to lick me once in a while..you know what I mean if you are a dog owner. Tonight however, I an rethinking allowing the dog kiss.

Moki licked my cheak tonight and I smelled something pretty rank on his breath...I said to my wife Julie, man his breath stinks....she informed me that he had just finished off a dead bird or something in the yard...

Need I say more.....

Global Warming is a big fat lie.....

2008-06-14T06:47:00.000-07:00

Global Warming and the Price of a Gallon of Gasby John Coleman

You may want to give credit where credit is due to Al Gore and his global warming campaign the next time you fill your car with gasoline, because there is a direct connection between Global Warming and four dollar a gallon gas. It is shocking, but true, to learn that the entire Global Warming frenzy is based on the environmentalist’s attack on fossil fuels, particularly gasoline. All this big time science, international meetings, thick research papers, dire threats for the future; all of it, comes down to their claim that the carbon dioxide in the exhaust from your car and in the smoke stacks from our power plants is destroying the climate of planet Earth. What an amazing fraud; what a scam.
The future of our civilization lies in the balance.
That’s the battle cry of the High Priest of Global Warming Al Gore and his fellow, agenda driven disciples as they predict a calamitous outcome from anthropogenic global warming. According to Mr. Gore the polar ice caps will collapse and melt and sea levels will rise 20 feet inundating the coastal cities making 100 million of us refugees. Vice President Gore tells us numerous Pacific islands will be totally submerged and uninhabitable. He tells us global warming will disrupt the circulation of the ocean waters, dramatically changing climates, throwing the world food supply into chaos. He tells us global warming will turn hurricanes into super storms, produce droughts, wipe out the polar bears and result in bleaching of coral reefs. He tells us tropical diseases will spread to mid latitudes and heat waves will kill tens of thousands. He preaches to us that we must change our lives and eliminate fossil fuels or face the dire consequences. The future of our civilization is in the balance.
With a preacher’s zeal, Mr. Gore sets out to strike terror into us and our children and make us feel we are all complicit in the potential demise of the planet.
Here is my rebuttal.
There is no significant man made global warming. There has not been any in the past, there is none now and there is no reason to fear any in the future. The climate of Earth is changing. It has always changed. But mankind’s activities have not overwhelmed or significantly modified the natural forces.
Through all history, Earth has shifted between two basic climate regimes: ice ages and what paleoclimatologists call “Interglacial periods”. For the past 10 thousand years the Earth has been in an interglacial period. That might well be called nature’s global warming because what happens during an interglacial period is the Earth warms up, the glaciers melt and life flourishes. Clearly from our point of view, an interglacial period is greatly preferred to the deadly rigors of an ice age. Mr. Gore and his crowd would have us believe that the activities of man have overwhelmed nature during this interglacial period and are producing an unprecedented, out of control warming.
Well, it is simply not happening. Worldwide there was a significant natural warming trend in the 1980’s and 1990’s as a Solar cycle peaked with lots of sunspots and solar flares. That ended in 1998 and now the Sun has gone quiet with fewer and fewer Sun spots, and the global temperatures have gone into decline. Earth has cooled for almost ten straight years. So, I ask Al Gore, where’s the global warming?
The cooling trend is so strong that recently the head of the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had to acknowledge it. He speculated that nature has temporarily overwhelmed mankind’s warming and it may be ten years or so before the warming returns. Oh, really. We are supposed to be in a panic about man-made global warming and the whole thing takes a ten year break because of the lack of Sun spots. If this weren’t so serious, it would be laughable.
Now allow me to talk a little about the science behind the global warming frenzy. I have dug through thousands of pages of research papers, including the voluminous documents published by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. I have worked my way through complicated math and complex theories. Here’s the bottom line: the entire global warming scientific case is based on the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the use of fossil fuels. They don’t have any other issue. Carbon Dioxide, that’s it.
Hello Al Gore; Hello UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Your science is flawed; your hypothesis is wrong; your data is manipulated. And, may I add, your scare tactics are deplorable. The Earth does not have a fever. Carbon dioxide does not cause significant global warming.
The focus on atmospheric carbon dioxide grew out a study by Roger Revelle who was an esteemed scientist at the Scripps Oceanographic Institute. He took his research with him when he moved to Harvard and allowed his students to help him process the data for his paper. One of those students was Al Gore. That is where Gore got caught up in this global warming frenzy. Revelle’s paper linked the increases in carbon dioxide, CO2, in the atmosphere with warming. It labeled CO2 as a greenhouse gas.
Charles Keeling, another researcher at the Scripps Oceanographic Institute, set up a system to make continuous CO2 measurements. His graph of these increases has now become known as the Keeling Curve. When Charles Keeling died in 2005, his son David, also at Scripps, took over the measurements. Here is what the Keeling curve shows: an increase in CO2 from 315 parts per million in 1958 to 385 parts per million today, an increase of 70 parts per million or about 20 percent.
All the computer models, all of the other findings, all of the other angles of study, all come back to and are based on CO2 as a significant greenhouse gas. It is not.
Here is the deal about CO2, carbon dioxide. It is a natural component of our atmosphere. It has been there since time began. It is absorbed and emitted by the oceans. It is used by every living plant to trigger photosynthesis. Nothing would be green without it. And we humans; we create it. Every time we breathe out, we emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It is not a pollutant. It is not smog. It is a naturally occurring invisible gas.
Let me illustrate. I estimate that this square in front of my face contains 100,000 molecules of atmosphere. Of those 100,000 only 38 are CO2; 38 out of a hundred thousand. That makes it a trace component. Let me ask a key question: how can this tiny trace upset the entire balance of the climate of Earth? It can’t. That’s all there is to it; it can’t.
The UN IPCC has attracted billions of dollars for the research to try to make the case that CO2 is the culprit of run-away, man-made global warming. The scientists have come up with very complex creative theories and done elaborate calculations and run computer models they say prove those theories. They present us with a concept they call radiative forcing. The research organizations and scientists who are making a career out of this theory, keep cranking out the research papers. Then the IPCC puts on big conferences at exotic places, such as the recent conference in Bali. The scientists endorse each other’s papers, they are summarized and voted on, and viola, we are told global warming is going to kill us all unless we stop burning fossil fuels.
May I stop here for a few historical notes? First, the internal combustion engine and gasoline were awful polluters when they were first invented. And, both gasoline and automobile engines continued to leave a layer of smog behind right up through the 1960’s. Then science and engineering came to the environmental rescue. Better exhaust and ignition systems, catalytic converters, fuel injectors, better engineering throughout the engine and reformulated gasoline have all contributed to a huge reduction in the exhaust emissions from today’s cars. Their goal then was to only exhaust carbon dioxide and water vapor, two gases widely accepted as natural and totally harmless. Anyone old enough to remember the pall of smog that used to hang over all our cities knows how much improvement there has been. So the environmentalists, in their battle against fossil fuels and automobiles had a very good point forty years ago, but now they have to focus almost entirely on the once harmless carbon dioxide. And, that is the rub. Carbon dioxide is not an environmental problem; they just want you now to think it is.
Numerous independent research projects have been done about the greenhouse impact from increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide. These studies have proven to my total satisfaction that CO2 is not creating a major greenhouse effect and is not causing an increase in temperatures. By the way, before his death, Roger Revelle coauthored a paper cautioning that CO2 and its greenhouse effect did not warrant extreme countermeasures.
So now it has come down to an intense campaign, orchestrated by environmentalists claiming that the burning of fossil fuels dooms the planet to run-away global warming. Ladies and Gentlemen, that is a myth.
So how has the entire global warming frenzy with all its predictions of dire consequences, become so widely believed, accepted and regarded as a real threat to planet Earth? That is the most amazing part of the story.
To start with global warming has the backing of the United Nations, a major world force. Second, it has the backing of a former Vice President and very popular political figure. Third it has the endorsement of Hollywood, and that’s enough for millions. And, fourth, the environmentalists love global warming. It is their tool to combat fossil fuels. So with the environmentalists, the UN, Gore and Hollywood touting Global Warming and predictions of doom and gloom, the media has scrambled with excitement to climb aboard. After all the media loves a crisis. From YK2 to killer bees the media just loves to tell us our lives are threatened. And the media is biased toward liberal, so it’s pre-programmed to support Al Gore and UN. CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, The LA Times, The Washington Post, the Associated Press and here in San Diego The Union Tribune are all constantly promoting the global warming crisis.
So who is going to go against all of that power? Not the politicians. So now the President of the United States, just about every Governor, most Senators and most Congress people, both of the major current candidates for President, most other elected officials on all levels of government are all riding the Al Gore Global Warming express. That is one crowded bus.
I suspect you haven’t heard it because the mass media did not report it, but I am not alone on the no man-made warming side of this issue. On May 20th, a list of the names of over thirty-one thousand scientists who refute global warming was released. Thirty-one thousand of which 9,000 are Ph.ds. Think about that. Thirty-one thousand. That dwarfs the supposed 2,500 scientists on the UN panel. In the past year, five hundred of scientists have issued public statements challenging global warming. A few more join the chorus every week. There are about 100 defectors from the UN IPCC. There was an International Conference of Climate Change Skeptics in New York in March of this year. One hundred of us gave presentations. Attendance was limited to six hundred people. Every seat was taken. There are a half dozen excellent internet sites that debunk global warming. And, thank goodness for KUSI and Michael McKinnon, its owner. He allows me to post my comments on global warming on the website KUSI.com. Following the publicity of my position form Fox News, Glen Beck on CNN, Rush Limbaugh and a host of other interviews, thousands of people come to the website and read my comments. I get hundreds of supportive emails from them. No I am not alone and the debate is not over.
In my remarks in New York I speculated that perhaps we should sue Al Gore for fraud because of his carbon credits trading scheme. That remark has caused a stir in the fringe media and on the internet. The concept is that if the media won’t give us a hearing and the other side will not debate us, perhaps we could use a Court of law to present our papers and our research and if the Judge is unbiased and understands science, we win. The media couldn’t ignore that. That idea has become the basis for legal research by notable attorneys and discussion among global warming debunkers, but it’s a long way from the Court room.
I am very serious about this issue. I think stamping out the global warming scam is vital to saving our wonderful way of life.
The battle against fossil fuels has controlled policy in this country for decades. It was the environmentalist’s prime force in blocking any drilling for oil in this country and the blocking the building of any new refineries, as well. So now the shortage they created has sent gasoline prices soaring. And, it has lead to the folly of ethanol, which is also partly behind the fuel price increases; that and our restricted oil policy. The ethanol folly is also creating a food crisis throughput the world – it is behind the food price rises for all the grains, for cereals, bread, everything that relies on corn or soy or wheat, including animals that are fed corn, most processed foods that use corn oil or soybean oil or corn syrup. Food shortages or high costs have led to food riots in some third world countries and made the cost of eating out or at home budget busting for many.
So now the global warming myth actually has lead to the chaos we are now enduring with energy and food prices. We pay for it every time we fill our gas tanks. Not only is it running up gasoline prices, it has changed government policy impacting our taxes, our utility bills and the entire focus of government funding. And, now the Congress is considering a cap and trade carbon credits policy. We the citizens will pay for that, too. It all ends up in our taxes and the price of goods and services.
So the Global warming frenzy is, indeed, threatening our civilization. Not because global warming is real; it is not. But because of the all the horrible side effects of the global warming scam.
I love this civilization. I want to do my part to protect it.
If Al Gore and his global warming scare dictates the future policy of our governments, the current economic downturn could indeed become a recession, drift into a depression and our modern civilization could fall into an abyss. And it would largely be a direct result of the global warming frenzy.
My mission, in what is left of a long and exciting lifetime, is to stamp out this Global Warming silliness and let all of us get on with enjoying our lives and loving our planet, Earth.

Cub scout camp

2008-06-07T13:58:00.000-07:00

Josh and I went to Camp Gerber today, it is a cub scout camp for the West Michigan cub scout district. Josh loves scouts and I am very glad...I really believe it's a great thing for kids to be involved in. If you go back into history and check out the bio's of astronauts and presidents and other successful people, many many were in scouting of some kind.

Not that Josh is going to be an astronaut or a president, but I think scouting teaches many things vital for a happy and successful life. I also like the faith part of scouting...they don't push God down your throat, but there is a subtle underlying theme of faith and God always there...I think that is good....many kids who might not come from Christian homes can begin to explore area of their lives in scouting.

Two of Josh's best friends from school are in his pack...and one came today so Josh had a lot of fun, and I enjoyed watching him.

My second grader

2008-06-04T18:32:00.000-07:00

My son is in second grade...it's really pretty upsetting to me. His last day of school was today, first grade is a memory.

It's getting so hard to believe he is growing up so fast....it seems like yesterday he was a little bundle in my arms. I ask him to stop growing, just stay like he is for a while, please!! But he says.."I can't dad...I have to grow up!!"

Yikes...I am becoming an old man, and there not a thing I can do about it. For crying out loud, it seems like yesterday I was a kid myself...where does the time go...anyone?

If anyone can help me figure out how to stop time, just for a while please let me know.

Whats up ya'll

2008-06-01T06:50:00.001-07:00

I can't believe it's been so long since I have posted anything. I have been so uninterested in blogging...life has been rolling right along I guess and I have not felt much like writing.

Lots of things have happened that may or may not be interesting to anyone.

1. My job was pretty tense for a while...my company is cutting the fat so to speak and some people in my department were let go. It was sad for them, they did not ask for it, and it was NOT job performance related, just the economy catching up with the industry. I survived and actually came out ok, I got moved to first shift which was a blessing. I enjoy being home at night, mowing the lawn as the sun sets, going to my son's ball games...it's good to feel normal after being on 2nd shift for 10 years.

2. I am recovering from a medical pharmacy screw-up that left me in a pretty bad state for a few months. My pharmacy gave me the wrong dosage for a thyroid medication. I was in a bad way for a while until we figured out the mistake. I was given a .025 mg dosage instead of the prescribed .25....thats a big difference...we got it figured out but it was a long few months

3. It's was a long Michigan winter this year....it's still below average temps around here...where the heck is global warming when you need it.

4. Our dog Moki is doing well, we just got one of these invisible fences....it seems to work.

5. My wife and family is great...the kids are growing up so fast. Josh is almost a second grader...I can't believe it. He is such a good kid. He is in baseball which he likes, but he may not be a natural if you get my drift...but he likes it and that is what counts at this age. He is also in cub scouts, he just graduated to a wolf cub...

6. My daughter is 3 almost 4. She is done with her three school this year. She loves school and is looking forward to next year already. She is all girl. There is nothing she likes better than dressing up in pretty dresses and bows...

7. My wife Julie is still working as an RN, she now has her own blog http://www.kyperlady.blogspot.com/ if anyone is interested.

8. And last, the Red Wings are one win away from the Stanley Cup...which is super. After the Tigers and Pistons have been having dissapointing seasons, it's good to always have the Wings.

How about them Wings

2008-01-08T09:12:00.000-08:00

Wow..all I can say is wow....the RedWings are on a roll and now three players in the starting lineup for the western conference All Stars game. I have been holding my comments about the Wings to a minimum cause I am very nervous about another 1st round playoff exit this year...but I am starting to believe in them again...they do this every year however, run away with the regular season, only to fall to a team built for the playoffs like the Ducks or Flames. This year might be the year.

GO WINGS

Just an observation.

2007-11-18T16:11:00.000-08:00

Once in a while I read a news story and think..."Hmm there is more to this story than just meets the eye." This is one of those times.

I am very interested in current events, new stories, etc. I am also interested in Bible prophesy, end times, revelation, and all that stuff. If you are a Christian you have to be really into the news, you really need to try and read between the lines and try and figure out what todays headlines mean to the Church and to you.

If you have studied Revelation and the different theory's about the end times that Jesus spoke about throughout this ministry, than you know that at some point there will be a form of world government. Many people think this may have something to do with the European Union, as I do. In what form I don't know, but I do know that money is what makes the world go around as it always has.

I also know that the United States does not seem to fit in much in Revelation, meaning that we are almost an afterthought, or sitting on the sidelines so to speak. What could cause the powerful United States to become a second rate nation, not in on the "poker game". Well I have no idea, another major recession, another major terrorist attack perhaps?

As we all know, the cost of oil is going through the roof right now and the value of the dollar is plunging. The value of the dollar is not getting the press I would think it would, no one seems to be all that concerned or even talking much about it.

But if you read this article, OPEC is talking about dumping the dollar in favor of the Euro...to me thats a huge neon sign that says "HELLO WORLD, PAY ATTENTION TO THIS". If the next world conflict is fought in the middle east, the middle easts main resource is OIL, the main world currency is the Euro and the likely source of the world government is Europe and the coming anti-christ is probably from Europe, I think it's worth paying attention to.

I can't fully articulate what is going to happen, how it's going to happen, or whan, but to me it's like looking at a connect the dot picture that has not been completed yet, you can almost see what the picture is going to be before you even connect the dots.
+

Carving Pumpkins

2007-10-28T18:00:00.000-07:00

I don't know how I feel about Halloween any more, but I personally have a hard time denying my kids some of the fun of the "holiday". Here are a couple of pics of the pumpkins we carved.

Top of the world to ya mate...

2007-10-21T17:30:00.001-07:00

For those of you who live in "normal" areas of the country, you know, places where the weather does not change every minute and 45 seconds, this will still apply as you read on. But here in the north west corner of Allegan county, in Fillmore township, in the state of Michigan, we live in a wind tunnel.

You think I am perhaps exaggerating a little, well maybe a little, but it gets windy here. Our home is on a small hill, we are surrounded on 4 sides by fields and not many trees around, think Iowa.

