Levi?

Nope, this is his cousin who is four months old in this picture. Maybe there is some Anderson blood in him after all.

Would you like my SSN with that?

This was too fun not to share. Sonja is helping her parents sell a truck and had listed it on Craig's List for them. She's gotten a few responses, but one really stood out. The conversation chain is below.

From: Bill arrey manyor <bill_arrey@yahoo.com>
Date: Dec 2, 2007 12:45 AM
Subject: Chevrolet S10 - $2000

Hello,
How are you doing on this beatifull day,i hope this items is still up for
grabs if yes please get back to me asap.
Thanks.

------------------------------
From: Tycen and Sonja Stafford
To: Bill arrey manyor <bill_arrey@yahoo.com>
Date: Dec 4, 2007 3:56 PM
Subject: Re: Chevrolet S10 - $2000

Hi - the truck is still available. Would you like to schedule a time to look at it?

Call or email me.
(phone number removed)

Thanks,
Sonja

------------------------------
From: Bill arrey manyor <bill_arrey@yahoo.com>
To: Tycen and Sonja Stafford
Date: Dec 5, 2007 1:58 PM
Subject: Re: Chevrolet S10 - $2000

Hello,
Thanks for your reply i got all your information about the vehicle and am ok with it, i will be making your payment today, i need your full name and address and your valid phone number to make the payment today through certified check i will handle the shipment myself. The check will get to you in 2-5 days time and when you recived the check you can then get the check cashed at your Bank i will wait for you to confirm and clear the check.The payment will be in excess as i will want you to contact my shipper with the excess fund for him to pickup the vehicle after you must have confirmed and cashed the check .i will wait for your bank to clear the Check so you can deduct your own money and send the excess fund to my shipper via money gram Money Transfer cos he needs the excess to pick up the car . You can IM on this ID bill_arrey@yahoo.com or call me on 9145954296 for more information.Thanks and God Bless,you can get the posting deleted from craiglist

Of course, this just reeks of a scam. "Sure, Mr. Manyor! Would it be easier for you if we just gave you our bank account number so you could directly deposit the funds?"

I wish we would have set up a seperate email account for this so we could mess with the guy a little. Oh well, maybe next time.

One final chuckle, in case anyone was doubting the validity of this - I Googled his phone number.

First Snow

True to Washington weather the snow only stayed around for a day. It was beautiful while it lasted and we were able to get a few pictures of Levi's first snowy day.

Baby Levi

Baby Levi and Daddy in the snow


Family photo

Snow just makes everything look so beautiful (under the snow is a lawn that needs to be racked of its leaves - but doesn't our house just look so nice covered in snow!)

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow. . .

FPU at NSA - Round 2

We got the green light to do another FPU class at our church! We'll be starting January 20. I'm so excited!

Busted

We've been without our TV for a while now (and without cable for even longer). We still watch a fair amount of movies/TV (thanks to the evil networks giving it to us for free online!), but there's one show I've sorely missed...until now! MythBusters. A quality show that no man (or woman) should go without. Thank you Discovery Channel for now offering it for free online.

A comic based on reality.

This Betty comic was perfect for Sonja and me.

Oh, wait, that's not a joke.

While eating lunch today, I browsed on over to LarkNews.com. It's a pretty funny website that writes satirical Christian news articles. It's very funny and written so well that it often sounds real. In fact, I've sent articles to people in the past as a joke and they thought they were legitimate articles!

Well, today I was reading this article about a high profile pastor couple that was getting a divorce. I was chuckling and thinking how silly the article was...until I Googled the name of the woman in the article! The couple was Randy and Paula White (I'd never heard of them before).

The LarkNews article is not real (the specific details and focus of the article), but the divorce it references is real! And, after reading a couple of (real) news articles about the divorce, it seems that the LarkNews article isn't very far from the truth.

It is a crazy deal and if you want to get riled up you can read about it here. Sounds like this couple/church was heavy into the prosperity message...which helps to explain the situation a little bit. If you're going to preach prosperity and that God just wants you to be happy, one of the logical steps will be toward casual divorce.

It's a crazy world when satire news starts to sound real and real news starts to sound satirical.

Hallowgivingmas

Merry Christmas! Oh, no wait...

Happy Thanksgiving! Oops...not yet...

Happy Halloween!

But you sure wouldn't know it. This morning Sonja woke me up to point out that the song playing on my alarm clock (which was supposed to wake me up but failed miserably) was a Christmas song ("Do You Hear What I Hear").

In case they are a little confused, I would just like to make a public announcement to that radio station and all radio stations out there:

IT'S FREAKING HALLOWEEN!!! Please do not play any Christmas music until after Thanksgiving!

Thank you for listening.

Mistaken Identity

Last spring Tycen and I facilitated Financial Peace University at our church. It is a thirteen week video series taught by Dave Ramsey.

On Sunday one couple who took the class came up to me – their youngest daughter, 4 years old, saw me and said, “Look mommy, its Dave Ramsey’s wife”

** side note: in the last 2 months every Sunday we have had people who took the FPU class and sharing their stories with us from learning how to save, invest and even shop better to being debt free except the house and a few that are now debt free including the house! It’s exciting to hear their stories.

A Long Overdue Update

A lot has happened since our last post, so I’ll try to get things caught up to speed. Sonja quit her job and is now a full-time mom. She’s enjoying it and we can’t imagine how families with children still have both parents working – they must be super human or something. We’re very thankful that we have been blessed with the resources to be able to have one of us stay at home. Thank you, Lord, for providing. And, once again, thank you Dave Ramsey and FPU for teaching us how to best manage the Lord’s provision.

I’m still working (although we’re scheming on how we can BOTH be stay at home parents – so far winning the lottery is our best option). I have a training class all next week where I will be learning Red Hat Linux. I’m pretty excited about it and have been trying to get up to speed with where the class will be starting. It’s going to be challenging, but I’m grateful for the opportunity.

Next weekend we’ll be down in Oregon visiting the Stafford side of the family – should be a fun and relaxing trip.

Now for the Boy (I call him “the Boy” a lot). Levi is doing really good. In fact, on Monday the little pooper had to have surgery for a hernia. He did so well! They kept him overnight for monitoring, but he really was back to his normal self later that day. They just had to make a small incision and that should heal up nice and clean. He was something like 9.5 pounds and is just really healthy. While we were in Children’s Hospital for the surgery we really were reminded of how fortunate and blessed we’ve been with him despite his early arrival.

Somewhere since the last post we bought a mini-van. I was going to do a full post on it, but I think I’ll just say that we got a great deal on a great van (99 Ford Windstar). We recommend Bickford Ford in Snohomish, WA – they were great and even did some work on the van after we bought it even though we didn’t get a warranty or anything. Low pressure and easy to work with - ask for Jeff Wing or Darren Smith. And, once again, thanks to Dave Ramsey and FPU, we had the tools to save about $500 on the van and pay cash for it. We plan on selling my car sometime after my training next week. *sniff* I’ll miss my little Accent…but we really don’t need it. I’ve been driving it to work a lot lately due to all the Dr. visits, and am quickly being reminded of how expensive that can be! I need to get back into my routine of riding the bus using my company paid-for bus pass.

And, finally, now for the real purpose of this blog post. More pictures of Levi! And a video. The video is extra fun – it’s of our little guy smiling and even laughing a bit. His first time doing it was even better, but we only caught the second one on video. There's also a couple of pictures of it near the end of the album. I know that there are a LOT of duplicate pictures…I just didn’t feel like weeding them all out.

Levi - 10 Weeks Old and Growing Strong

I Wonder...

I'm doing some studying for our Bible Quiz practice tomorrow* (I want to make sure the students are actually learning something about the material, not just memorizing the words). In Galatians Paul is establishing is authority and makes reference to receiving his Gospel from Jesus (which we know happens in Acts 9). I wonder, though, if Paul ever met Jesus before he was crucified. Of course the NT makes no mention of this, so it is pure speculation. But, perhaps during one of the many times Jesus spoke to the Pharisees, I wonder if Paul/Saul was in the crowd. I can just totally see Jesus locking eyes with him and thinking...well, I don't know what Jesus might have thought...but, it's interesting to think about.