We had a bad cold front blow through this week, along with it came 50 MPH winds. Up until now, our home has stood fine, no real damage done, but this storm for some reason maybe was a little worse I don't know, but I got home the other night for my supper break from work and there was a roof shingle on my kitchen counter. My wife said, "oh yeah, that was laying in the front yard."

"Oh just great" I said, "you know what that means?" " I am gonna have to go up on that roof and fix it cause once a shingle goes, more are sure to follow" Kind of like when a guy starts to lose his hair..unless there is immediate action, you are looking at a total loss!

So yesterday, I finally had some time to try and get on the roof. My roof is not normal however, for some reason we designed it with a very steep pitch, I think we did it cause of the weather we have out here, lots of lake effect snow, etc. It works cause we never have any snow on our roof. But it's like a 45 degree pitch, so getting on the roof is not for the faint of heart. I was going to go up there a few years ago and put some Christmas lights on the dormers, "think Chevy Chase". I got the ladder up there and crawled up and before I even got to the top of the ladder I turned white and said...nope, not worth dying. It looks like Mt Everest when you get up there. I don't mind heights as long as I am safe and somehow secured or strapped in, but when it's just you and a set of Nike's, forgetaboutit.

Well, I had no choice this time, I had to get up to the dormer which is where the missing shingle was from. If I just left it, my house would be bald after the winds of winter. So I got the ol ladder, my Nikes, some roofing nails and a hammer and headed up. Well when I was about to step on that roof, I realized...YOU ARE ABOUT TO DIE. My leg started to shake and I knew I was never gonna make it, it was really too steep to be safe...I was not imagining it, the roof was too steep, I could not do it.

Well, like I said, failure was not an option here, it was do it somehow, or call a roofer and pay out the nose for a five minute job. I don't like to pay other people large amounts of cash as a rule.
After a few minutes I began to think, well, you have no choice really, what can make you safe on this roof. I began to think about mountain climbers, what do they do? Well they rope themselves to the rock and each other.

I grabbed a rope, climbed up into the attic and crawled to the dormer window. I tied the rope around the roof voist and threw it out the window. Then I headed back outside and up the ladder, I tied on end of the rope around my waist and climbed up on the roof using the roof as an anchor. Well, I was still pretty nervous, but in the back of my mind, I knew that if I did slip, I was going to go only so far cause that rope was going to stop me. Well, I dropped the hammer...off it went down to the ground. That is beside the point really, I went back up the ladder and back on the roof, and each time I had to go up and down the ladder for various reasons, it got easier cause I knew my rope, once secured around me would hold me and keep me from falling. Well, the job got done and I hope my roof problems are over for now.

The point...well as I was sitting around today, the thought struck me, my walk with God is much like my adventure on the roof yesterday. For a long time, many many years of my life, I have been living without a rope, trying to live life on my own, make it myself, trusting in myself to get over hurt feelings, get through trials and hard days, overcome one kind of sin or another. You know what, it does not work, it's dangerous and hard. There have been COUNTLESS times I have slipped right off the roof.

It is such foolishness to try to go through life on your own, falling time after time. There is no reason for it when there is another way, a better way. Trust in the Lord, he is your rope, he is the firm foundation. There is no reason to go up there, out there every day by yourself, God wants you to hold onto him, pull yourself up and wrap himself around you. You will still slip and fall, I slipped up on that roof, if I did not have my rope around me, I may have landed on the rocks below, but I grabbed that rope and held on. And each time I had to get down and up that ladder again, it got easier cause I felt safe. You know what I am getting at?

I have for a few months now been trying to trust God more with my life and my hopes and dreams. I want God to use me, but I am trusting in his timing, and in his plan. If God wants my at my current job for the rest of my life, I have to say, thats's ok cause it's his plan, his roof and his rope.

I would like to say to anyone reading this who may be struggling with trying to make things happen themselves, whether it's a job, or a change of address, health problems, marriage problems, any problems, God wants you to trust him. Grab that Bible, it's your rope, and your lifeline, read it, pray, even for 10 minutes a day, find the time, cause if you keep trying on your own, you are gonna keep falling...on your own.

The Nobel Prize

2007-10-12T14:29:00.000-07:00

Congrats to Al Gore...it's about time the poor guy won something.

Michigan fan selling his alligence to Michigan

2007-09-13T12:26:00.001-07:00

I read this story in the Free Press today...I thought it was funny, and then I read who the story was about. Many of you will recognize the name. I think it's our Chad McCallum from IWU!!!!! Can anyone confirm it's the same Chad?

If so, pretty funny stuff....way to go Chad!!!!!

My 2007 football predictions

2007-09-08T18:29:00.000-07:00

Well, Fetz gave you his predictions and he really went out on a limb for a few, here are mine, lets see who comes closer.

New England
Buffalo
Miami
New York

San Diego
Denver
Kansas City
Oakland

Indianapolis
Jacksonville
Tennessee
Houston

Pittsburgh
Cincinnati
Baltimore
Cleveland

Indy over San Diego

New Orleans
Carolina
Tampa Bay
Atlanta

Chicago
Detroit
Green Bay
Minnesota

Dallas
Philadelphia
New York
Washington

St Louis
Seattle
Arizona
San Francisco

StLouis over Chicago

Superbowl winner:
Indy over St Louis for a repeat.

IQ test.

2007-08-29T13:44:00.000-07:00

I just took an online IQ test. I scored a 124....take the test and tell us how smart you are!!

This post is one reason I was considering going private.

2007-08-28T17:26:00.001-07:00

This post is very hard for me to write. In fact, as the title of the post says, this post is exactly why I was considering taking my blog private, I just don't know how I feel about putting something like OUT THERE in cyberspace for the whole world to see.

I have been considering writing this for a long time, but I never truly felt ready to have this known by my friends and family for fear of judgment or ridicule. I guess I am at a point now where I feel comfortable enough in my own skin to open up a little.

Just get on with it you must be saying....gee whiz this guy likes to go on !

About 6 or 7 years ago I had a real bad bought of insomnia. I mean bad, I was not sleeping for more than 2 or 3 hours a night for probably the whole month of February. I have no idea what caused it, some people just always have trouble sleeping, and that was me, there was no real reason I could put my finger on.

Anyway, for a while it was almost humorous, I would get up after a couple of hours of sleep and "joke" with Julie..."I didn't get any sleep again...this is weird...oh well, no big deal. But as this went on for days, and then weeks I began to worry. Not just plain worry, but obsessive worry. I mean from the moment I would wake in the morning, after a hour or two or good sleep, until it was time to go to bed, I would worry all day long about what the night would bring. I began to dread the night.

I can't hardly explain with mere words how my mind began to become my own worst enemy. After a while, the worry about sleeping would morph into other worry's, all of which were pretty stupid. Would I ever sleep again, would I have to live the rest of my life like this...and on and on. I even began to have panic attacks, and if anyone has ever had one, you know exactly what I am talking about...if you have never had one, pray you don't, cause it is scary.

Anyway, this went on for a while, and I was hardly able to function. I would go throughout my day and try to hide it as best I could, but the worry and anxiety was never far from my mind. I was not enjoying life at all. I remember New Years eve 1999, I was at a friends house and instead of having a good time, or even worrying about the year 2000 like everyone else was, I was obsessing about going to bed that night and having to face another 8 hours alone and awake. I began to hate even the sight of our bedroom.

Long story short, I finally agreed to see someone at Pine Rest, a counselor. It was a huge step for me, cause I did not want to be labeled as a nut. I fought it for a long time, but I was not getting any better, in fact I was worse. There were more worry's and fears that began to be issues. Many were things that I had dealt with before, just not this bad. Many of these thoughts were related to religion and my relationship with God, fears of rejection, assurance of salvation, etc. These were and remain the most troubling to me cause of my deep desire to have a personal relationship with him.

I saw the counselor and after a VERY SHORT time of describing my symptoms, she told me that she was sure I was suffering form Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I had always thought that people with OCD were always washing their hands, hording stuff, counting, avoiding cracks in the sidewalk, etc. I learned that there are two forms of OCD, obsessions people and compulsions people. Sometimes people had both and sometimes they had one of the other. I had the obsession type. Unwanted and intrusive thoughts would pop into my head and would be unable to let go of them. It it called the doubting disease for short, or the worrying disorder.

I was very relieved to finally after like 26 years begin to put some of these things together. Once I read about the symptoms, I was able to look back and I realized that I had this for AS LONG as I could remember. I have always been a terrible worrier. When I was a kid, and my folks went away for an hour or two, my Grandma Boeve would watch me, I would literly not leave the front window until they came home. I worrying that all kinds of things would happen to them. Now this in itself is a perfect example of OCD. Many kids worry when their parents go away, they don't like it, but they are able to navigate that and after 5 or ten minutes, they forget about it and play or whatever. But someone with OCD is unable to make that transition, I would not leave that window for 4 hours, every car that came down the road would have to be my folks, and when it wasn't them, I would freak out a little, they must be in an accident, or they must have left me, etc. In fact, this is only one example of an obsession, there were many more which I won't go into cause you DO NOT need to know everything.

So there you have it. I have OCD. Judge me if you like, it is an anxiety disorder and it is mental. There is nothing I can do about it, I was likely born with some kind of chemical imbalance that causes it. Click on the wikipedia link I linked to in the title of the post of you want to read more about it, it's really a pretty interesting read. There are actually many famous people that have OCD or are believed to have had it, the most interesting to me personally is Martin Luther.

I don't have OCD as bad as many people, and I am worse than some people, but I have learned to live with it. I do take medication that pretty much keeps it in check, but from time to time I have a minor bought of it. It's a lot better than it was however, and for that I am greatful to God.

I hope this does not change the way my true friends and family view me, my intent in writing this to maybe encourage someone else with a similar problem to get some help, cause God did not mean for anyone to suffer something like this alone. There does tend to be a stigma on many forms of mental illnesses yet, so it is hard for people to admit to others that they suffer from something like this.

Just for your information, here is a list of well known people with OCD.

David Beckham
Rose McGowan
Dan Ackroyd
Aaron Bagnola
Fred Durst
Tim Howard
Charlie Sheen
Howard Hughes
Joey Ramone
Marc Summers
Leonardo DiCaprio
Michael Jackson
Howie Mandel
Harrison Ford
Cameron Diaz
Jessica Alba
Billy Bob Thornton
Howie Mandel
Alec Baldwin
Jennifer Love Hewitt
Paul Gascoigne
Jane Horrocks
Natalie Appleton
Woody Allen
Martin Luther (believed)
Nikola Tesla
Abraham Lincoln

Mother Teresa and her crisis of faith

2007-08-24T08:22:00.000-07:00

I have been reading with great interest the story that has come out about Mother Teresa. Apparently she lived the last 50 years of her life "in the dark". Meaning she rarely if ever felt the presence of Jesus in her life. To me that is incredible.

Now atheists and are going to have a field day with this. They are going to say that this proves that if even someone like Mother Teresa admits that she never felt God in her life, this just all the more proves that God is not there.

To me this story is nothing but comforting. I and many many other people have gone through dry times in our lives. Sometimes it's easy to think that it must be something that we are doing, we must not be "good enough" or we must have sin in our lives that is keeping us from having a relationship with God.

While the later is true in my case...I did not feel God many times because I DID have unconfessed sin n my life, or because I was not willing to let go of some sin. But at other times and for other people, God seems distant for some other reason, and many times we have no idea what or why.

Reading this story, what comes across to me is that even in the midst of this dry season for Mother Tesesa, she never quit believing that what she was doing was right. She questioned her faith several times, she even wondered aloud to God if he was even there. But in the end, she lived a life of utter devotion to a God that she could not see, and feel.

I was never one to really believe that people should be held up to such a high standard and making them "Saints". But in this case, after reading this, I feel that if anyone should be considered for such an honor, it's this dear woman.

I also can't help but imagine Mother Teresa when she finally stood before Jesus and saw him face to face. This life is nothing. 50 years is NOTHING. If God in his infinite wisdom felt it was necessary to remove his presence from her for a time, there must have been a good reason. I bet Mother Teresa knows why now.

Why I believe liberalism and liberal theology are so dangerous

2007-08-23T07:01:00.000-07:00

The attached link to a so called "sermon" from Christ Community Church is exactly why I am so concerned about liberalism and liberal theology in the Church.

After searching this website, various sermons and prayers for quite some time, I found almost zero evidence that this church believes in the divinity of Christ. In fact, on many occasions, I found the exact opposite. Jesus was a great teacher, moral leader....more on the same level with Buddha.

I saw no evidence that this church is anything more than a weekly gathering of liberal activists attempting to rewrite scripture to suit their own "progressive" goals of all inclusive tolerance for all alternative lifestyles. I was truly taken aback by the lack of of even the word Jesus Christ.

I knew that this church was liberal, but not until looking into it a little bit, did I realize how liberal. I think this church is pretty much the culmination of what can happen when we allow ourselves to be blinded by the liberal theology that can be so prevalent these days. It's the era of toleration at all costs. Being all inclusive is a religion in itself to many people now.

I am for tolerance as long as the truth is presented as the truth and not an outdated social and religious rule to be ignored if you don't agree with it.

I just personally think that liberal theology is a very very dangerous thing. People that tend to be liberal in life are liberal in theology. They don't take the Word of God literally, they think it is just a mixture of metaphors and myths mixed in with some moral teachings that mean different things to different people based on ones point of view.

Not going private after all.

2007-08-20T11:26:00.000-07:00

I have decided to keep my blog public for now.

Going Private

2007-08-13T14:09:00.001-07:00

I know my readership is not real high cause I don't post much. I just don't have much to post right now. There are things I want to say, yet I don't want to say anything too personal or controversial for fear of either ridicule or who knows what.

I believe I was denyed a part time job a few months back cause of something I may have posted on this blog, I can't prove this, but it's my feeling.

Anyway, there have been some things going on in my life that I would like to share with people, but I do not wish everyone and their brother to read them. Some of these things are big, some are not..in fact many are not big at all.

Going private will allow me to post anything I want to say without fear that someone I don't want to be reading it will read it and take it the wrong way. So as one of my friends did a while ago, I will be taking my blog private in the next few days. I will send out some invitations to my friends. If someone does not get an invitation, please don't be offended, I probably just don't know your e-mail address, if you ask me to for an invite, as long as you are not a spy sent by the government to gather covert intel about me, I will give you an invite.

Todd

No Good Deed....

2007-08-12T10:06:00.001-07:00

The saying that "No good deed goes unpunished" is absolutely true.

Julie and Abby were taking a walk last night down our road when they heard a faint "meow". The sound was coming from somewhere in the soybean field. Julie could not find the cat so she sent me in. After a little back anf forth from the cat and myself, I finally located the kitten about 1oo yards into the field.

I should have left the kitten to it's journey, but being the big softy I am for animals, I could not. The kitten was small and scared and worse yet, very cute. It looks Siamese with blue eyes and gray fur. The thing was very scared. It had probably been wandering in the 100 acre field for a while, it must have felt like the kids in the movie, "Honey I shrunk the kids".

Anyway, I took the kitten home and put it into our little animal crate that we don't really use anymore. I gave it some food and water and put it to bed. We have called our relatives, friends, and no one really wants it. We already have two cats and a dog and a lizard. We really can't handle any more.

When we got up for church today, we looked into the crate and the poor little guy had soined himself and the crate pretty bad. Not his fault, mine for not putting newspaper in the crate. Anyway, we cleaned him up, gave him a new towel to lay on and are now trying to figure out what to do with the little guy. We will probably send him to the human society where he will at least have a chance. I think he is adoptable, he really is cute. If anyone reading this wants a kitten, give me a call before tomorrow, otherwise he can be adopted at the Harbor Human Society in West Olive Michigan.

The Minivan dilema

2007-07-23T10:28:00.000-07:00

Well, we did it, we bought a mini-van. I am not upset, just having a hard time believing that I am now an owner of a vehicle I told myself I would never own.

The lease on our Impala is up next year, so we have a while to go, but the problem we are having is that with a year left on a lease, we only have 6000 miles until we are over our mileage limit.

We usually drive between 12 and 15k a year on our vehicles. That leaved us with less than 1/2 of the miles left we use. We have been trying to conserve miles by driving the Explorer more, but the problem there is that the Explorer drinks gas like a cat drinks milk, it can't get enough. That along with the wear and tear was going to kill our budget and the truck.

Julie has been saying that she wanted a mini-van for a while, but we were in no hurry. But seeing as how I actually like to look for cars, I started to look anyway. I found plenty of vans I liked, most were Honda's and most were in the 12-15000 dollar range. Too much for us to pay. The goal of not leasing anymore is to not have car payments and thus reduce our overall debt, (thanks Dave Ramsey). Anyway, that meant that our price range was in the next bracket, the 5 to 8000 dollar range. If any of you have been shopping for used cars recently, you know that there is not much out there that can be considered reliable transportation for 5000 dollars. Most of the van's we were looking at had way more than 100,000 miles. That's ok for a Honda or a Toyota, which I was looking for, but even Honda's with 130,000 were still going for 8 or 9000 bucks!!!

I kept looking and just last week Friday found a 2000 Chevy Venture with only 70000 miles that fell into our price range. It has leather seats, a video player, and all the options. Plus it's Michigan Blue, it was an omen. We went on Saturday to the dealership and took it out for a drive. Both my wife and I liked it, and the kids loved the TV. Again, we were not in a hurry, but this was a good deal, they had dropped the price another 1000 bucks just the week before. It was sitting on the lot for like 40 days, and they wanted to move it, so I talked them down another 160 bucks. The carfax report was good, it showed nothing to be concerned about and the service records showed the van was well maintained.
We drove away with it that day.