*Sonja and I are coaching the Bible Quiz team at our church this year. We're very excited about it and so far it's going pretty good. It's crazy how competitive it is, but we feel it has the potential to be very beneficial to the students.

Boy Were They Off

Today is the day! It's Sonja's due date and soon our little bundle of joy will.......oh, wait....that happened six weeks ago. Well...today would have been the day.

By Request

I got an email from Grandpa Stafford last night that he was jonesing for some more pictures of Levi. So, I figured it was time to do an update. I will say, though, I think we are slowing down a bit on the picture taking...for now...

Here you go Papa Lee...

Another Levi Album

Because You Can Never Have Too Many Pictures

I know, I know...we take too many pictures of Levi...what can we say? Just a quick update - he did get to come home last Friday (today marks one week of being at home - we're tired). He's still doing great and we're having a great time as a family. Now...here's those pictures.

Levi - Weeks 3 and 4

Today

Today is a big day.

Today we are getting new carpet installed in both the bedrooms. Yesterday morning Tycen and I emptied out our bedroom into the rest of our house … aka our house just seemed to get a lot smaller with our bedroom furniture spread through out it. Then my sister came over and helped me pull the carpet and then while I played with her children she pulled the padding and removed the carpet strips (Thanks Heather!). This afternoon carpet people are coming to install it – yeah!

Today we plan to see the man in brown – (the UPS guy). He is bringing us our car seat and stroller that we ordered on-line! We expect to see him this afternoon or early evening…I’m praying we see him this morning.

Today we also plan to see the Fed-X guy, who will be bring the kangaroo pouch sling thingy that we ordered on-line.

Today we find out if Levi comes home today. Are we ready? No, not really. Besides the house being in disordered I realized last night, as I was holding my adorable sleeping son, that we haven’t gotten him any sheets for his bed. We only have one package of diapers and a very small package of wipes that we got from the hospital. But, are we excited about the possibility of our son being home as early as today? You bet!

We’ve shared with the nurses about our house project and the status of the car seat and they shared our dilemma with the doctor but he said that the car seat better get here otherwise we might be walking our son home. I will go in this morning and see how Levi did last night and see what the doctor says. If he says he can go home tonight then we have to wait for the car seat to arrive. When we get the car seat we will take it to the hospital and the car seat test will begin. They will see if Levi fits in the car seat properly (which we hope he does – we saw many families go through many different car seats before they were able to find one that would fit their tiny child). Then they will have Levi sit in the car seat for 90 minutes and see if he can handle sitting up for that long of time and remember to breathe and keep his heart rate under control. We are very excited!! And even if he doesn’t come home today, we know that the time is almost here where little Levi will soon be home!

Today is a big day.

A Post About Us, Our House and Getting Out of Debt

In the midst of all the Levi updates, I thought a post true to the original purpose of the blog would be in order. I will attempt to not mention Levi (oops! too late).

Us
Um…Sonja’s not pregnant anymore. We’re tired and busy, but we’ve had a lot of wonderful help from our wonderful friends and family (yes, I said wonderful twice). Tycen is still at Jobster and Sonja is still at the City, although she’s currently on maternity leave. She's been very busy!

Our House
It’s coming along. The baby extra room is getting carpet Friday or Saturday – after spending a half day or so with my Dad trying to install it ourselves, I called a company and they’re going to do the baby extra room and our bedroom for $150 – I figure that’s a pretty good deal – especially since I would have needed to buy $25 in materials and rent a tool for another $20-30. After the carpet, all we have left is some basebord/trim/moulding. The bathroom is getting closer – I’ve got a few more layers of mud to do on the sheetrock and then we’ll be ready to install the surround. After that it’s a quick (heh heh) sink change out and it will be done. Oh, after we replace the vanity and do a little tweaking on our little storage shelf/cabinet. So, I guess there’s a bit more left to do. But I think I see the light at the end. Now if we can just get our neighbor to stop digging up our back yard…

Getting Out of Debt
We put this on hold while we built up a bigger emergency fund in case something went wrong with the pregnancy/birth. At this point the insurance will cover everything and once we’re pretty sure we’re in the clear, we’ll resume our attack on Sallie Mae (student loans). So, we’re still on track. I have to say, it has been very nice going through this "emergency" and not having to worry about finances - we haven't had to worry because of the time and energy we've put in working on our budget, it can run on auto-pilot for a bit while we focus on other things - and we also know there's money in our emergency fund if we need it. Besides that, I think the video below says it all (credit for the video goes to my brother).

Disclaimer

I think we should say this now - if your not interested in Levi, then you might want to take a break from our blog for a couple of months...because it might just be the Levi Update Site for a while.

But, for those that are interested - here are some more photos!

Levi - Week 2

More Than a Bag of Sugar

Just heard from Sonja - Levi is now 5 pounds an 1 ounce! Still doing really good - at his feeding today he slurped down his whole feeding plus some in under 15 minutes (the doctor said to give him more if he'll take it at feedings - his current feeding is at 44mL). He is just getting cuter and cuter. We'll need to get some new photos up soon - they took off his velcro patches, so now you can see more face. We're still thinking he might come home this week, but he needs to get a couple of things accomplished first: 1) be doing all of his feedings by bottle and 2) not having any apnea "episodes". Apnea is common for preemies and they usually grow out of it. And, he's having very few episodes (only 1 last night). So, we're hoping he'll stop having them soon. If he doesn't, they hook up some monitoring equipment to determine exactly what is causing it. In most cases, the solution is a daily dose of caffeine for a week or two (and who doesn't need that to function anyway?). But, we got his carseat ordered and are working to get his room finished...so we're ready any time he is.

In other news, we got the word Saturday night that our good friends in Iowa had their second baby boy - I think the name is David, but I heard the final results weren't quite in on the name. Our friends and new neighbors (just moved a block away from us) also had their second baby boy on August 1. So, Levi should have no shortage of buds.

Dimple?

It may be too early to tell, but initial observation seems to indicate that Levi might have a dimple on (in?) his cheek. We'll keep you posted...

Levi Update

More good news...they're bottle-feeding every other feeding and he's doing pretty good with it; his weight is up over birth weight now (they tend to lose weight after being born) at 4 pounds 8 ounces; and I just heard from Sonja that they moved him from his incubator to a crib! (that means he's doing a good job keeping his body temp up)

We've started thinking about how we're going to get him home...the car seat we had bought (before he surprised us with an early arrival) is for a regular newborn...we need one that will accommodate his sub-5 pound body. We think we found the one we want and Sonja is going to do some searching to see where the best deal is.

But, Sonja said just now that the Doctor thinks he'll be coming home in a week! It's going to be a busy house project week...but I think we can do it!

A Well Thought Out Product

You can order one for me here.

Levi - Week 1 Picture Round Up

The little guy is only 1 week and 1 day old and we've already amassed over 3.5GB in pictures and video. So, here is some of it (the first one is the original link we sent out). Some of the pictures are a little dark because we're trying to not use the flash too much...we don't want to have the little guy blinded before he even leaves the hospital.

Introducing Levi

More of Levi

Levi - Week 1

He’s doing really well. Last night they told us that they are only checking vitals every other feeding (so every 6 hours instead of every 3 hours) and that they are no longer weighing diapers. Also, just on a whim they tried bottle feeding last night and he took over half of it! So, we’re still being careful with how excited we get because he could take some steps back, but so far it’s looking pretty good. Also, we secretly think he’s the nurses’ favorite.

Family Photo

For a number of years I have wanted to have my family to do a family photo. You know a big one – get the siblings and the spouses and all the kiddies and my parents out but whenever I mentioned it someone was pregnant and wanted to wait until their baby was born. Fair enough. Well, now I’m the one pregnant and I know I will be taking pictures of our little baby so I have no problem with the family photo idea with the baby still in the belly.

After weeks of arranging schedules with my 3 siblings, their spouses and children, my parents and the photographer we were able to find 3 hours that we could all get together. It’s this coming weekend. And you can believe I was excited to know that this was finally going to happen.