We had a very bad experience a few years ago with a Dodge Interpid we bought used, it was a total piece of junk and we sunk like 2000 bucks into it in the 2 months after we bought it. So naturally I am paranoid of that happening again, but we both felt good about the van, I prayed about it a little and it seemed like it was meant for us.

Well, yesterday we took it to Grand Rapids to Julie's folks. When we got there I put the van in park and the engine continued to race like my foot was on the gas pedal, only my foot was not. OH GREAT, now what, that's not right, another lemon? It has not happened since, but I am still taking it back to the dealership to have them look at it. I am hoping and praying it's nothing, cause frankly, I don't want to go through what we went through with the Dodge.

So any of you that can, just pray that we did not make a mistake here.

Surprise visit

2007-07-21T18:52:00.000-07:00

Tonight the Kuipers were invited to one of me oldest friends home for supper. Chris Nyhuis has been one of best friends since high school at ol Hamilton High. Chris, myself and a couple of other guys from school and church used to hang out a lot. This was my other group of friends.

I was kind of a "rover" I had 2 groups of friends that I hung out with, the two groups were equally important to me, however, these two groups did not hang out together, so I had to "rove" between the two. The trend carried on into college as well. I had a couple of different groups of friends there as well. It was all kind of strange, but it worked for me, and I had twice as many friends.

Anyway, tonight we went to Chris's home for dinner. It had been a while since we had hung out, but as always, it was just as if we had seen each other last week. It was nice to see Chris and his family again. I could go on for hours about all the good times we had.

Anyway, as an added surprise, Chris told me that one of our other old friends was in town from Oklahoma. Mike Fackler....my oh my, you have never met a funnier guy in all your life. Mike is now a youth pastor, which if you know Mike, fits him to a tee.

If you also know Mike and some of the fun we used top have, you would think, Mike? a Youth Pastor!!! We never got in any serious trouble, but the stuff we used to do was so much fun, and sometimes just a little crazy.

Mike and his lovely wife and cute son were a bonus for an already great time at Chris's house. We talked about old times all night, it was so great. I wish we all lived closer together, but alas, life goes on and times change. It's true that you can never go "home again", but you can sure remember the good times. And anytime Mike and Chris were involved, you can be sure that there were plenty. I would not change a moment of this part of life, and I am so thankful that God gave me such good friends to share those times with me.

Oh what a summer.

2007-07-05T14:45:00.000-07:00

I must say that this summer in particular was been very nice here in Michigan. The weather has been nice, we could use some rain, my yard is about ready to spontaneously combust.

I have managed to be able to take some time off work this year and have enjoyed it a great deal. As a family we went camping at Silver Lake for a few days, and spent a lot of time at the family cottage Grand Haven.

The time spent at the cottage has been really nice this year. My folks have owned this little cottage for about 50 + years now. It has always been a place I loved to go. When I was a kid, I lived there for parts of each summer so I have many many memories there.

The older my parents get (pushing 80) the more I realize that time is so precious. They happen to be in very good health yet, but the years have a habit of passing very quickly and I know that each year is a gift.

This hit me very hard this year for some reason. My folks are getting ready to move out of the cottage this year to make way for the rental season. Each year for the past 50 plus years the best months of the year, July and August go to people who rent the cottage from us. They pay a large sum of money to stay there, so much so that is pays for the taxes and such on the cottage.

Anyway, as I was sitting on the front porch this year, the thought hit me that there just can't be too many more years where the family will be able to come and hang out and have both of the patriarchs of the family there as well.

That does not mean that there will not be several more great years left with Mom and Dad, as I said they are in good health yet, but life is so fragile, you just never know from one day to the next. Our family has been blessed with good health and a lack of tragic accidents, etc. The older I get, the more I realize that nothing ON THIS EARTH lasts forever.

I fully comprehend and understand that this earth is not our home. For the those of us that profess faith is Christ it is just a momentary blip in time. Our best years still await us. Yet I cannot help the fact that I feel a little sad when I think about things that mean so much to me coming to an end. The cottage, is really just a place, and thing, a house on the sand (it really is built on sand!!). Yet it holds such a large place in my heart and mind.

I am so thankful for the life I have. I complain sometimes about not really being content in my job, about not having enough money for the stuff I want. About living in Michigan during the winter, the list of my complaints could go on and on.

I was born into an unfortunate situation, an out, of wedlock birth, not knowing my real dad, a birth mother who battled different things like alcohol and bad relationships her whole life and who ended up dying from possible complications of those bad choices. Not to mention that the year I was born was 1973 and roe .wade was the new law of the land. I have it from a pretty good source that abortion was an option being considered for me at that time. Lots of things could have gone wrong for me, bit God had a plan I suppose for me. There are times I still don't know what that plan might be, but a plan none-the-less.

My grandparents after already raising three kids into adulthood, decided without hesitation to take me into their home, give me the things that my real mom could not. I was saved from who knows what and given a chance to grow up in a relatively normal situation.

The cottage is a physical manifestation of that childhood. Some of my best memories of my life are intertwined with that old cottage. It's not in the best of shape after 50 years. Mom and Dad are getting older and some things like painting and certain repairs are beyond their abilities now. The cottage is jokingly called the "Tiltin Hilton" cause of a very visible lean.

It's obvious to most of us that there are going to be major repairs and work done in order to keep it nice for years to come, and us kids are going to have to make that happen at some point. I don't really want to think about that now, it makes me sad to think of a time in which mom and dad can't be there anymore. As with all families, I am sure there will be disagreements about the cottage, keep it, sell it, fix it, etc. It's not a place I like take my thoughts to...but I know it has to be.

The cottage in Grand Haven on Peterson Ridge is more that just a place to me, more than just an old cottage that leans, it;s part of me, it's part of who I am, who I was and who I became. It's is a symbol of my childhood, and what was. It also reminds my of what could have been had I not been raised my mom and dad, they gave me chance to grow up and go to college and get an education, to get married and now have to wonderful kids of my own and a wife I love that all also share a love of this old cottage.

Watching my son play around the cottage, picking berries, riding his big wheel down the same bumpy sidewalks I did, walking down the same path through the woods I did....it's just hard to explain what feelings that brings up within me. They are happy feelings, some sad feelings, but always grateful feelings, grateful to grand parents that raised me as their own, grateful to an extended family, aunts, uncles, cousins that treated me as though nothing was unusual about me. And grateful to a God that put me in just the right place and the right time.

A camping we will go.

2007-06-20T18:15:00.000-07:00

We just got home from a short three day camping trip to Silver Lake Michigan. This is the Kuiper familys first real foray into camping as a family. I have taken Josh before, but never all of us. I think it went pretty well considering the first nights soaking downpour and thunderstorm. It would not be a camping trip without rain.

We actually stayed dry in our 1975 Steury Pop-up camper. We bought it last year for about 500 bucks, so there was some concern that it would actually keep out the rain, but in the end, it kept us warm and dry. The camper is not much to look at actually, especially when you are comparing it to some of the nice 30 foot campers and motor homes parked around.

The kids however loved the trip, they are already asking when we can go again, so that's a good sign. Julie on the other hand is a little less excited about going again, but she will do it for the kids and for me cause we loved it.

Silver Lake is a truly unique place, it's a small, warm, fairly clean lake that lies inland from Lake Michigan. There is a small stream connecting Silver Lake with Lake Michigan, but it's not navigable with any type of boats. On the west part of Silver Lake in between the Lake Michigan and Silver Lake are the world famous Silver Lake Sand Dunes. I can't really find words to describe how cool these dunes are, so look at the photos. It's like a mini-desert actually. Part of the dunes are open to ORV's or "Off Road Vehicles". People from all over the mid-west come to ride their dune-buggies, jeeps, ATV's and motorcycles. It's quite a site on a busy day. The other half of the dunes is closed to vehicles and people can hike and enjoy some of the coolest landscapes around.

I took my Honda TRX250 ex ATV up and we also took the Explorer up with the family and had a little picnic. The kids had so much fun climbing and playing with their cousins. It also wore them out so they went to bed great that night. We stayed at Jellystone campground so the kids also could go swimming in the pool, play on the playground and walk with Boo-Boo and Yogi bear.

All in all, we had a great time. Maybe next year we will stay a week.

My new hobby.

2007-06-12T19:27:00.001-07:00

Wow, I have been away again for awhile. I just find that unless I really have something interesting that I want to share, I don't add new posts. Anyway, life has been pretty routine for awhile. Nothing really new to report to millions and millions of readers. My son Josh is done with school for the year, he is now a first grader, and I am having a hard time believing it....time sure flies by doesn't it?

Summer is here, my favorite time of the year. I love the hot days and warm nights. I really wish winter did not have to rear it's ugly head in a few short months again. Summer is a gift from God and I surely am thankful for it.

That being said, summer is also a time in which we all bear a little more skin, shorts, t-shirts, tank tops, swim trunks. I can look back to a year ago and see that I have slowly allowed some weight to creep back onto my once lean and mean 5 foot 8 inch frame. It's soooo hard to keep the pounds off when you get older.

I have taken up a new hobby to try and at least remain steady as far as my weight goes. I am now officially an amature cyclist. Yes, I am...I have the spandex shorts, bike jersey, sunglasses, helmet and clip-in shoes. I will not post a picture my said self in the spandex just yet..it's kind of funny.

I bought a used Schwinn LeTour that was older than me last year, but it was just too heavy for serious riding. I have been considering having to shell out some real money for a real bike this year, but instead I found a used Trek 760 for a fraction of the cost of a new Trek 1000. It's old, but not as old as the schwinn. And it's half again as light. I have made some modifications, adding a pair or aerobars, frame bag, rear view mirror, new tires, etc.

I have been very happy thus far with the bike, it was state of the art back in 1985 and cost probably close to 1000 bucks. It rides very smooth and I don't have a back ache at all like I had on the Schwinn. I have even decided to enter a bike race called the Holland Hundred. I will probably not be riding the entire distance. The most I have riden so far in one outing is 20 miles, but I am getting better.

Here are some pictures I have taken of the object of my most recent obsession.

Birth

2007-05-10T13:35:00.000-07:00

My friend and sort-of mentor, Dave sent me this link today. It's a youtube video that was produced by his son in law who also produced the movie "Ent of the Spear". It is a very good testimony. Click on the link to have a look.

Global Warming

2007-05-01T20:27:00.000-07:00

Recently Cheryl Crow, aka the Ex Ms Lance Armstrong, aka the semi talented singer song-writer decided that the answer to saving the environment was to use one square of toilet paper at a time. Ah, yeah right. As Laura Ingraham says, "Shut up and sing". I am getting tired of this as a topic of national obsession. There are plenty of more immediate concerns...however if I am forced to discuss this for a moment, I think the real answer lies somewhere in the middle of this debate actually.

It would be niave to assume that humans have no impact on the atmospere. All you have to do is go to LA or Mexico City or Khatmandu...take a look at the haze hanging over the city. Thats smog, and it's not natural, we have caused it.BUT, I am not a big believer in global warming theory.

I believe that while man has caused some issues, I am not ready to give us (mankind) credit for actually being significant enough to cause the huge catastrophy that is being predicted by Al Gore and his looney friends. I believe the earth is resiliant and can bounce back or adapt to many things. Something pretty huge killed off all the dinosaurs a long time ago and the earth bounced back just fine.

I also don't buy any figures that are thrown around that try to compare current temps to temps hundreds or thousands or hundreds of thousands of years ago. I happen to know for a fact that accurate thermometers were not being used in the middle ages. Just how in the world do we know what the exact temps were 10,000 years ago? If they were 5 degrees cooler than now, prove it please.

In closing, how do we also not know that the earth is not actually below it optimum temp right now and this warming is not just a natural way of the earth righting itself. Maybe this is just a cycle that we are going through, or maybe it's sun spots.I just get sick of people telling me how things are or should be with no proof. Global warming is a theory, the debate is NOT over as Al Gore would like us to believe. And if Al and the other celebrities such as Cheryl Crow want us to use less toilet paper, I would like to start to see them living as they want us to live. No more private jets, no more 10,000 square foot homes, no more guitars made of wood.

Enough said.

Enough is enough already...

2007-04-06T12:56:00.000-07:00

I have written about this before, and I probably am just repeating what you have all heard me say at some time or another, but I have to say....I HATE WINTER SO MUCH.

It's April 6, and it's 25 degrees and a near blizzard outside, will this terrible form of torture never end? It is almost funny, if it were not so frustrating. Winter has literally lasted about 6 months this year...6 months!! Half the year I am completely miserable concerning the weather.

Let me tell you about the day I had on Wednesday and Thursday, and it's mostly due to the bad weather.

I got out of bed tired Wednesday morning, Julie went to work at 8, so I was watching Curious George or something with the kids in the living room. I had just taken Moki outside, but it was SOOOO cold that Moki, nor myself wanted to be out there very long. He went "1", but I evidently did not wait long enough for "2". We can back in the house and I promptly fell asleep on the couch as the kids watched TV. We had the living room gated off so Moki could not run all over the house. Well, falling asleep was a bad idea, cause when I awoke about 30 minutes later, there was a big pile of "2" on the floor.

Next, I looked into the back yard and said to myself, "Hey, where is the trampoline I just put up last week when it was warm outside?" Well, I than noticed a large round object about 50 yards away in the muddy cornfield. The tramp had been picked up by a strong gust of 28 degree wind and was now in several pieces in the muddy field. I had to than drag my already tired self outside again and wrestle the partially dis-assembled tramp back into the yard and weigh it down with patio blocks so it did not again fly away. Luckily, the tramp was not damaged, just muddy and in a few pieces.
I was now very cold, very tired and very wet from the mud and wet snow that was falling.

At this point it was time to leave to take the kids to Nana and Pops house for the afternoon while I go to work and Julie finished her work day. I decided to take Moki as well cause I did not want him to be locked in his crate all day. On the way my son was petting him in the backseat when I hear "AHHHHHGGGG, GROOOSSSS, DAAAADD." Moki had gotten car sick or something and puked all over Abby's coat and the car seat. I pulled the truck over and picked up Moki and set him on my lap in the front seat. In the process I got puke all over my jeans. This was only the first act in this chapter.

When we finally got to Nana's house I got the kids inside and cleaned Moki off, got my daughters coat and threw it into the wash machine and tried to clean the truck up. I thought to myself, what a day, it can't get any worse.

Wrong...my daughter than had a slight accident in her own pants, nothing major, she is potty trained, but sometimes does not wipe herself well enough...this was the case. So I know had to throw her underwear into the wash machine. I thought it was silly to wash just a pair of underwear, so I thought I would get my work clothes on and throw my jeans with dog puke on them in the washer as well. About 10 minutes later I realize my cell phone is not on my person. Yep, it was in the pocket of jeans. Completely wet and beyond rescue....and if anyone has even tried to get a cell phone company to replace a cell phone that was damaged due to the owners own negligence, you know it's gonna cost you. $150 bucks for a new phone.

Now you must say that surely the bleeding must stop here right? No, not quite. Yesterday I got home from work for my supper break and found my mailbox was smashed in due to some punk kids playing mailbox baseball.

I blame the weather for all this. If it had been warm and spring like as it is supposed to be, I think none of this would have happened.

Please, please, please do your part to increase global warming, Michigan needs it.

Fantasy Baseball

2007-04-05T13:17:00.000-07:00

I have always loved baseball. I can't play it very well, but it is such a unique game, and completely American, that you can't help but love it.

I used to collect baseball cards, in fact, I still have a cedar chest FULL of them, thousands. Well, collecting baseball cards is not such a lure anymore to me, but something has taken it's place. I am totally addicted to fantasy sports, and fantasy baseball is by far my favorite.

Myself, Jeff Cobb, Jon Wilmot, Craig Olmsted, Jason Feltz and some others have been doing it for years now. It is a very cool way to keep in touch with people you would not normally talk to much.

This year I find myself in several leagues. Unlike some other fantasy sports like football, baseball is much more time consuming. If you want to be successful, you MUST check your lineup about every other day. Not to mention scouring the waiver wire all the time for the latest up and coming player or hot hitter.

I think the appeal of fantasy baseball is not only to win, keep in touch with friends, etc. But for me, I love stats, I love to read the latest box scores and try to interpret what it means, to predict when a player is going to get hot, when he is going to slump and when to unload him on someone else. It's a complete mind game.

Let's play ball boys....!!

Interesting thought.

2007-04-05T12:58:00.000-07:00

Now that we have this dog, I suppose ALL my posts have to be dog related. Well, I will try to at least apply the dog stories to an interesting observation.

As I previously stated, Moki is being house-broken, so once in a while he still has an accident.

Moki is being crate trained as well, so when we leave for the store, or go to bed at night, Moki goes into this crate. I got back from somewhere the other day with the kids and walking to the house and right away smelled something was "afoul". I opened the laundry room door and there was Moki, in his crate, full of his own "No #2".

Dogs don't generally have that issue in there crate cause they are by nature, clean animals and don't like to sleep where they poo. Well, Moki must have not felt very well, cause the nature of his accident was pretty messy. He had it all over him, the crate, his bed. It was a real mess and I was pretty grossed out by it and felt a sense of disgust when cleaning it up. I was not however mad at the dog, just felt bad for him and myself.

The thought hit me when cleaning this mess up and giving Moki a bath. This is what God himself must feel when we sin. It's almost like walking in and getting this whiff of odor and then the visual picture of "our sin" is even worse.

But I believe that like myself, God is not so much mad at us as he is disappointed and a little grossed out.

When I walked into the door, Moki looked at me as if to say, I am sorry, I know I made a mess here, it's gross, I wish I had not done it. Now you are the only one who can open this crate and get me out of this mess.