This past Saturday I got a cold. Monday morning I went to the doctor for a standard check-up, she told me that I was really swollen and had gained a lot of weight since our last visit (3 weeks ago). By Monday afternoon my left eye could not stop gooping. Monday night the doctor told me I had pink-eye. I’m not sure how excited I am about the family photo on Saturday – Runny nose, overweight pregnant lady who is also very swollen with a left eye that is red and swollen shut but the goop can still get out.

I hope our photographer is good with Photoshop.

Book Recommendation: A Year with C. S. Lewis

A few years ago, for Christmas (maybe during our engagement?), Sonja got me a book: A Year with C. S. Lewis: Daily Readings from His Classic Works. It's got a small excerpt from one of Lewis' books for each day - it's like getting your daily dose of Lewis. I like it because it's easier to digest a small snippet of his writing. But, the format is also nice in that often over the course of a week you'll read one continuous section out of one of his books, it's just broken up into small chunks. I've been enjoying it lately and thought that I should pass on the recommendation.

Here's one excerpt that really made Sonja and I think. It's from the June 29 reading:

We begin to notice, besides our particular sinful acts, our sinfulness; begin to be alarmed not only about what we do, but about what we are. This may sound rather difficult, so I will try to make it clear from my own case. When I come to my evening prayers and try to reckon up the sins of the day, nine times out of ten the most obvious one is some sin against charity; I have sulked or snapped or sneered or snubbed or stormed. And the excuse that immediately springs to my mind is that the provocation was so sudden and unexpected; I was caught off my guard, I had not time to collect myself. Now that may be an extenuating circumstance as regards those particular acts: they would obviously be worse if they had been deliberate and premeditated. On the other hand, surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats: it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am. The rats are always there in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and noisily they will have taken cover before you switch on the light.

[From Mere Christianity]

Least Intimidating Thing Ever

Last night as I was leaving Seattle after working late (around 11:00pm), a scooter gang pulled out onto Denny Way beside me. Yup, that's right. Not a motorcycle gang...but a scooter gang. I didn't quite catch the name blazoned across the backs of their matching scooter gang leather jackets, but I'm pretty sure it was not Hell's Angels: Scooter Chapter.

Stupid wet floor…but the pictures are nice.

Today we had our first real pregnancy scare. I think we did pretty well. We kept our heads about us and knew that things were probably totally okay, but did all the proper “checking” nonetheless. And a fair amount of praying.

Thursday night Sonja slipped on a wet floor (well, the floor was dry, but she didn’t know that the carpet was wet that she walked across before walking on the tiled floor). She slipped and fell to her knees, catching herself on her hands – whew, that was close. Well, Friday morning she started to notice she hadn’t really felt the baby move much. It was just at our last doctor visit that we learned she should feel the baby move at least about 10 times in an hour (if she pays attention). Well now she was paying attention.

After not feeling Little L (the name we’ve been calling Baby – Levi or Lizzy (Elizabeth)) move for a while, we started to get nervous. So, Sonja called her doctor’s office and made an appointment – earliest available was 12:30. Then the nurse called back a few minutes later and said she should come in now…as in right now…as in leave work right now and come in.

Well, I won’t keep you in suspense – everything checked out beautifully – in fact that’s the word the doctor used – beautiful…as in beautifully healthy. After looking at the brain waves (how do they do that?) and the muscle movements and other such things that docs look at to know if a baby is healthy or not, she confirmed that everything was connect right and functioning normally and Little L looked totally healthy. But, just to be safe, they still sent Sonja to the hospital for 4 hours of monitoring.

our baby move and play around. And we gotThis is where I enter the story, after leaving work a couple hours after getting there and three buses later, I finally made it to the hospital just in time to catch the last part of the ultrasound show where we got to watch Little L suck his/her foot and play with the umbilical cord (no Grandma Stafford, we still didn’t find out what we’re having). It was a lot of fun just watching some great pictures (no, Little L is not blowing bubbles - it's a cross section of the umbilical cord). Then we were sent back upstairs for the rest of the 4 hours of monitoring where we got to listen to Little L’s heartbeat for most of the time. Sonja was having minor contractions (according to their machine – she couldn’t really feel them) but they figured it was likely due to some anxiety from the morning worries and maybe some mild dehydration. We figure maybe there was some work stress involved to (another – rather humorous and frustrating – story for another time). They made her drink a bunch of water and did give her a shot for the contractions (but again it was just a precautionary thing) and nothing further was prescribed other than a night of relaxing and a follow-up visit with her doctor on Monday.

But, all we heard all day were things like “the baby sure is active” and “everything looks really healthy” – music to our ears. That, and the 140-and-some-odd heartbeats per second from our Little L.

All you have to do is ask.

So…we’ve been couch shopping for a while – not aggressively, but wanting to find something soon. Like good Dave Ramsey-ites, we have a “Couch” envelope and have been saving up for it. But, it was also the first envelope we dipped into if we were running short. So, it kind of peaked out at about $500 and I was getting anxious to get a couch picked out so we could really aggressively start saving. Sonja was going to go shopping with her Mom to find a few options (to narrow it down – I was getting overwhelmed by all the choices) and then I would go with her to pick the final one out of a few choices. But, Tuesday night we happened to go out on a whim and hit a few stores. At our third store, we found one we liked enough to want to get there on the spot.

It was originally $849 on sale for $699. One of the things taught in Financial Peace University is how to get good deals. And one of the “secrets” is to just ask. But, this can be difficult sometimes (especially for Sonja and I – neither of us are aggressive “give me a deal” kind of people). But, we decided we would at least try. So, I said something like this: “How long will the sale last?...[end of the week]...We came out looking tonight not sure what we would find, but we only brought $500 in cash with us…would you even be willing to go that low?” He hemmed and hahhed for a bit – explaining that it was already on sale and that was a good price…but that he would go check the cost price. Well…that kind of surprised us. He came back and told us he could give it to us for $600…including tax! About $150 off the sale price!

We were both pretty tired and happy with the deal, but I think if we had tried to be a little more aggressive and push back a bit, he would have gone lower. But, like I said, we’re not that aggressive and we were tired. It was nice to find a way to ask that fit with our comfort level and personalities. We also weren’t sly or deceptive – we really did only have $500 in cash (actually there ended up being $519 in the envelope – but we didn’t know that). It takes two weeks to get the couch and we can just pay the balance then. (not that FPU or Dave Ramsey teaches to be sly or deceptive – but it is a temptation when trying to get deals like this)

Couch: $600 after tax
Financial Peace University: $90
Saving up and paying cash for items and saving money by just asking: Priceless

*the picture is not the actual couch - I think it's the same model, but a different color and...well, we bought a couch and not a love seat

Is it really that hard?

Disclaimer: I have never worked at Subway, so perhaps I am mistaken about the complexity of applying condiments to a sub.

Is it really that hard to get an assortment of condiments evenly spread across a measly foot of bread (or in some cases, a half foot)? Or to have some standards of consistency when applying mayonnaise or mustard? It's like an adventure every time I go into one - even the same one - "what's going to happen this time?!"

Sorry...just had to get that out. Thanks for listening.

One Man's Junk...

One of the things I've heard atheists and/or naturalists mention as an argument for evolution is the amount of "junk" DNA we have. Junk DNA is seemingly unneeded DNA that we have which proponents of evolution claim is "left over" from our long history of evolving. They say that if we were designed then an intelligent Designer wouldn't have put unneeded bits of DNA in us. I even heard Christopher Hitchens say it last week when I went and saw him speak here in Seattle.

Well, it turns out that that "junk" DNA might not be so useless after all...

Class Over

We wrapped up our FPU class last night. It was a lot of fun and we really enjoyed doing the class. By this last class, our numbers were definitely fewer than at the start, but I still feel like we finished strong. In the last class they have you add up the total amount of debt your class paid off in the 13 weeks – as well as the total amount saved in the 13 weeks. With only about 50 people there last night (it was a very nice and sunny day), the total debt paid off was about $75,000 (plus another $247,000 – we figured someone sold a house). And the total saved was about $58,000. Wow!

Complexity Made Simple

I’ve been reading a great book – Why Good Arguments Often Fail by James Sire (yes, this is the same book I was reading a while back – I didn’t read it for a few months and just recently picked it back up now that I’m busing again). Separately, I’ve also been enjoying the comic strip Pearls Before Swine. Imagine my surprise when these two “readings” crossed paths.