God as a father and our "Shepherd" must feel similar if we tell him we are sorry. He picks us up, lifts us out of the mess we made, washes us and makes us fresh and clean as I did Moki.

That is not saying that for a time we don't have to live in our filth, and there may be other consequences, but God does not want us to suffer forever.

I have been struggling for some time with how I view God. Is he a judge or a father, is he watching over us with a whip and a shepherd's staff?

I want to think that God is a loving father who does not like to leave us in our nasty mess, but would rather clean us up and make us right again.

Puppy update

2007-04-05T12:44:00.000-07:00

The pace of life in the Kuiper house has been pretty busy lately. There are so many things I want to blog about that I end up not bringing up anything.

Lets try to get back into the swing of things with a puppy update. "Moki" is 13 weeks old now and a handfull. He is probably about 1/2 way to being house broken, but that still means little surprises are being left for us on a semi-regular basis. I bought a gate, we monitor him, we let him out to go "potty" as much a once an hour. Yet, it seems where our backs are turned for moments, there is a mess.

I truly must have forgotten how much work a dog is. I don't know what I was thinking, maybe that he would come trained, but Moki is proving to be a challenge. Besides the house breaking, Moki is a biter right now. He is teething, and I believe this will probably stop at some point, but now is always nipping and biting our hands and ankles.

My kids are totally in love with the dog at this point. My son Joshua is upset when he has to go to bed at night cause he can't be with Moki.

The name "Moki" is American Indian. We were looking for something that would fit an American Eskimo dog, and Moki was cute, he looks like a Moki.

BIG NEWS

2007-02-15T12:59:00.000-08:00

We are having a puppy!!! Well, not us exactly, but we are getting a puppy. We are all pretty excited at the Kuiper house. The kids have already named it "biscuit" after their favorite storybook dog. That might change, Julie and I are not too fond of the name, it lacks a "little white dog" feel.

We are getting a little white dog, it is actually an American Eskimo dog. We did quite a bit of research and this breed really caught our attention. It's small, good with kids and cats and smart.

We don't know exactly which of the pups in the attached photo we are going to get yet, there are two people who are ahead of us that get to choose first, but I don't think we can go wrong with any of the three.

The pups are currently living in New York State. In a town near Albany called Richfield Springs. It's about a 12 hour drive I believe. We could have the pup shipped, but the cost is a bit much and I would hate to do that to a little puppy. The breeder might meet us in Ohio, which would be nice, but I am not counting on it.

In the end, I believe I might be in for a long drive. Anyone for a road trip?

Anyway, we pick up the little guy after the second week in March...

Let's talk poop...

2007-02-09T07:11:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the rather messy title of my latest blog entry, I realize it's stinks a bit. I had to get your attention seeing as how I have not been blogging very much lately.

My beautiful little girl Abby is currently sitting in the bathtub playing with her "Little Mermaid" dolls. The reason she is in the tub at 10 am is the subject of this latest blog.

Abby is in the midst of potty training. We have been trying to get her interested for some months now, ever since Christmas. She is only 2 1/2 currently, so it's not like we HAVE to get her trained right away, but it would be nice. She was interested a few months ago, but not interested enough to keep it going.

Just in the last week or so, she has begun to show much more interest, se we decided to give it another go. We used the added incentive that once she is trained, we can start to look for a puppy. We have been wanting to get a dog for a while, but Julie was pretty firm that she did not want to have to train a dog and a girl at the same time.

I took Josh and Abby to the humane society the other day and we looked at dogs, sort of a motivational trick on Abby. It seemed to have done the trick cause she is really giving it a go.

Up until about 30 minutes ago, we had not had an accident in about 4 days. That changed however. I saw Abby run into the bathroom, than saw her exit a few moments later minus pants and underwear. Lets say she did not quite make it. I had to clean up a bit of a mess and Abby needed a bath.

She is doing very well however, and I think that she is well on her way to the ultimate goal of getting rid of those diapers.

Bears vs. Colts, my take.

2007-01-22T09:23:00.000-08:00

Well, as an ardent "Chicago sports" hater, let me say that I don't really care for this years superbowl matchup. I am happy the Colts finally have a chance. As you know, earlier this year I switched my my allegience from the Lions to the Colts. Well, it has been hard, I still find that in my heart, I am waiting for the day that the Lions finally do something. But, you just can't wait forever, so I am really trying to be a Colts fan. It helps that Tony Dungy is such a great guy, it's easy to root for him.

As for da Bears. I just hate them. I always have. What makes it worse is that they stunk for almost as long as the Lions. You could usually count on a win against the Bears, at least at home. But, now even the stinky Bears have turned it around.

Well, I believe the Bears do really have a chance this year to win the Super Bowl. But it depends on which Rex Grossman shows up. My prediction is the Bears 35, Indy 32.

Because it's there.

2007-01-02T09:10:00.000-08:00

Well Christmas is over for another year, it's the new year, 2007. I can't hardly believe the rate at which time fly's by. I have been out of high school now 16 years, college for 12 years. I am 33 years old, 34 this July. 1/3 of my life is gone, and that's if I live to be 90.

It's a common thing for people to look back on their life when a new year comes. Some people look back with regret for things they have done, some people look back with a sense of accompishment for the things they have been able to do or obtain. And some people look back with regret for things that they HAVE NOT done or things they wish they could have done.

I think with me, it's a combination of all these things. Everyone looks back and regrets actions they have taken, or idle words they have spoken, so I am sure I am not alone in this category. You can't do much about changing the past, what's done is done, so in this area we are forced to move on, make amends when possible, and then forget about it. Sometimes that's easier said than done.

This past year has been a year of searching for me, I have been searching for lots of things, maybe a new area of employment, (if anyone from my current employer reads this, I am not leaving, just looking as we all do). I have been searching for lots of other things as well, meaning, purpose etc...

When it comes to looking back, it's not just wishing I had not done things, but also wishing I had done other things as I said. I think it's just as bad to look back and wish you had done things as wishing you had not.

For me, this is very true. That's why among other things like taking some weight off again, being a good dad and husband and son, and most importantly, being a good Christian, I have determined to accomplish one additional things this coming year (or year and a half). I have decided to pursue a 10 plus year dream of mine. I am going to climb a real mountain.

I have set my sights on Mt. Rainier in Washington State. It's the most heavily glaciated peak in the lower 48 states. In other words, it's on par with many peaks in the Andes or the Himalayas. It is basically a training ground for higher peaks like McKinley of even Everest.

Why do such a thing? I have no answer other what Sir Edmund Hillary said about Everest, "Because it's there". It's just something I want to do.

I am going to begin training this spring and hope to purchase some of the ice climbing equipment I will need by working some part time jobs. I am going to be keeping a journal of my preparation for this climb along the way. And as extra motivation, I am going to try and get people to sponsor me. Not to pay for expenses of the climb, but to raise money for a charity or some kind.

If anyone is interested in sponsoring me, please let me know. I will let you know what kind of charity I will donate the money to once I figure out what that charity should be.

So keep posted to the Kyperman for updates on this newest wacky idea.

Some interesting facts about "the religion of peace"

2006-12-20T09:35:00.000-08:00

Saudi Arabia - Conversion by a Muslim to another religion is punishable by death. Bibles are illegal. Churches are illegal. It is punishable by death for a non-mulsim to enter the "holy" muslim cities of Medina and Mecca.

Yemen - Bans proselytizing by non-Muslims and forbids conversions. The Government does not allow the building of new non-Muslim places of worship.

Kuwait - Registration and licensing of religious groups. Members of religions not sanctioned in the Koran may not build places of worship. Prohibits organized religious education for religions other than Islam.

Egypt - Islam is the official state religion and primary source of legislation. Accordingly, religious practices that conflict with Islamic law are prohibited. Muslims may face legal problems if they convert to another faith. Requires non-Muslims to obtain what is now a presidential decree to build a place of worship.

Algeria - The law prohibits public assembly for purposes of practicing a faith other than Islam. Non-Islamic proselytizing is illegal, and the Government restricts the importation of non-Islamic literature for distribution.

Jordan - Has the death penalty for any Muslim selling land to a Jew.

Sudan - Conversion by a Muslim to another religion is punishable by death.

Pakistan - Conversion by a Muslim to another religion is punishable by death. Bans proselytizing by non-Muslims. Christians regularly put in prison for charges of blasphemy. Islam is the state religion, and in a court of law the testimony of a Christian carries less weight than that of a Muslim. Section 295(c) of the Penal Code calls for a death sentence for anyone who defiles the name of the Prophet Muhammad and requires the testimony of four Muslims for a conviction. This fosters an environment in which Muslims can feel free to use intimidation and violence against religious minorities for personal gain.

Qatar - Islamic instruction is compulsory in public schools. The government regulates the publication, importation, and distribution of non-Islamic religious literature. The government continues to prohibit proselytizing of Muslims by non-Muslims.

Malaysia - Under Malaysian law, any convert to Christianity must apply to a shariah (Muslim law) court to legally renounce Islam. Many Christians prefer to remain silent converts rather than take their battle to the shariah courts, where apostasy or conversion out of Islam is punishable by whipping, fines, imprisonment and--in the most extreme application--death.

The Maldives - In the island paradise visited by tens of thousands of tourists each year, Christianity is simply not tolerated. While local Christians – said to number around 300 out of a total population of 300,000 – do get together to worship, they do so at the risk of imprisonment or worse if discovered by the Muslim authorities. Bibles are banned, and tourists can be arrested for trying to bring them into the country.

Seattle Airport Removes Christmas Trees Instead of Putting Up Menorah

2006-12-11T08:41:00.000-08:00

While attempting to distance myself from being obsessed with all things political, there are still some things that really bug me. Take the above headline. It seems a Jewish Rabbi complained the jewish religion being left out of the holiday scene at the Seattle airport. Instead of just agreeing to place some jewish symbols up as well as the "Holiday" trees, they just said, fine, everything comes down.

I mean, come on people, when is this "un-Christing" of Christmas going to stop. I will tell you, when the holiday as a whole is deamed too offensive and it is dropped as a national holiday. You think I am being paranoid? I don't think so. I see a day in the not too distant future when this happens with Christmas and Easter.

Without sounding too partisan, especially if the God-haters we call liberals continue to gain power, as I believe they will. It's truly only a matter of time. Is it seriously too late to turn this ship around? I hope not, be we seem as if we are a one way course heading for a God-less society. Is seems as if there is nothing we can do about it other than continue to vote our conscience and leave the rest to God.

I hate to sound like such a downer, but I think it's reality. This nation that I love very much needs a God-overhaul and unless God does it, which he can, we going along for the ride. The devil is the ruler of this world, and he has free reign for a time. The good ol US or A is riding a fine line right now, we can and should continue to do our best to push it toward the "right" side.

Finally a new post.

2006-11-26T17:19:00.000-08:00

Sorry all, I have been quite unmotivated for quite some time about blogging. It just seems as if I have not had much of anything important to say.

I was a little surprised with myself when after the elections of a few weeks ago, I had not the desire to blog on the bloodbath the republicans took. It was almost as if internally I did not care. I used to love to discuss the political scene, and being a political science major, it was something I took pride in. However, I have slowly been finding myself with less and less desire to discuss it. Perhaps its just my feeling let down a bit by the republicans and all their scandals and problems. That may be exactly why they lost, cause many people were feeling the same way I was.

Besides feeling let down, there is something deeper here for me. And without going into great detail, it comes down to this. I have really been thinking about my life for the past little while. Where I want to be, where I am....and MOST importantly, where God wants me to be. You see...my life has been pretty much on cruise control for a number of years. I have been lax on my prayer time, devotions, basically, I had been a luke warm Christian. I felt quite a distance away from God...and it finally hit me pretty hard during a message at Church. I realized I needed to change..I realized that I was not content because God was not at the center if my life. This has not been that long ago really...so I am still working on it..but already, I have felt a difference in my life. I am really reading and studying Gods word...specifically Romans and I have already been amazed by what God has been showing me. It's really true that when you draw close to God, he will draw close to you.

I could go on and on about this...but the point I am coming to is this. Dan Seaborn had a great message today at CWC about why great civilizations fall, and how we can draw a parallel to the United States. Anyway something he said really hit me. I am paraphrasing, but he said something to the effect of...can the United States turn this thing around, can we as a nation come back to God? Or will this nation go the way of Rome and Greece and other great civilizations? Dan said to the surprise of some...that he believes we are on a path of which there is no turning back. This nation is pretty much going to continue to rot from within until its done.

You know what...I agree...it does not matter if republicans or in control or democrats. We as a nation and as a people have forgotten our way, we have abandoned God. Thats why I feel a little ho-hum about politics...cause it frankly does not matter that much.

Now please don't get me wrong, and Dan said this also. Does that mean we should just give up, not stand up to wrong, not try to get God fearing people into elected office, not try to get abortion outlawed. NEVER...we have a obligation and a duty to vote. I still love this nation, I am proud and thankful to be born here.

But what I am trying to say is that we should not put our hope into a political party or a president or even a nation, as great as that nation is or was. We need to put our hope in JESUS alone. He is what is important.

Rather than sit any worry about the make-up of the supreme court, or who the speaker of the house is, or who the next president is...what I am going to do from this point on is put my energy and devotion into knowing God, being in the center of his will. This world is so much bigger than one nation...there are so many people out there that will die without knowing Jesus. God is in control, and while we can still vote, and try to make a difference in this nation...I think the body of Christ has to start thinking more about getting people to heaven than getting people elected to congress.

Hope I didn't scare anyone out there...I know that I sound a little like I don't care about this nations future. That's not true...I do care...but I am less concerned cause I know that God has a plan and nothing will happen that he does not allow.

New Job update 3

2006-11-06T09:49:00.000-08:00

I have been so busy the last month, I have had no time for blogging. I just got my lawn mower put away and the snow blower out. It's been a very busy couple of months to say the least. But it's over now...why? Well, I decided after a month + of working at the Jail that the job of a corrections officer is not my cup of tea.

Do I feel like a quitter? A little bit. I really wanted to make it work, I was very excited about it at first. But it didn't take more than a month for me to see the job for what it was....hard and stressful. Maybe I should have done more homework. Indeed as a Criminal Justice Major, I did have some idea what I was getting into, but you really have to experience something to understand it.

I think I am drawn to work in which I have a lot of freedom, not a lot of direct supervision. The jail is exactly the opposite of that. When that heavy metal door slams behind you, you are locked in that jail just like the inmates. Sure, you can leave at the end of the day, but while you are there, in some respects YOU ARE THERE. And the 12 hour days, which I expected to enjoy, cause you work fewer days, just longer ones, I did not enjoy. 12 hours was too long to be in that environment.

Even some of the Sheriff road officers who have worked both the road and the jail, say they could never ever go back to the jail, it was plain too stressful.

Am I making excuses? Maybe, but I don't consider myself a quitter in this case. I tried it, I did not enjoy it, and it was part time. Life goes on, I still have a good job that pays the bills and grants me the ability to spend a lot of time with my kids. Could be a lot worse.

666 or what?

2006-10-11T09:53:00.000-07:00

Article from the UK...very interesting, here is a paragraph...just a thought, I wonder where this microchip would be implanted, on the forehead or hand?

Young shoppers want to pay with chip in skin
Last updated at 14:13pm on 11th October 2006

Some customers are willing to have microchip implants as a means of paying in stores, a report out today says.

Teenagers are more open to the idea of having a high-tech shopping experience, the Tomorrow's Shopping World report suggests.

Around 8 per cent of 13 to 19-year-olds were open to the idea of microchip implants while 16 per cent wanted trolleys to be fitted with SatNav systems

The time has come...

2006-10-09T15:44:00.000-07:00

This is a huge annoucement I am about to make. I have not taken this lightly in any way. It is the result of 20 plus years of frustration that I am doing this publicly and for all to read. I am finally and permanently disolving my loyalty to the Detroit Lions. You heard it, it's over, done, finished...never again will I watch, read or likewise root for the Lions.

I have been giving them chance after chance after chance. I have finally had enough. I have said things similar before, but this time it's an oath before all. I have no choice, it's just too much for me to handle anymore, week after week of stupid bonehead plays and lost leads have finally beaten me down into submission. It's just not worth the effort to hope any more.

So who will I root for now? Thats a good question...I hate the Bears, Packers and Vikings. I could not root for the Browns, Steelers of Cowboys. I am a little into Cincinnati, but not enough. So who does that leave that is at least somewhat local and I might have ties to?

I think maybe Indy is my team. Not just cause they are good, but cause I like Tony Dungy a lot and I went to college in Indiana for 4 years so it's almost like a second home. Yep, I think I am going to root for Indy. They will probably never have my heart like the Lions did, but maybe that's OK, that way they will never break my heart Sunday after Sunday like Detroit has.

Do I reserve the right to jump back on the Lions bandwagon if they would ever turn into a winner...of course I do...but I think the chances of that are pretty slim. So GO INDY.

Baseball and jail.

2006-10-05T16:54:00.000-07:00

Ok, what in the world do baseball and jail have in common, well besides that fact that some baseball players probably belong in jail.

I was working at my part-time job today at the jail and the Tigers were playing. Well, if I had not known any better, I would have thought it was a holiday at some long lost relatives house. The inmates that were out on free time were all sitting, nice and quiet, just watching the Tigers on the community TV. It was really funny, did not matter what color they were, what they were in for, nothing...just the Tigers. It's funny how baseball just transends even life in a jail.

GO TIGERS!!

New Job update.

2006-09-27T08:40:00.000-07:00

Well, it's official, I have a new job. It is PART TIME, and I had my first training day yesterday. It is quite a departure from my Herman Miller full time job, let me tell you. I was pretty much thrown to the wolves yesterday, it's sink or swim. I have a training officer, and mine is great. But there is SO MUCH to learn, I barely scratched the surface yesterday and I was completely overwhelmed. I had some second thoughts after yesterday...but I still believe that God opened this door and unless he shuts it, I am gonna stick with it. Let me say, that for right now, I am glad for my full time job. If I would have been offered full time at the jail yesterday, I don't know what I would have said. But it will probably be a long time before that happens and by then I should know if I am gonna be a good fit or not.

The biggest thing for me to overcome is gonna be myself. I am by nature a bit of a more reserved person, quiet sometimes, try to avoid confrontation when possible. But in this jail position, you are locked up with some real characters and the biggest thrill they could get would be to get under the skin of the corrections officers. It's really a BIG MIND game in there, and you have to maintain a control at all times, you don't want to be seen as weak, cause the inmates will eat you alive. Granted, most of the guys in this jail don't want to cause trouble cause they are short time guys in for drunk driving, petty theft, ect..but they are still prisoners, and you are in charge.

So, all my readers, please pray for me, pray that I will not only do a good job and feel like I am supposed to be there, but pray that I overcome myself...it's almost like I have to grow a new personality.

Spinning out of control

2006-09-19T05:18:00.000-07:00

As I was sitting in front of the computer today catching up on world affairs at the Drudge Report, I was also hearing the cartoon "Curious George" coming from the other room. My kids are really into George...my kids...I love my kids very much. I also worry about them..what kind of world they are going to grow up in.

I firmly believe that God has everything under control, but if you just watched the news and had no faith in God and no context in which to view the world, you would be scared to death I would think.

The pope said what is nothing more than the TRUTH about Islam, and now the greater Muslim world is calling for his execution. They are also saying that ANYONE who insults Islam or the "prophet" should be be-headed. Excuse me, does this crazy reaction only affirm what the pope said. I believe to MY CORE that Islam is evil. Maybe not every practicing Muslim is evil, but every practicing Muslim is practicing an evil religion. I guess I just put a target on my own back....

What a contrast between Islam and Christanity....yet Christianity is always blamed for the worlds problems. I have heard numerous quotes and soundbites this past week after the popes statment to the this effect..."The pope was wrong to say these things about Islam, it's really Christianity that is the terrorist religion". What!! Has this world gone totally nuts? Whats right is wrong and whats wrong is being made right.

Frankly I would be terrified of the future if I did not firmly believe that it was nothing more than a script being played out on a univeral stage. God is the writer and director, he has everything under control and it's all playing out just as he had written it. I believe we are in the last act of this play. There are still some "exciting action sequences" that need to be played out before the last line is delivered by a guy on a white horse and a trumpet call.

Weather ball Green, changes forseen.

2006-09-18T05:00:00.000-07:00

We have a local TV station that has something called the "Weather Ball". It's a silly gimmick actually. They have this big round ball mounted on top of a tower that changes weather according to the forcast of the day. It's silly cause it's only mounted high enough to see if you are close enough. It's not like you can see it from around the whole city of Grand Rapids.

Anyway, that is not the point of my post actually, sorry if I mislead you!! The point of my post is that my own life is changing a bit right now.

I have been waiting for the right time to post this "to the world", or at least the part of the world that reads this blog once in a while. This still may too soon to write this as I suppose it is possible that my big news may not pan out yet, but it looks like it is going to right now. If it does not, I reserve the right to not go into details.

Many of you know that this past year I made it known that I had been restless at my current job. "If anyone from work reads this...I have not been unhappy, just unsure of where I fit in the grand scheme of things". I have a good job, the pay is decent, the people I work with and for are great folks, but my biggest problem has been the desire to do more, to be more of what God intended for me.

Well, an opportunity came up, and I explored it and it looks like God has opened the door for me. I work with a great guy that works for Herman Miller part time. His full time position is with the Ottawa County Sheriff department. He is not only a great guy, but a very good police officer, third in line from the top in the department. Whilw browsing the current job opening at the Sheriff department, I noticed that they were hiring some part time corrections officers for the new Fillmore street jail in Ottawa county. I called "Mike" (not real name to protect the innocent) and told him I might be interested in this, and he told me that they would only be taking apps for a few more days so I better get mine in. I did, and he hand delivered the app to the right people. I am sure that he also put in a good word for me in the process. Well, one interview led to another and then to a battery of tests, and it looks like I have the job. I should start on the 25th of this month. Like I said, it's part time right now, but there is a very good chance it will lead into full time in short order...like maybe 6 months.

The reason I bring this up in addition to it being big news for me, is to ask for prayer. It's not going to be easy for a while. I will be working this new gig in addition to my full time job. The job itself is not going to be a cakewalk either, but, it's going to be interesting. I never really envisioned myself as a corrections officer, I always wanted to be a police officer....but God made me with some eyes that preclude me from that line of work. I am starting to believe that was for a reason.

I really believe God has called me to this new job...every part of the process from seeing the job posting, to the interviews and the battery of tests was God opening doors for me. I have truly been asking him to help me figure out what I am to do with my life. This year, when I turned 33 has had significant importantance for me and Julie. When I turned 30, it was no big deal....but for some reason, when I turned 33, I felt different, like it was time to get going with something, but at the time I didn't know what. I feel that God wants me in the jail for a reason..I don't know why right now, but I am open and it looks like it's going to happen.

I will post more when I have more details...

Check out drop shots

2006-09-07T17:15:00.000-07:00

Hey all, with the purchase of a new camera I have been able to take some digital video very easily. I found a cool website called dropshots and I will be posting little 30 second to 1 minute video clips on there occasionally for your viewing amusement. Please click on the link at the side of the blog to have a look.

Casanova...

2006-08-27T19:32:00.000-07:00

My son Josh is turning into quite a little ladies man. It's is rather quite amusing to see him grow and blossom and turn into a little casanova. Here are a couple of pictures of Joshua and his "friends"

P.J. Hoffmaster

2006-08-23T19:44:00.000-07:00

Sorry, I have been a little negligent with my posting. The dog days of summer I guess.

I recently took my son Josh on his first camping trip. It was only two nights at a local state park. My friend Jon whom many of you know, also spent one night with his son Caleb. We all had a pretty good time. Josh was really into it, he loved sleeping in the test and doing smores.

I don't like the tent part, I just don't enjoy the cold nights of sleeping on the ground. We have an especially hard tent to set up, which makes it worse. But I do really enjoy the camping, the sitting around the campfire, exploring the woods, etc.

P.J. Hoffmaster is a very nice state park also, it's not the best in the state, that would have to be Ludington, but Hoffmaster is close.

There was a little steam right behind our campsite that the boys could go play in and around. It was only a short hike to the beach or the playground area. I had to switch campsites after the first night however cause it was a busy weekend and I made the reservations pretty late. Again, having a tent made that a pain, I will never do that again.

But I want my son to have a some memories he can look back on when he gets older and I love to spend time with him. I would have liked my wife and Abby to camp with us also, but Julie is not ready to do that with Abby yet...she can be a handfull yet. They did come out for a few hours and went to the beach, but them went home while Josh and I played games and hit the sack on the last night.

Here are some pictures of Josh, me, Jon and Caleb on our camping trip.

Fishing trip to the Grand

2006-08-06T18:29:00.000-07:00

I took Josh out fishing this Saturday on his first real fishing trip. Granted it was only for a few hours and it was to the Grand River in Grand Haven. We went to my Uncle Ron's house cause it's quiet and safe and the chances to catch some fish were good.

We were specifically fishing for Channel Cats, we used beef Liver as bait. The cats loved it, and so did a big ol Turtle that Josh caught once and me a few minutes later...Josh loved it. Here are a couple of pics.

Thank you to all

2006-08-06T18:20:00.000-07:00

Thanks to you guys who read and responded to my last post, all of you have great insights and I appreciate all the words of advice and encouragment.

I do not feel that I need to be be rich or super successful to be happy, quite the opposite in fact, I could be happy working my current job for the rest of my working life if I knew that's where God wanted me. I truly want to do and be who God made me to be. If that's a good husband and father, than thats great, it's all I need.

I do feel some pressure as I rapidly advance in age to use all my gifts and abilities in a way that not only brings joy to God, but..yes happiness to myself as well. I would like to wake up in the morning knowing that I am right where I am supposed to be.

I would just ask that you all keep me in your prayers and I pray and try to sort through this. I have some ideas, maybe some things I would like to pursue, but none will be logistically possible for a few years yet...I guess that gives me plenty of time..!!

Mid-life crisis

2006-08-04T12:54:00.000-07:00

I have been struggling the past few months with something pretty heavy. I don't know what I am here for. Sounds pretty silly I know, especially for someone to claims to be a Christian. Nevertheless, thats how I have felt.

Those of you that know my mom, know how much she prays. She is what people call a "prayer warrior". It seems that she is always talking about the Lord and what he has told her, what she has seen in visions or dreams. Over the years, I have learned to take her seriously. She truly is on a different level than I and most other people I know in the area of prayer.

She once told me that she had a vision about me, about how she saw hundreds or even thousands of stars and that those stars represented people that I was to lead to the Lord. Wow, talk about an instant change in my perception of my life.

I never forgot about that dream, but I have never understood how or why this was going to happen. Over the years, the events that have shaped my life, seem not to be leading me in that direction. I mean, I am working Security right now. It's a good job, it pays well, it's not your typical Security work. However, I don't see much of an opportunity to fulfill this destiny that my mom sort of layed at my feet many years ago.

I don't feel that close to the Lord right now in fact...I have been doing devotions pretty rarely, my prayer life is pretty lean. I just don't feel that I am in a situation to lead others to the Lord when I am not even taking care of my own relationship with him. I guess you could say I am having a dry spell.

I did feel some stirring in my soul a few weeks ago in church, and ever since then, I have felt so unsettled. I feel like I am just spinning my wheels and wasting time. The problem is, I just plain don't know what I can do. I don't know what God wants me to do, I don't know how it's going to happen.

I know that I need to open Gods word and ask him and he will tell me, but maybe part of me is nervous to do it, to find out, or maybe I am scared to find out that I have already missed some chance or opportunity and God went on to the next guy in line. Am I supposed to seek out some opportunity, am I just supposed to wait until God puts someone or something into my path?

I am just an average guy, with an average brain. That's not a bad thing, just the truth, most everyone I know also fits into this catagory, but some seem to have found their purpose and are fulfilling it. I am not feeling sorry for myself, I have a good life, two totally great kids, a good job, the best wife in the world, but something is missing. I know what it is...God's plan for my life, I just don't know how to find it.

Why I know liberals are wrong.

2006-07-26T11:29:00.000-07:00

Those of you who have known me for any length of time know that I am an unabashed conservative. I don't see how it's possible to be anything but. There are just certain things that are right and wrong and liberals are wrong on most things.

I don't have to go into details, just show you something interesting I found on a democratic website / forum that I lurk at from time to time. It's called the democratic underground, and these people need to be underground.

I was reading the response to the Andrea Yates not guilty verdict. It was very predictable. Instead of holding Andrea Yates responsible for her crimes, they were blaming the husband for them. They were actually saying things like "That poor woman has gone through enough" and "Her husband should be tried for the murders cause he was neglectful of Andreas mental problems".

Now I have some experience with mental illness, and I know it exsists and that it is terrible, but she drowned her kids!!! There was no mention I could find of anyone saying "those poor kids"....or "what they must have went through.

After a comment left by one of these nut-jobs, they have this at the end.

I think that about says it all.

Haircuts rule !!!

2006-07-20T17:26:00.000-07:00

Don't let the title of todays post confuse you. I HATE getting my hair cut. I hate the whole process. The waiting, the description of what you want done (cause they never get it right anyway), the people watching you, the WHOLE thing. It almost makes me wish I was bald, I would not have to worry about it. But as long as I have hair, it needs to be cut.

I have been needing a cut for about two weeks, it was starting to look a little shaggy, but I have been avoiding it. Today I decided to get a cut before work. I got up from my afternoon nap about 1:30 and ended up at my normal hair place (bo-rics) at about 2:00.

Sorry sir, I can't get to you until 3:00...aghhhh, I have to work at 3. So I go in search of another place. Two stops later and still no time for me... you don't want to take my money fine!! Why don't I make an appointment you ask? Cause guys don't do that do they? I mean, I have always just walked in, signed the book and waited my turn. Well not today. No one could get me in.

I made a decision after this, I will not ever go to a "salon" again. It's a waste of time and money. I went to the local Walgreens and picked up a "home" hair kit. 20 bucks later and it does not look to bad actually. It's a little hard to cut your own hair, especially in the back, but I managed. Tomorrow is Josh's turn. Just like that, the thing is paid for.

I think this will work out, that is until I mess up and scalp myself.

GO ISRAEL !!!!!

2006-07-14T11:24:00.000-07:00

I have always been both fascinated and scared of the subject of prophesy...I don't know if what is happening right now has significance in that area.

Part of me is a little worried, and I don't know why.....if the current situation with Israel does have "end time" ramifications, I should be excited as a Christian. I guess the fear of the unknown does have something to do with it, but even at that, it's not really unknown is it? We all know what is going to happen, but I am sorry, it is a little scary.

Having said that, I feel that Israel needs to KICK SOME BUTT right now. All this talk of this being a disproportionate response to the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers is crap...if anything they have not been strong enough. This conflict has been going on for thousands of years, and it will never end until God's return. That being said, these militant muslims have had this coming for a long time. I support the Israeli people completely. In fact, it's funny, the biggest supporters of Israel are American Christians.

I would take this a step further in fact, I would take this opportunity to take care of Syria and take Iran at the same time. Not a nuclear strike, but some well placed MOAB's would be great. Take out terrorist strongholds and Iran's nuclear sites in one airstrike.

The dog days of summer

2006-07-06T11:41:00.000-07:00

I am officially depressed...summer is like halfway over in a way, and itseems it has not even begun. The forth of July marks "my" halfway point to bad weather and gray skies again. I love summer, the sunshine, the warm breezes, the long days. I truly long for global warming...a tropical Michigan would suit me just fine.

It's really kind of funny in a way...how I think. When we go on a vacation, I almost can't enjoy myself fully cause back in the recess of my brain I fret that the vacation will be over too soon!!

Give me the dog days all year....!!

And I thought I was frustrated with my Internet provider!!

2006-06-21T13:53:00.000-07:00

What follows is an actual phone call from a guy trying to get his AOL service cancelled. It's too funny...you can really just imagine the frustration and anger this guy must have been feeling!!

The actual story is posted on the Drudge Report.

CLOCK READOUT - 00:00

AOL REPRESENTATIVE: Hi this is John at AOL... how may I help you today?

VINCENT FERRARI: I wanted to cancel my account.

AOL: Sorry to hear that. Let's pull your account up here real quick. Can I have your name please?

VINCENT: Vincent Ferrari.

CLOCK READOUT - 00:30

AOL: You've had this account for a long time.

VINCENT: Yup.

AOL: Use this quite a bit. What was the cause of wanting to turn this off today?

VINCENT: I just don't use it anymore.

AOL: Do you have a high speed connection, like the DSL or cable?

VINCENT: Yup.

AOL: How long have you had that...

VINCENT: Years...

AOL: ...the high speed?

VINCENT: ...years.

AOL: Well, actually I'm showing a lot of usage on this account.

VINCENT: Yeah, a long time, a long time ago, not recently...

CLOCK READOUT - 01:47

AOL: Okay, I mean is there a problem with the software itself?

VINCENT: No. I just don't use it, I don't need it, I don't want it. I just don't need it anymore.

AOL: Okay. So when you use this... I mean, use the computer, I'm saying, is that for business or for... for school?

VINCENT: Dude, what difference does it make. I don't want the AOL account anymore. Can we please cancel it?

CLOCK READOUT - 02:21

AOL: Last year was 545, last month was 545 hours of usage...

VINCENT: I don't know how to make this any clearer, so I'm just gonna say it one last time. Cancel the account.

AOL: Well explain to me what's, why...

VINCENT: I'm not explaining anything to you. Cancel the account.

AOL: Well, what's the matter man? We're just, I'm just trying to help here.

VINCENT: You're not helping me. You're helping me...

AOL: I am trying to help.

VINCENT: Helping... listen, I called to cancel the account. Helping me would be canceling the account. Please help me and cancel the account.

AOL: No, it wouldn't actually...

VINCENT: Cancel my account...

AOL: Turning off your account...

VINCENT: ...cancel the account...

AOL: ...would be the worst thing that...

VINCENT: ...cancel the account.

CLOCK READOUT - 03:02

AOL: Okay, cause I'm just trying to figure out...

VINCENT: Cancel the account. I don't know how to make this any clearer for you. Cancel the account. When I say cancel the account, I don't mean help me figure out how to keep it, I mean cancel the account.

AOL: Well, I'm sorry, I don't know what anybody's done to you Vincent because all I'm...

VINCENT: Will you please cancel the account.

CLOCK READOUT - 03:32

AOL: Alright, some day when you calmed down you're gonna realize that all I was trying to do was help you... and it was actually in your best interest to listen to me.

VINCENT: Wonderful, Okay.

CLOCK READOUT - 03:39

"I've never ever experienced anything like that," Ferrari told CNBC.

He recounts how the AOL representative - as a last resort even asked if his dad was home.

"I think I could've put up with everything, but at the point when he asked to speak to my father, I came very close to losing it at that point," said the 30-year-old Ferrari.

Ferrari then posted the call online, and the response was tremendous.