From Sire, page 96 (talking about different worldviews and different concepts of "God")…
Vaguer versions of theism retain the notion of an infinite-personal God who creates but are less specific about the character of God, may downplay or reject his triunity, and usually are less specific regarding life after death and God’s role in history. This tendency to less specificity historically has led to deism, in which God no longer is fully endowed with personhood or even intentionality. In much of modern America, the undermining of traditional theism has resulted in what Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton call Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, in which God is reduced to a “combination of Divine Butler and Cosmic Therapist.”

From Pearls Before Swine, May 14, 2007…
http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/pearls/archive/pearls-20070514.html
(I was going to post the comic here, but their republishing rules are pretty clear, so you’ll just have to follow the link)

Life without the TV

We are going into week 3 without our TV. I am happy to report that we are still alive and functioning fine. It's actually been really great for me. Often times when I come home, I am tired and the TV would just call my name and whisper lies to me like "Sonja, you'll only watch me for one show then start dinner" or "it's ok that you don't do anything for the next 5 hours but watch me. We're friends Sonja, it's ok" and other lies like that. Oh the misery that I had to live with. But now I am free!!

The freedom did not come with its temptations – Namely Todd & Tifani who so kindly informed us that we could watch TV on the web at NBC.com and ABC.com. I went to look on the web and saw a whole list of possible shows that can be watched! I quickly closed the screen and wondered if they wanted me to get rid of my computer next?!! (which would be a hard battle having a husband who's an IT guy)

Anyhow, life actually has improved for us. Our home is picked-up, we are eating meals made from home, reading the newspaper more. We are talking about doing more projects and actually acting upon them – it's been great!

I honestly have to say that I'm not sure if this no TV thing would have been so successful without a conversation I had with Tracy. She was sharing with me about a book that she has read or is reading – something called Fly Lady - here's a website: http://www.flylady.net/. Anyways, it says stuff like, make sure your kitchen is clean before you go to bed and do one load of laundry a day. And I have started doing these thing and it has lead to other things like making my bed every morning (a first for me in 30 years) and just picking up the house before we go to bed. It doesn't take much time and it's easy to do when it's done everyday.

I have never really learned how to keep a home in order – it's always a major clean-up day or marathon laundry days or hide-everything-in-the-closet-hour because people are on their way over… it's never an everyday thing. I know women who have daily chores – laundry on Monday, floors on Tuesday, dusting on Wednesday …etc. And I have tried and tried to do something like that but have always failed. Mostly because I couldn't remember what choirs I assigned to what day and I dread doing choirs. But I think I have finally found my way of keeping a house clean. It feels so good to go to bed with a clean house, wake-up to a clean house and come home to a clean house.

The TV leaving our family was a good thing. We still pod cast The Office and we are going to start Pod casting Heroes now that The Office season is done…so we haven't left the TV world all together…

Vote for a Mormon?

I don't keep up much with political stuff, but I listened to a great interview on Stand to Reason that I thought I would pass along. Greg Koukl (host) had Hugh Hewitt, Dr. Craig Hazen and Dr. John Mark Reynolds as guests on the May 6 show talking about the presidential candidate Mitt Romney and some things Christians should think through when they consider voting for a Mormon (Hugh Hewitt recently wrote a book: A Mormon in the White House)

It's a great opportunity to hear all four of those guys in one sitting anyway, but they also brought up some great points regarding this issue that some people might not think of (like me!).

Check out the radio show or podcast if you're interested in more...

Should It Stay Or Should It Go (tune to: Should I Stay Or Should I Go)

The battle of the TV continues.

A year ago we moved into our place and didn’t plug the TV in. In fact it stayed in a closet waiting to be given away or something. But this past winter a storm came and we took it out to watch the news.

It was a little hard setting it up – we had to use a wire coat hanger as the antenna and we constantly would have to readjust the “antenna” in order to get a picture that we could actually see. Well, after that night the TV was put back into its closet but somehow it would come out every once in awhile for us to watch it – but it would always go back into the closet.