AOL sent him an apology and said the customer service rep was no longer with the company.

Copyright 2006 by NBC10.com. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

A few things that are on my mind today...

2006-06-21T07:45:00.000-07:00

I noticed that the so called "Peace Mom" Cindy Sheehan followed President Bush to Vienna Austria to protest him and the war in Iraq. Her 15 minutes of fame have long since expired. She is doing nothing to honor the memory of her son, and in fact seems to be using him at this point to furthur her own goal of remaining in the public eye. I don't know what her motives were initally, but now they just seem wrong. I hope she can live with herself.

________________________________________

I feel terrible for the two American servicemen who were kidnapped and murdered in Iraq. I am willing to bet they did not go down without a fight. What angered me even more was the response by the democrats. Instead of taking the high road and condemning the terrorists who did this, they turned it political right away. They blamed the President and the republican party. It is typical for them to do this, but the bodies had barely been cold before Howard Dean started into his usual blame America first business. Let not forget who the enemy is.

_________________________________________

This baptist church from Kentucky who continues to protest atthe funerals of killed American soldiers. Please help me understand why they are doing this. I am aware that this all stems from their belief that America as a whole does not condemn homosexuality, but tolorates it. But how in the world did they make some wierd connection between that fallen American soldiers? I understand that many of the soldiers and their families that they are protesting are professing Christans themselves. I can't believe that this church is really doing this..it is not proper and it's making us all look bad. There is a time and place for this discussion, and a funeral for fallen heros is not it.

__________________________________________

The Miami Heat winning the NBA Championship. It makes me feel a little better that the Pistons lost to the eventual champions. Miami was very good and they peaked at the right time. I don't like them very much, but a good team they were.

SPAM anyone?

2006-06-10T19:45:00.000-07:00

Today we took my wifes mom Peggy and some friends and family out into the "real" world post kidney transplant. Where did we go you might ask? Well where else than the SPAM museum. It was actually pretty cool. And we had free samples to boot. SPAM has a surprising and very interesting history...and what surprised me, it's actually meat.

Anyway, tomorrow we leave for home, so it's gonna be a long day. We have decided to bypass some of the areas we had trouble with on the way out and go south to Davenport Iowa and then across Illinois.

Later dudes..

We made it to Minnesota

2006-06-09T07:49:00.000-07:00

Sorry, posts have been a little sparse lately. My wife got home from her Minnesota trip, and it was a RELIEF!!! Even thought she had transportation from the Airport in Grand Rapids, the kids and I decided to meet her anyway. It was a very happy renuion, Julie was in tears and the kids were almost...I was as well. We had never been away from eachother for 6 days before.

Anyway, we all slept in own beds for the night and early the next day we all again packed up the car and headed BACK to Minnesota again. We decided to take the "shortest route" which was through Chicago. Lets say that I muttered a few choice words every now ang again..TRAFFIC was SOOOO bad. Out 8 hours trip took 12 with potty breaks and such. I was so frustrated, I had pounding headache for the remainder of the drive. We are definately picking alternete routes back.

Mom is great, the new kidney is great. Some minor things the doctors are keeping an eye on.

Keep praying for us and the family if you would.

Two prayer requests

2006-05-31T11:19:00.000-07:00

Ok....let's right to the point...I am not cut out to be a stay at home dad. I have already had a very high opinion of stay at home parents. It is truly one of the hardest jobs in the world. You stay at home parents...don't ever let anyone put you down for your choice to stay at home.

My wife left today for the MAYO clinic to be with her mom who is getting a kidney transplant tomorrow. So please pray for her and her mom and the rest of the family. It should be fine, this is major surgery, but she has two of the best doctors in the nation. My wifes mom name is Peggy, and her donors name is Kathy.

Second, I have the kids ALONE (with a few babysitters and grandparents helping out), but I have the kids for the next 6 days without their mom. This is going to be a little hard for me and them cause we love their mom and will miss her. I have to do baths, bedtime stuff, diapers, playing airplanes, medicines, etc. SO PLEASE PRAY for me that I can do this and do it right!!

I will keep you posted on how it's going, both the transplant and home front.

A great day for baseball.

2006-05-21T08:24:00.000-07:00

First off all, before you go on, please take a moment and pray for my friend Donetta "Donut" as I call her. Her little girl is having a very rough time right now with some serious health issues, go to Donetta's link on my page and read about it. I can't imagine what she, and Andy her husband must be going through. Pray that her little girl recovers completely and soon.

Yesterday, Josh, my dad and my father in law went to a Detroit Tigers baseball game. I had been planning it for a while. The Tigers are doing very well this year and my interest in baseball has been peaked again. I have always loved baseball and the Tigers, but for the past 15 years or so, the Tigers have given me little to be excited about. But this year, it's a different team, they are in first place and are finding ways to win. Yesterday they had a big lead and blew it on a Ken Griffey Jr grand slam (which I almost caught). We all thought they were going to lose. Going into the 9th inning they were down by a run. The Tigers of old would have folded, but not this year. Curtis Granderson hit a tying home run in the 9th with two outs and they won the game in the tenth inning. The place was going nuts, it was so cool.

My son had a great time also, we went on the tiger merry-go-round, had ball park food, blew a bunch of cash on junk..it was great.

It was so great to be able to have Josh experience this game with both of his grandfathers. I really don't know how many more times he will be able to do something like with with them both. I am really into making memories for Josh and Abby. I was not able to do these kind of things with my grandfathers cause they were older and in ill health when I was growing up...well, more than that, I don't even know who one grandfather is...but that's another long story.

We got a little lost on the way to the ballpark...we ended up driving through the bad part of Detroit (well it's all bad, but some parts are worse than others). That was a unique experience also, you really get a feel for how great most of us have it when you see what the other half lives like. It makes me grateful and a little sad. As Christians, we really need to open our eyes to the problems in our own backyards, not just in Africa and China and the rest of the world. I am getting a little more "liberal" as I grow older in this regard. I believe that the Democrats have it wrong in MOST areas, but they seem to be more aware of the issue of poverty. Too bad they wrap it up in other packages and tend to blame it on race and other stuff and not the true problem, which is the lack of a personal relationship with God. Anyway...off topic.

Here are some photos of our day at the ball park. Josh and I were able to walk out on the field and run the outfield and see the players giving "clinics" to the kids on how to play the game. We met the hero of the game, Curtis Granderson as he was walking from one clinic to another, it was really a good day.

Remember to pray for Donut and her family and little girl also.

A day at the beach...

2006-05-06T18:46:00.000-07:00

Today was spring cleaning at our cottage in Grand Haven. We try to get some of the family up there to help my folks get the "Rest a While" in shape for the summer season. The cottage is a great place to hang out and relax...hence the name.

My folks have had the cottage for going on 50 years I think...I have many many happy memories growing up there in fact. When I was a lad, we would pretty much live there the months of May and June.

My folks rent the place out to vacationers during the summer, which is a point of debate right now. My parents are not getting any younger and I wish we could be there with them more. I don't think I have ever spent my birthday or the fourth of July there cause it's always rented. It used to be they had to rent it to pay the taxes, which are outragous, but they really don't have to do that any more...at least not so much. I am trying to talk them into renting it only a couple of weeks, but so far we are not having much luck convincing them...

At any rate, we spent the day there today cleaning and doing yard work...it was a beautiful day, so had to take some pictures. Josh and Abby just LOVE it there, they never want to leave. The cottage is not right on Lake Michigan...it's on a hill behind the cottages that overlook the lake, but we can still see and hear the water. There is also a woods behind the cottage that we love to walk in...Josh loves to look for deer and birds and bugs.

As I was walking in the woods today with the kids, it just really struck me how blessed I was to grow up in the family I was given. It is so great to see my own kids now enjoying the same things I did when I was there age. God is good.

An observation.

2006-05-02T17:22:00.000-07:00

Now, I am sure this is not an original thought. I am sure it has been part of Jerry Seinfelds act at one time or another, but I don't remember it. So I will make this observation anyway.

I was at the ATM drive up the other day when I noticed that there is Braille on it...Braille is the bumpy lettering that blind folks use to read...it's quite an accomplishment to be able to run your fingers over a couple of bumps and decipher letters and numbers. And being one eye away from being blind myself, I have a great deal of sympathy for the blind.

Anyway...it does make me kind of wonder however why there are Braille letters on a drive up ATM machine...does that not strike anyone as odd?

Beating a dead horse

2006-05-01T09:32:00.000-07:00

I know that I am "beating a dead horse" here...but will the Lions ever learn? Why would you draft an undersized linebacker with a history of concussion problems over a top quarterback with a proven winning attitude? The rule of the draft is take the best player available.

Why could they not learn from the Steelers for example...Big Ben drops into their laps a few years ago when no one expected him to the there...they have now won a super bowl. No one expected Lienart to fall to the 9th pick...but when he does..how can you pass him up? Another stupid move from a stupid organization.

At least Lienart now has a chance to win...in Arizona? Who would have figured.

The yo-yo effect.

2006-05-01T09:22:00.000-07:00

The biggest problem with losing a bunch of weight is not having to by new clothes, thats a pain, but not the biggest one. The biggest problem is worrying about gaining the weight back. I already have some issues with being obsessive, so this is not a good senario in any sense.

What I have come up with is this...not the best solution, but it works for me. I exercise 5 days a weeks and take weekends off. I also watch what I eat a little more during the week...but on the weekend when I am with family and friends, I don't watch it so much. Yesterday was the annual Kidney Walk for West Michigan. I walked, then I had a hamburger and a hotdog...potato salad and cole slaw and baked beans. I did feel a little guilty...I know I should not have, cause it's back to the gym today.

I really want to avoid being a yo-yo dieter...it's not good for your body and it's not good for the spirit. I think If I let myself enjoy Saturday and Sundays without worrying about eating a little "worse" I can make this a lifestyle change and not just a diet.

Keeping up with the Jones's

2006-04-27T10:54:00.000-07:00

I have always desired a nice yard, but it seems that I never have the time, energy or money to do it. Well, I still don't have any of these three things, but I have made the time and expended the energy, and thanks to uncle Sam and a tax return, I have some money.

When Julie and I built the house a few years ago, we didn't have much money then either, so we had to cut a few things from the construction plans. One of these was a front walkway from the garage to the front porch.

I priced concrete this spring and found that it was way too much. Plus, Julie really didn't want concrete anyway, too common and unappealing for her. She wanted something more rustic and unique.

We decided to make our own little garden path or walkway from natural materials. Some of you remember by post a few weeks ago about getting stuck in the field trying to get fieldstones...well, this is why.

Anyway, I finally am finished with the one part of the project, I do have the other side of the house to do yet. But I wanted to get some pictures while our tulips were still looking pretty.

For those of you unfamiler with Holland Michigan, it's "Tulip Time" in a week or so. This is when we have a bunch of parades and marching bands and klompen dancers and stuff. It's one of the largest festivals in the country and draws like a million visitors or something crazy like that. It's a celebration of our towns Dutch heritage. Anyway, we all like to plant tulips and dress our kids in wooden shoes and take pictures in front of the tulips. But don't pick the flowers in town, it's like a thousand dollar fine for each one!!

Anyway, here are some pictures of our yard...we have a ways to go...but it's turning out pretty nice if I do say so myself.

Whats wrong with George?

2006-04-25T07:20:00.000-07:00

I am a George Bush supporter, I am a republican, but before both of those, I am a conservative. But like about 65 precent of the country, I am getting a little fed up with this President. I want to defend him and his actions against looney liberals, but I am finding it harder and harder to do so.

I guess what really is getting me upset is the illegal immigration thing. I am sick of hearing things come out of his mouth like "people in the shadows" and "guest worker program" and "jobs no American want to do". Does he not understand that most of us want one thing...our borders enforced.

Second...Gas prices. I know that there may not be a whole lot he can do...and I don't want the government messing with the free market by fixing prices...this isn't Canada. However...he could at least act like he is interested. Has he been riding in a limo so long he forgets what it's like to full half your tank cause you can't afford to fill the whole thing.

Third...I am sick of him and his administration just sitting by while the dirty Democraps take shot after shot at him and us. Why won't he get his hands a little dirty also and start to defend himself. I wish he would have a weekly TV address and just take the offensive and call these punks out.

I am truly concerned about the 2006 elections...I have a feeling that we are going to get our clocks cleaned. Part of it is this administrations fault. I still support George...but it's not unconditional anymore.

Like Father Like Son...

2006-04-23T17:30:00.000-07:00

My son Joshua is a great kid...he is really growing up fast. Part of this growing in him always wanting to be with me, help me with chores and work around the house. This is great cause I love to be with him too. Not only does he seem to want to be with me, but he wants to be like me too. This is also great..kind of.

It is kind of scary atually is some ways...cause I am not without faults...I know thats hard to believe, but it's true. I do want him to be like me, only better. I don't want him to make the same mistakes I did and do. I don't want him to share in my moodiness, or my short tempter, or a thousand other faults.

More than anything I want Josh to grow up and imitate me less, and imitate his heavenly father more. I am taking this responsibility seriously. I know that a huge part of this is myself imitating God in what I do, what I say and how I act. Just today, Josh and I had to go to Meijers to pick up a few things and in the parking lot there was a lady who was taking her sweet time walking and I wanted to park the car. I found myself saying out loud.."Move it or loose it lady". I could have said a lot worse, and it was said in a jokeing sort of way...but what did I hear from the back seat...yep. This is the kind of stuff that we all do every day without evening thinking about it. Will hearing this influence Josh negatively..probably not...but is it something God would say..probably not.

I have been doing some landscape work around the house. When I get done, I will post it in a picture. Anyway, part of this work is hauling stuff around in a wheel barrow. Josh has been wanting to help me...but with one wheel barrow there is only so much a 5 year old can do. So I went to Menards and we got him his own wheel barrow yesterday. He loves it, we hauled mulch yesterday together.

Anyway this picture captured it all for me. I got a good chuckle out of the lesson it taught me. It frankly brought a smile to my face. Imagine how much God likes it when we act like a five year old kid and just want to be with him and please him. I bet he also gets a big ol grin.

Phat Man

2006-04-20T08:15:00.000-07:00

I told myself I was going to do this a few months ago, but I have been a bit nervous about it, cause it's opening myself up a bit on the internet than I want to. It is a bit embarrassing actually.

Let me preface this by apologizing if these pictures offend anyone. I suppose they are nothing you don't see at any public pool across America on a summer day.

I had been steadily putting on weight for a few years now. Really ever since college I have been battling the buldge. I make no excuses, I do like to eat. However, I also have a thyroid gland that does not work, so that makes it hard to lose weight and easy to gain it.

I went to Florida in January and when I saw the pictures of myself, I was a bit mortified by what I saw. I was not huge, but I was getting there. I was nearly 200 lbs at my highest. Being about 5'9" that was pretty big.

My pant size had gone up from 34 only a few years ago to 38 now, and that was getting tight. I had to buy new belts...it was just getting a little out of hand.

But until Florida, I just didn't have the motivation to do anything.

When we got home in mid January, I decided to do something about it. I started to lift weights and run. But then I had my little accident and my ankle sprain caused me to miss a couple of weeks.

Now I had to find another form of excercise. Actually, I hate running, so it was not a huge deal. I started to go to the gym and use the eliptical trainer every night after work. I have steadily increased my resistance and my time. I am now up to 30 minutes, 5 days a week.

My goal was 170 lbs, but I have been pushing that a bit also. I am now down to 165 and shooting for 160. Once I hit that, I will switch from losing weight to maintaining.

I have really been struggling lately however...I am getting a little sick of it. That's the purpose for this post...if I get this out there...you guys can keep me accountable and it forces me to keep it up.

Anyway...please don't take this as me being proud, or showing off in any way...it's not like that at all. I am not crazy about this post at all...I still feel that I have a ways to go. But looking at these pictures, I have made some progress I think.

Easter and such...

2006-04-17T08:21:00.000-07:00

I have just not felt like blogging lately, but as always, I can count on my buddy Fetz give me a topic to cover. This time it was the Easter holiday...and the topic, well, Fetz....he spent Easter with our family. Fetz was the life of the party as usual...my family really liked him so it seemed.

Mud, rocks and pain...

2006-03-28T08:11:00.000-08:00

Ok, sometimes I really feel like that guy in the cartoon, "The born loser". I know that's not true, and I know that this kind of stuff happens to everyone, but I still can't help but feel that if I believed in "luck", I would have all bad luck.

Julie and I decided to create a nice inviting walkway in the front of our home. The area was never finished when we built cause we did not have the funds at the time. Anyway, instead of boring and expensive concrete, we decided to create a nice garden path made from natural materials. In order to keep this material from spilling over into the surrounding lawn and landscaping, you need some kind of buffer material. I choose fieldstone.

Now fieldstone is not cheap, believe it or not. We priced it at about 14 cents a pound, and I needed about 4000 lbs of the stuff. Thats like 450.00...FOR ROCKS!!! Now to me thats like paying for bottled water..I just don't get it...

My wife Julie (whom I blame for this whole mess!!) said..."well my grandpa would have just went into the field and got the rocks himself". I thought...yeah, thats right...my dad owns 100 acres of fields and woods...there has to be rocks back there. And there was, plenty of them...I found the jackpot back there.

I took my truck and trailer back into the woods and found about 500 lbs worth that my great grandpa had put there 30 plus years ago...it was work, but I got them back to my home without incident. I was pretty beat, but I still had a few hours before work so I thought I better go back and try to get another load from the field. I should have listened to my inner voice and quit while I was ahead and went back another time. But I don't like to put off till tomorrow what I can do today.

I took the Jimmy and the trailer out into the field. I got about 500 yards from the access road and near a drainage ditch. By that time I had already about another 300 lbs of stones in the trailer. I stopped that truck and got out to get another stone I had spotted and when I got back in the truck and tried to drive away...I didn't move. I was stuck, but not bad yet...but instead of doing what I should have done, which was unhitch the trailer and get the truck out first...I just gunned it...and I just kept spinning. Those of you who have ever been stuck before in snow or mud know that you should NEVER do this, you just sink in deeper. The correct course of action would have been to just stop, get some material like boards or cat litter, something to give you some traction and put it under the tires.

Well I did not, I just kept jerking that truck back and forth trying to get myself out of the mess I was in...but only sinking down farther each time.

My dad, my wife and my uncle all warned me to be careful out there even before I went out, they said I could get stuck...but did I listen? NOOOOO....and now I was determined to get out without anyone finding out what a dunderhead I was.

Finally I realized that this was not going to work and I needed help. But I could not get another truck from anyone cause they would just get stuck too. I realized I was going to have to call a tow truck...it was the only was I was ever going to get out of this mess.

I called my insurance company and made sure I had towing coverage...and they said I did. I even explained to them what kind of situation I was in, and they recommeded a tow company to me. I thought, great, this is going to be ok, it's covered by insurance and all I have to do is wash the truck and it's like it never happened.

In the meantime, my dad who lived just down the road from me, became aware of the situation and came out to see what I had gotten into. He took his little two wheel drive nissan out into the field...not near as far as me, but far enought that HE ALSO GOT STUCK!! It was like the blind leading the blind...that us guys for you.

I had called the tow truck and they finally arrived and surveyed the situation. They first pulled my dad out, no charge cause he was close to the road. Next he tried me...he got as close to me as he could and realized that he was now stuck as well...unbelieveable!! So they had to call another tow truck to get me and him out!!!

Finally we all got out...and then I got the bill. 250.00!!! But it was ok cause I was covered right...wrong. It turns out that my insurance company failed to mention that I was only covered for regular tows, not a "recovery" as this was. They would not help at all...not a penny.

I was a little upset..I mean I called them and explained the situation and they never once said anything about me not being covered. I was a little upset when I called them back...I was not very Christian like...and I regret that...but it was still upsetting. Now my insurance guy is a good guy, a former police officer. Finally after some talking and pleading, I got him to agree to pull some strings and help me out a little bit, not the whole bill by any means...but something is better than nothing.

Now you would think that this is the end of the story...but it's not. My wife called me at work later that night and said she hated to tell me this....but the truck was running funny. I just about cryed!! I went home that night after work at 11 pm and took off all the tires and cleaned them out cause Julie said the truck was shaking when she drove it. If there was mud in the rims, it would throw off the balance of the wheels and cause them to shake. And I was right, that was the problem. But is the story done now...no...not yet. The nest day I was driving my son to school when the front of the truck started to shake.

I took in to my guy...broken front axle. I must have broken the axle when I was jerking the truck back and forth. Another 200 bucks. By this point it was just too unbelievable to be upsetting, it was almost comical.

So moral of the story...DO NOT TRY TO SAVE MONEY BY DOING ANYTHING YOURSELF!!!

Lets talk church part 2

2006-03-28T07:06:00.000-08:00

I have really been struggling with church lately. I thought that perhaps Central was not where we were supposed to be any more. I thought I perhaps they were moving in a direction that I didn't understand. I was really ready to search for another place of worship. But lately, I have been a little convicted that maybe I am just being too picky and no where is going to be perfect. I also think that part of my problem is that I have not really been involved in anything...I know that I work on second shift, and that makes it harder to get involved, but perhaps that has just been an excuse I have been clinging to. I think that if I really wanted to get plugged in somewhere, I could.

There is an opportunity in a few weeks called "The Plunge". We can volunteer in the community somewhere to so something...maybe I will give that some thought. In the meantime, pray that I could find my niche, even working second shift.

Mans best friend...or mans wife...

2006-03-12T17:21:00.000-08:00

Well, okay, this post is hard to write, in fact I don't even know why I am except to save some poor guy from making the same mistake I made. That being said, here is the whole said sorted affair.

I have been wanting a dog for some time now. We used to have a dog when Joshua was a baby..her name was Maggie. She was a beagle and generally a good dog. Maggie did not care to much for me, but she loved my wife. She did like me at first until I tried to exercise my status as MASTER one day. It's a long story that involved a pig ear she was chewing on. Anyway...like I said, she was a good dog most of the time, but she did have her issues, I think she might have been a product of a puppy mill. She was not very good with Joshua when he would tease her and one day nipped at his face and drew a little blood. We decided it was time to part ways and we found her a good home without kids.

That was a few years ago and the pull for a dog was growing again. I have been bugging Julie for a while now and she has been resistant. Not because she does not want a dog, but because she is not ready to deal with the work it would be. Abby is still in diapers and still demands a lot of attention. Julie said it would be overwhelming and could not deal with the work.

I being a guy, did not understand. I seemed to have blocked out the memories of the work that went along with a dog. The potty training, the letting outside and taking for walks, the little messes left and shoes chewed up.

To counter her claim, I thought, well why not get an older dog that is already potty trained. So I kept an eye out for such an canine. I found what I thought was a good opportunity in the ads on our work bulletin board. 3 year old Golden Retriever, free to good home. Heck, we were a good home. So I made plans to meet the dog. I ran the idea by Julie and met some stiff resistance to the idea. But again, I thought it could not hurt to at least see the dog right? Well I did go to see the dog and she was pretty, and seemed to be pleasant. My daughter Abby was with me, and the dog was licking her, and she was giggling away.

Well I asked the guy if we could try the dog out for a few days to see if she would be a good fit. The guy agreed and asked when I would like to take her home. Well, instead of doing what I should have done and got the OK from Julie I said..heck why not now!! So the dog came home with me right then and there. I thought if Julie saw the dog, she would see how cute she was and how much Abby liked her and she would give in. Bad idea.

I got home and opened the front door and let the dog in. In all my scheaming, I forgot about a small but very important issue. We have two cats. The door was not sooner open then that dog, all 70 pounds of her was tearing through the house in chase of our cat Woody. Woody managed to get to safety under the bed. The dog was doing it's best to get under as well. I managed to get the dog away, but poor Woody was not moving.

This all happened in about 5 minutes time. My plan to ease Julie into this was up in flames. And if looks could kill...well you know the rest.

The dog was loaded back into the truck, and about 30 minutes later, she was back home again. I felt bad and stupid as I brought her back...and to make matters worse, my son Josh was now upset that we had a dog and them suddenly didn't.

In the five minutes the dog was in our home I went from wanting a dog now, to not sure if I ever want one again. The memories of the work of dog ownership came flooding back to me very quickly.

And today, I found one last little reminder of my folly..a pile of steaming dog doo in the basement!!

Mister Mom

2006-02-26T14:31:00.000-08:00

This is my 100th post...wow. Cool.

My wife Julie went out to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota this past Thursday to Saturday...and she did not take the kids with her. Her mom was having tests to determine the right course of action for a much needed and anticipated kidney transplant. Julies folks wanted Julie to come out for a couple of days to translate doctor speak into English. Being an RN, she is qualified for this job.

The doctors were great and they got back on Saturday with some real hope that this is going to happen this spring.

Back home, I spent most of three days with the kids, washing, feeding, playing, etc. I must say that I would not like to do this all the time. I have a great respect for mom's who stay home with their kids 24/7. For people that say it's not a real job...I have news for you...it's harder that you think.

We had a babysitter from 3 to 11 on Friday cause I had to work...and I did not mind going to work that day. Not that I did not enjoy spending so much time with the kids..it was wonderful and I have great kids. But by Friday afternoon I was ready for a break. I could never be a Mr. MOM full time.

Kudos to stay at home moms and dads everywhere, and those that would like to be.

Lets talk church....

2006-02-21T10:44:00.000-08:00

As many of you are aware, Julie and I have been struggling for the past months with what is God's will for us is in regard to our church home. We really struggled with remaining steadfast and sticking it out with out current church, or finally making a move.

I know of several people who are "church hoppers", and we did not want to fall into the mold. I even posted several months ago on this same topic, and many of you were kind enough to give me your opinions. I really appreciated that a great deal.

Since that time, there have been several events that have taken place, both in our church and not that have really made our decision for us. We have to leave our church. That has not been easy for me personally, I have been attending our current church now since I was a kid.

Julie has obligated herself to help with nursery, so we are not just up and leaving right now, but the search is officially on. Our first church we are going to visit is called the Lakeshore Vineyard. If any of you have any knowledge of this rather new branch or denomination, let us know your experiences. You can click on the title of this post for their website.

Josh turns 5...watch out!!

2006-02-10T19:38:00.000-08:00

My son Joshua turned 5 this week...it is so hard to believe. Part of me is a little sad to see him growing up so fast. He will be going to the same kindergarten that I went to next year.

I am enjoying watching him grow and discover and learn, but I just don't want him to grow up too fast. It seems like, well only 5 years ago that he was born. What a day that was..but thats a story for another time.

Here are some photos of his birthday lunch at Logan's steakhouse and a couple of his gifts..

Wanna know what makes me mad?

2006-02-10T08:17:00.000-08:00

I don't normally get the newspaper, nothing in it worth reading really. But my folks are in Florida right now, and they do get the paper. So while they are gone, I have been stealing their newspaper. Actually they said I could...

Anyway, I used to be a regular writer to the editor, but I frankly lost interest after a while. However after reading a letter to the editor today, I could not stop my self from responding to something written. Here it is. And my response follows...we will see if it gets published.

Abortion doesn't kill 'babies'

To the Editor:

The brief letter by Dar Van Den Bosch in Tuesday's Sentinel is incorrect and misleading. The leading cause of infant death is sudden infant death syndrome, according to the National Institute of Health. Infants are not killed in an abortion. Fetuses are. There is a difference.

The greatest childhood killer isn't abortion. The greatest threat to women's health: Ignorance.

Angela Santure, Park Township

It has been some time since I felt the need to offer my opinion on a subject. I frankly grew tired of trying to defend my conservative beliefs against some of the regular liberal rants appearing in the opinions area of the paper.

However, Ms. Angela Santure from Park Township jolted me out of recent complancency.
She was responding to an earlier letter written by Dar Van Den Bosch about how abortion was the number one killer of infants in America.

Ms. Santure writes "Infants are not killed in an abortion. Fetuses are. There is a difference".

I just about fell of the chair...what a ignorant and abolute ridiculous statement.

Please Ms. Santure, what is the difference? If you are going to make such a statement, please use some science to back it up. What is the difference? 2 weeks, 4 weeks, 8 weeks? When in your opinion does that "fetus" become an infant? 1 minute after she's born? How about 1 minute before she is born? How about 1 day or one week or even on month?

Mock the President, fine...undermine our troops in Iraq..if you must...but if you want to get my blood boiling, reduce the life of a helpless child to nothing but a piece of meat to be destroyed and tossed aside like it was worthless.

Abortion is INDEED the number one killer of infants in this country. Women want the choice, but no one ever asks the baby if she wants to live or die. Abortion is the single most violent form of child abuse and the sooner it's abolished the better.

So go ahead Ms. Santure, continue to speak and fight for your right to kill babies. I can assure you, those of us who value life will do the same to make this terrible practice a thing of the past.

And thank you Ms. Van Den Bosch for your willingness to make your opnion known.

Kids

2006-02-10T05:15:00.000-08:00

I am sitting here at the computer today with one kid laying on our bed watching cartoons and the other kid actually standing ON the computer desk next to me pulling on cords and making a mess of my already messy desk.

What does this mean? It means that I am a pushover, and it also means that I have two normal well-adjusted and happy children. I am so blessed to have two beautiful and normal, naughty, yet great kids. Sometimes I don't remember what life was like without them. It is really hard to even imagine life without them, nor do I want to even try.

I apologize to those of you who want kids but don't have them, I also apologize to those of you who want kids but can't have them for the nature of this post. Julie and I struggled for Josh, for a while we wondered ourselves about our ability to produce our own children. God saw fit to trust us and bless us with Josh and Abby. We take that as a great responsibility and gift and are both determined to bring them up right and bring them to Jesus.

Joshua has school today and I am pleading with him to get dressed, and Abby is now under the sink in the bathroom doing who knows what so I better run and get them ready to go. After I drop Josh off at school, Abby and I are off to the mall to look for a Valentines day gift for Julie. Julie, if you read this, disregard that last statement.

Detroit atop NHL after fifth in row

2006-02-10T05:12:00.000-08:00

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- The Wings got their revenge. And they scored three unanswered goals to come from behind and do it.

The Wings completed a home-and-home sweep over the Nashville Predators with a 3-2 victory Thursday night at the Gaylord Entertainment Center. The Wings, with 81 points, leapfrogged Carolina (80) for first place in the NHL standings, and the victory raised Detroit's lead in the Central Division to nine points over the second-place Predators.

Red Wings deep-six Predators

2006-02-10T05:10:00.000-08:00

They had him on his back, as helpless as a turtle out of water.

On several occasions he was nearly stuffed inside his net, swarmed by big men in red sweaters, pouncing on a helpless prey.

Sometimes he found himself belly down, arms flapping and legs kicking as the Wings used him for target practice, looking more like a snow angel on ice than a goaltender who nearly shut them down in consecutive games two weeks ago.

The Wings relentlessly attacked Nashville goalie Tomas Vokoun, unleashing shot after shot and using a three-goal second period to cruise to a 6-0 victory over the Predators at Joe Louis Arena.

Game's third team upstaged Steelers, Hawks

2006-02-06T10:03:00.000-08:00

I just found this article on ESPN. There are probably many more, but here is a sample...click on the title link to read the whole article.

"DETROIT -- Three weeks ago, after the Steelers held on to upset Indianapolis, Joey Porter was unhappy about the overturning of Troy Polamalu's fourth-quarter interception that could have sealed the win much earlier. Believing that deep down the league preferred Peyton Manning and the Colts to win, Porter publicly criticized the game officials, asking them not to "take the game from us."

Well, the Steelers can call it even now, as the officials who performed well enough throughout the season to earn the privilege of working Super Bowl XL performed Sunday as though they were trying to make it up to the Steelers by giving them the game -- not just any game, but the biggest game. And, yes, this time the other guys, the Seahawks, cried conspiracy, only not quite as loudly as Porter. "

Superbowl or not?

2006-02-06T09:34:00.000-08:00

As I was listening to all the hype this year in the lead up to the Super Bowl...I thought struck me...Should not all Sunday's be Super?

That thought aside....this years super bowl game for me was kind of a letdown. I LOVE football, and I love the Superbowl...but I really did not have a team I cared about too much in the final game this year. I liked one player a lot. He played for the Seahawks, Shaun Alexander is an outspoken Christian, (In spite of some pouting last year about a contract). So I was rooting for the Seahawks.

I have a friend that is a die hard Steeler fan, you know him as Fetz. I called him prior to the game and the poor guy was a nervous wreck !!! I was not rooting for the Steelers, but there was no reason..just cause I like an underdog I guess. And this year, no one was giving the Hawks much of a chance..I don't know why, but it seemed like the talking heads were already crowning the Steelers before the game was even played.

So that being said...I was very disappointed in how the officials called this game. It was one bad call after another, and most went against the Seahawks. There were touchdowns taken away that should have counted, there were touchdowns granted that should not have counted. There were phantom holding calls all over that place, and they were at important times. From the opening few plays it seemed that the officials were trying to decide which way the game was going to go..and that dissapointed me. In an game of this magnitude, an official should be more careful with his whistle. Just let the teams play...if something is obvious, than call it, but if it's border line, let the players play.

I am happy for the Steelers and their fans. The Steelers had a long and hard road to even get to the big game, they beat some great teams along the way. I am happy for "The Bus", he is a good player and a good guy, it was a storybook ending to a great career.

For a good analysis of the game, let's go to my other friend Jon777:

" Congrats to the Steelers. It is nice to see a city with usually very bad teams have a championship once in a while. It was an ugly win for them, but a Super Bowl Championship nonetheless. I just can't believe they won on an almost TD, a 75 yard fluke of a run, and a trick play. Seattle's defense shut them down most of the game, but they never gave up and seemed to catch the breaks.

The Seahawks were the better football team, but not in the final score, the only thing that really counts. Their offensive line was great and definitely won their battle against the Steeler defensive line and linebackers. I wish they had run the ball a little more, but they were having success passing too.

The Seattle defense gave up only 2 large plays (both for TDs though) but that's about it. Their offense moved the ball consistently on the slightly overrated Steelers defense. They just couldn't convert opportunities to points--JStevens dropped 3 key passes, the missed FGs and yes, several bad calls on very key plays.

I don't think any part of the ball crossed the goalline on the first TD, but the reply wasn't clear enough to overrule. What bugged me about that TD was that the line judge on that play didn't indicate TD until Ben rolled the ball into the endzone, that's what made that one such a bad call. He obviously didn't see the ball cross the plane.

The offensive pass interference on the Seattle TD reception was a weak call but he did have his hand on the defensive player. I can accept that one just like I could accept Hasselbeck getting away with a fumble just because the defensive player happened to touch Hasselbeck before he fell down. Controversial, but acceptable calls.

The blocking below the waist call against Hasselbeck was a bad call. How can you say he was blocking another guy when he made direct contact, tackling the ball carrier? Pathetic call.

The worst though was when JStevens caught a great pass on about the 2 yard line but it was called back because of a horrible holding call on Seattle's right tackle. What made this probably the worst play of the game was the fact not only was there no holding, but the left defensive end he was blocking on that play was totally offsides. In fact he was on the play before and maybe the play after. I believe it resulted in a long, missed field goal attempt. This was the turning point of the game as the refs took all of Seattle's momentum and gave it to Pittsburgh.

I like both teams, but was rooting for the Seahawks. I'm not normally into all that predestination stuff, but things were put in place for the Steelers to win this world championship. They weren't the best team this year, but came out on top with a great run of games in Jan.-Feb. I'm happy for you, Jeff."

So there we are, another season of Football is over...now comes the long hot summer....Maybe the Tigers will contend this year in Baseball.

Superbowl, yes, but was it super?...not really.

Legend of the fall....

2006-02-04T10:06:00.000-08:00

Here is an updated picture of my ankle....pretty bad I must say....

A fall to remember

2006-02-02T15:18:00.000-08:00

I have recently begun a new exercise routine, sort of a New Years resolution I guess. I don't like to make New Years resolutions cause it just puts undue stress in yourself to keep with the program. However, I decided that I was sick of being soft and flabby and wanted to get back in shape.

I waited until our trip to Florida was over because I knew I would never be able to stick to any kind of diet while on vacation. I have begun to really watch what I am eating and lift some weights. Those of you who knew me in college know that I used to run a bit, so I thought I had better start that again as well. The running has not been easy to get back into...I have struggled a great deal so far. I was starting to get my groove back today, I felt pretty good. After about 1/2 mile, my foot strayed off the asphalt and caught the edge of the road and down I went. A second to third degree ankle sprain.

I hobbled back home in some pretty intense pain. The ankle swelled up to the size of a baseball. It was bad enough that we thought there might be some real damage done. I had to into the prime care clinic and have it x-rayed to rule out a break of tear of anything. The good news is after the usual 2 hour ordeal of waiting, my x-rays came back negative.

The moral of the story is...don't try to improve yourself..it just leads to pain!!

I will be still lifting weights and stuff, but running is going to be out for a couple of weeks. For those of you interested...here was my ankle.

The End of the Spear

2006-01-29T10:21:00.000-08:00

Last night, my wife Julie and I had the rare opportunity of have a "Date Night". We don't get the chance much anymore. Our kids stayed home with our Hope College babysitter and we headed to the movies and to dinner.

We decided to see the new film "The End of the Spear". This has some special significance for us as we had been to Ecuador on a mission trip before we had children and for some reason, that country holds a bit of nostalgia to us.

I knew the story, and what happened 50 years ago in the Amazon River basin. I had read a book of the events several years ago as well. I really did not know what to expect from the movie however.

I had heard several things. That the movie was told from the perspective of the Waodani tribe and left out the salvation part of the story, that the movie was not very well acted, that the movie was not very well filmed, and of course that the movie was a preachy piece of "tripe". Of course, all these reviews were from the likes of the New York Times, The Village Voice", Hollywood Reported, etc. None of the critics were favorable to anything with a Christian message. These were also the same critics who hated "The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe", "The Passion", and fell all over themselves over the horrible "Brokeback Mountain. So if they did not like it, I thought that was a good thing.

My observations of the movie were this. It was very well acted, the characters were very believable. It was shot beautifully. The story was a little confusing at times, you really had to pay attention. There were references to God and Salvation, but they were not "in your face". If you had some knowledge of the story before you went to the film you were better off.

At one time during the movie, when the missionaries when getting speared, I was truly angry myself, I was almost ready to leave the theatre cause I was mad !! That does not happen to me, I am able to compartmentalize these things and I did understand the rest of the story, but the brutal and needless killing of these guys was to much. Than I began to think that this HAD to happen to bring this group of people to a place where they could truly accept the gospel. The whole chain of events in this true story was divinely inspired.

At this point the story took a new turn as the families of the slain men actually went and found the tribe responsible for their deaths and joined the tribe. It was at their own peril they did this as the tribe was still deeply rooted in their brutal revenge killing ways. But over time and with much prayer and work, the women and then some of the men began to have their hearts changed. Finally the son of one of the killed men learns who killed his father. And this is where the true miracle of the story happens. There is forgiveness and the son and his dad's killer actually bond see eachother as family.

This was truly and great movie. Look no furthur than treatment the mainstream press gives it...they hate it, and that tells me it is truly something special.

We came, we saw, we came home.

2006-01-23T07:37:00.000-08:00

This past week Wednesday our family packed up and headed down south, the destination, Palm Beach Florida. Fun in the sun for a few days. My wife's parents, Bob and Peggy have a time share condo and this year decided to use their time at Marriots Ocean Shores resort in Palm Beach. They gave each of us kids an all expenses paid few days with them as a Christmas gift. It was our turn from Wed to Sun of this past week.

We went on an amphibious boat/truck in the intercoastal waterway and saw the homes of the rich and famous, we went on an airboat ride in the everglades, we went swimming in the ocean (I got stung on the toe by a jellyfish), we hung out at the pool (Josh has morphed into a fish), we went to great restaurants, we saw the home a in Lake Worth that Julies dad used to live in in 1950 something, and generally had fun.

First let me say that we were very thankful for the time away and the gift, it was wonderful. Next let me say, it was NOT LONG ENOUGH. As I have said previously, I HATE WINTER WITH AN ABSOLUTE PASSION. It was so nice, no..it was so AWESOME to see and feel the hot sun on your face again, I can't even explain it with words. The sound of the ocean, the feel of soft warm air on your face at night. I was actually a little emotional when we had to leave. I just did not want to come back to this dreary and cold state.

Thank's mom and dad DeVries for the gift of the sun. It was great, now I only have to wait 4 months for the sun to return to Michigan...the wait is going to be unbearable.

Living End....

2006-01-15T08:39:00.000-08:00

Many of you are probably not aware of the fact that I used to be part of an award winning singing group. No, I am not kidding. Starting in 9th grade I was a member of the Living End singers. We were a High School singing group from Central Wesleyan Church were I grew up and actually still attend. We were pretty good. No thanks to me, cause frankly I could not sing very well.

There was an open door policy, no auditions were needed to join, if you wanted to be a part of the group, you were in. That was pretty cool, cause if I would have had to auditioned, I and many others in the group would have been in trouble. Jack Lynn was our choir director and leader, he was a great singer himself and was a great mentor and leader to the group. I don't know how he did it frankly, but he managed to make us sound good enough to win many singing competitions. Many of the competitions actually took place down at Indiana Wesleyan before we were students there. In fact, it was probably why I finally attended IWU, along with a lot of my co-choir members.

Every Spring Break, the choir would go on "Tour". We traveled the country in buses going from church to church singing. We went from Wisconsin to New York to Toronto to Georgia to Kentucky and every where in between. We would sleep in the church's, gyms, host houses, anywhere the great folks we sang for would put us up. We would bring lights, sound equipment, risers to stand on, everything we needed to be an actual touring group. Now that I look back on it, it was some of the best times of my life. You were part of something bigger than yourself. We loved the whole thing, we loved the travel, we loved the singing, and the warm and gracious receptions we always received.

I even remember as you can probably imagine some of the romances that were kindled on the trips. One of the funniest things would be guessing on who was going to hook up with who on the trips!!! The guys were usually outnumbered so we had good odds!!

Another annual event on each tour was the night in which for some strange reason, the girls would all decide to cry at the same time. To this day, I still don't know the reasons for this strange occurance.

I was at my friend Keith's house last night and we found this old picture. I was a freshman in high school, so would have been 14 years old. I have circled the folks some of you people who read my blog might recognize, many of who went to IWU. You will also recognize my fellow blogger Steve Deur in the back row, now a great pastor in Grand Haven Michigan.

Miss Chocolate...

2006-01-08T07:55:00.000-08:00

Abby and I share a common vice...chocolate. We both have never met a piece of chocolate candy we didn't like. For her it is not yet a problem, but when you turn 32 and already have an expanding waistline, it can be an issue. Yet, I am almost powerless to resist.

Abby and I do not feel very good today, I have a sinus issue and Abby just has a very bad cold. We stayed home from church this morning as a result. I was on the computer blogging when she came waltzing into the room with Chocolate all over her face. It was too cute not to share.

Clash of the titans

2006-01-07T07:46:00.000-08:00

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- The Detroit Red Wings have left little doubt that they're the team to beat in the Central Division.

Sparked by two power-play goals by Nicklas Lidstrom, the Red Wings rallied to beat the Nashville Predators 3-1 Friday night in front of a fired-up crowd that included music superstar Kid Rock.

"We know the battle in our division is with Nashville," Red Wings coach Mike Babcock said. "We attacked the net well. I thought this was a good road win for us."

The Red Wings may be the team to beat in the Western Conference, but they aren't taking the Predators lightly. Detroit won the first of eight games between the teams this season and stretched its divisional lead over the Predators to six points.

"I don't know if it's about setting a tone as much as it is about putting yourself in a pretty good position," Detroit's Kris Draper said. "Every time we look at the standings we look to see what Nashville did because it is going to go down to the wire with them."

The Predators were called for eight penalties, seven that produced Detroit power plays.

"You have to stay out of the box," Nashville coach Barry Trotz said. "We did what we said we were not going to do and that was put them on the power play seven times. That's where it starts. We can match up in goal.

"On defense we don't quite have the experience of Detroit, but we do have a pretty good puck-moving defense. We just can't give them those power-play opportunities."

It marked the first time this season that the Predators lost in regulation to a Central Division team. The Red Wings are 13-1 against divisional foes.

"Detroit is a good, solid team that does not give up much," Predators captain Greg Johnson said. "We are close, but they have proven on the ice on a consistent basis that they are the best team. We just have to get better."

The Red Wings tied it 1-1 in the second period with a power-play goal. At 17:16, Lidstrom skated just inside the middle of the blue line and fired a one-timer past Tomas Vokoun on his stick side.

Detroit took a 2-1 lead 2 minutes into the third when Jason Williams scored from close range. Lidstrom scored his second of the game with 6:53 left, a power-play goal that was originally credited to Brendan Shanahan.

Vernon Fiddler gave Nashville a 1-0 lead with his third goal in two games. During a power play, Fiddler tapped in the rebound of Kimmo Timonen's shot to beat Manny Legace on his stick side at 13:55 of the first period.

It was the first power-play goal allowed by the Red Wings in six games. They had killed off 22 straight penalties before Fiddler's goal.

"I thought it was a pretty good game overall," he said. "We obviously took some penalties, and that cost us the game. I thought we outskated them and took it to them. But they found a way to win and we didn't."

Trains, Planes and Automobiles

2006-01-03T08:53:00.000-08:00

Well, the Christmas season has officially come to an end here, it was a little longer than normal for our family this year. Started out Christmas early with Julie's family and ended it late, again with her extended family.

We traveled via Amtrak to Wisconsin to have a combo Christmas / New Years / Family reunion over the New Year weekend.

I had to work on the Friday before New Years, so we left on Saturday morning and came home Sunday afternoon, short trip I know.

We stayed at a Salvation Army family camp southern Wisconsin. Julies relatives manage the camp all year round, it caters mostly to urban and poor kids during the summer. During the winter they host retreats for different organizations.

Our family got to stay over night in the "White House". It was the biggest and best house on campus. The top guy of the Salvation army stays there all summer so it was pretty nice.

Once we got to the place, we had a great time Ice Skating, eating, playing, etc. But the ride there and back on the train was a little less fun. I don't know what I expected, but the train is not my favorite form of transportation. First of all, it's not very secure, if a bad guy truly wanted to blow up a train, it would not be very hard. There are NO baggage screeners, there are NO baggage checks. My wife forgot her ID and was never even asked for it ONE time. (I hope no bad guys are reading this, anbd if a good guy is, PLEASE FIX THIS, it's really a security loophole).

Second, it's just not fun, it's loud and bumpy and seems a very slow mode of transport cause you are stopping all the time. My daughter Abby was in her crabby mood the whole time also. I much prefer to travel by air, even with the extra security, I feel much safer and it is much more relaxing. If you think that an airport is bad, try Union Station in Chicago..it was a MAD HOUSE.

Anyway, the Christmas blues have settled in and we are now longing for summer.

You gotta read this stuff.

2005-12-27T17:48:00.000-08:00

As many of you know, I have no love for the wacko Hollywierd elite, nor do I have any respect whatsoever for most of the main stream press out there. Here are seven pages of moronic quotes and looney soundbites with links to the original broadcasts. Take your time and enjoy these. Example below. Click on the title of this blog to go to the site.

Good Morning Morons Award

Matt Lauer in Baghdad: "Talk to me...about morale here. We’ve heard so much about the insurgent attacks, so much about the uncertainty as to when you folks are going to get to go home. How would you describe morale?"

Chief Warrant Officer Randy Kirgiss: "In my unit morale is pretty good. Every day we go out and do our missions and people are ready to execute their missions. They’re excited to be here."

Lauer: "How much does that uncertainty of [not] knowing how long you’re going to be here impact morale?"

Specialist Steven Chitterer: "Morale is always high. Soldiers know they have a mission. They like taking on new objectives and taking on the new challenges...."
Lauer: "Don’t get me wrong here, I think you are probably telling me the truth, but a lot of people at home are wondering how that could be possible with the conditions you’re facing and with the attacks you’re facing. What would you say to those people who are doubtful that morale can be that high?"

Captain Sherman Powell: "Sir, if I got my news from the newspapers also, I’d be pretty depressed as well."

— Exchange on NBC’s Today, August 17.

Merry un-nammed and non exclusive and all inclusive and everyone...just forget it holiday

2005-12-19T12:42:00.000-08:00

FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
TO: All Employees
DATE: October 01, 2003

RE: Christmas Party

I'm happy to inform you that the company Christmas Party will take place on
December 23, starting at noon in the private function room at the Grill
House. There will be a cash bar and plenty of drinks! We'll have a small
band playing traditional carols...feel free to sing along. And don't be
surprised if our CEO show s up dressed as Santa Claus! A Christmas tree will
be lit at 1:00pm. Exchange of gifts among employees can be done at that
time; however, no gift should be over $10.00 to make the giving of gifts
easy for everyone's pockets. This gathering is only for employees! Our CEO
will make a special announcement at that time!

Merry Christmas to you and your family.

Patty

------------------------------------------------------------------------

FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
TO: All Employees
DATE: October 02, 2003

RE: Holiday Party

In no way was yesterday's memo intended to exclude our Jewish employees.
We recognize that Chanukah is an important holiday, which often coincides
with Christmas, though unfortunately not this year. However, from now on
we're calling it our "Holiday Party." The same policy applies to any other
employees who are not Christians or those still celebrating Reconciliation
Day. There will be no Christmas tree present. No Christmas carols sung. We
will have other types of music for your enjoyment.

Happy now?

Happy Holidays to you and your family.

Patty

------------------------------------------------------------------------

FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
TO: All Employees
DATE: October 03, 2003

RE: Holiday Party

Regarding the note I received from a member of Alcoholics Anonymous
requesting a non-drinking table ... you didn't sign your name. I'm happy to
accommodate this request, but if I put a sign on a table that reads, "AA
Only"; you wouldn't be anonymous anymore. How am I supposed to handle this?

Somebody?

Forget about the gifts exchange, no gifts exchange are allowed since the
union members feel that $10.00 is too much money and executives believe
$10.00 is a little chintzy.

NO GIFTS EXCHANGE WILL BE ALLOWED.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

FROM: Patty Lewis, Human Resources Director
To: All Employees
DATE: October 04, 2003

RE: Holiday Party

What a diverse group we are! I had no idea that December 20 begins the
Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which forbids eating and drinking during
daylight hours. There goes the party! Seriously, we can appreciate how a
luncheon at this time of year does not accommodate our Muslim employees'
beliefs. Perhaps the Grill House can hold off on serving your meal until
the end of the party- or else package everything for you to take it home in
little foil doggy baggy. Will that work?

Meanwhile, I've arranged for members of Weight Watchers to sit farthest
from the dessert buffet and pregnant women will get the table closest to
the restrooms.
Gays are allowed to sit with each other.
Lesbians do not have to sit with Gay men, each will have their own table.
Yes, there will be flower arrangement for the Gay men's table.
To the person asking permission to cross dress, no cross-dressing allowed
though.
We will have booster seats for short people.
Low-fat food will be available for those on a diet. We cannot control the
salt used in the food we suggest for those people with high blood pressure
to taste first. There will be fresh fruits as dessert for Diabetics, the
restaurant cannot supply "No Sugar" desserts. Sorry!

Did I miss anything?!?!?

Patty

------------------------------------------------------------------------

FROM: Joan Bishop, Acting Human Resources Director
DATE: October 06, 2003
RE: Patty Lewis and Holiday Party

I'm sure I speak for all of us in wishing Patty Lewis a speedy recovery and
I'll continue to forward your cards to her. In the meantime, management has
decided to cancel our Holiday Party and give everyone the afternoon of the
23rd off with full pay.

Happy Holidays!

Christmas 2005

2005-12-17T18:55:00.000-08:00

We had our first Christmas party of the season tonight at Julie's parents. Here are some pictures of the party.

Over the river (Grand) and through the woods (Holton) to the Wilmots house we go...

2005-12-10T17:54:00.000-08:00

Tonight we all piled into the car for the trip up to Fremont Michigan to visit with our friends the Jon and Beth and Jeff (Fetz) Cobb. As is the case when you get older and have families and kids and jobs and life, you tend to lose touch with friends of old. Well we don't think that has to be the case. Julie and I, Jon and Beth and Jeff were able to take time out of our busy lives to have dinner together and try and catch up.

We had a good time with one another. But my how things change, kids running all over, having to leave at 7 pm cause it's getting late...!!! Amyway, here are some photos of the evening.