As the weeks past, we started to see it out more often. It was making itself at “home” in our living room. It got a new antenna so it wasn’t so hard to set-up and watch.

Now, 4 or 5 months later we see it almost every night.

Is TV bad? Should we fight the urge to watch it?

There are some of you out there that can actually have a TV in your home and be strong enough not to turn it on – or if you turn it on you are able to turn it off after a short period of time. I am not one of those people. I have a problem. I am the TV world's dream person – if a TV is on, I become a zombie. I am unable to move except my fingers to change the channel on the remote control. My butt grows roots into the couch so it prevents me to get up and be productive and I stay there until it’s time for bed. I know, it’s pathetic.

So, next weekend we are having a garage sale and the TV is going in there. We are starting the weaning process this week. The TV did not go back into its closet on Thursday night – it went out to the garage with the rest of the garage sale items.

So, is TV bad? For me, yes. But there are others that are affected by it too.

As part of a scientific study in 1971, 184 German TV watchers agreed to quit TV cold turkey. According the Society for Rational Psychology, the group showed a sudden increase in moodiness, child spanking, wife beating, extramarital affairs, and less interest in sex. Several of the subjects had to go back to TV after only a few days. Although they were being paid, no one lasted more than five months. However, once back at the tube, all of their behavior returned to normal. (Uncle John’s Gigantic Bathroom Reader, Are you Dying to Watch TV, p.162)

Don’t worry – I’m not going cold turkey. We’ll still podcast The Office.

Nice Try

I received this in an email yesterday. First of all, we don’t even have an account with Chase anymore (that was one of the first cards to get shredded, paid off and closed – in that order). But, there are some other things that make this an obvious phishing email.

First of all, the return email address is a dead giveaway. “Chase Online [sfsbsa@mssffa.com]” What is mssffaa.com?! Sounds more like a sneeze than a major financial institution. But while this was an obvious giveaway – don’t rely on the return email address that Outlook (or another email client) displays because these can be spoofed.

The more obvious giveaway is that when I hover my mouse over the link “Click here to access your account” – it will show me the web address that this link would take me to (this works with all links - try it on the links in this post - in Internet Explorer the web address will be displayed in the bottom left corner of the window). Again we see the mssffaa.com address. If this was really from Chase, the web address would have been something more like "chase.com".

But what if the web address had been http://chase.mssffaa.com? Nope, still a bad address. Web addresses are made of different parts. For example: http://subdomain.domain.com/directories (the “.com” part is called the top-level domain and could be other things like .net or .org). If I own a “domain”, I can have any “subdomain” under it that I want. So if I own the domain “tycen.com”, I could have anything under it like blog.tycen.com, pictures.tycen.com, mail.tycen.com…or even chase.tycen.com. It doesn’t matter what the subdomain is – what matters is what the domain is – the part right before the .com (or top-level domain). Everything after the .com (directories) is just different folders of information/pages on that site.

Once you’ve identified that it is a phising email, I would recommend not clicking on the link - you don’t know what kind of site it will take you to. They can also design the links in such a way that once you click on it it identifies to whoever sent the email that your email address is a valid one (out of the gazillions of emails they sent out) AND that they’ve got a clicker (you) – and this will likely not be the last email you get from them (spam).

But, I couldn’t resist – so I clicked on the link. It took me to a page that was designed to look just like Chase.com. If the unsuspecting person that went there proceeded to entered their Chase username and password, whoever runs that site would then have that information. I would be willing to bet that then the site would have tried to get more information from you – SSN, address, DOB, etc – all under the ruse of “confirming” your identity. (I just tried going to the site again and it looks like it’s been taken down since I went there yesterday)

I’m using Internet Explorer 7 (the most recent version) and it has a built-in phishing security feature and it warned me that this site was reported as a phishing site. But, don’t rely on phishing security alone – they may not always work.

What should you do about this? First of all, just realize there are bad people on the internet who want to steal your identity or personal information and be suspect of any emails like this – common sense is the rule of thumb. Second, if you get an email like this and you actually have an account with the company – don’t click on any links in the email – go directly to the company’s site (i.e., chase.com) and log in as you normally would. Or, better yet, call the 800 number and talk to a live person. Third, pull your credit report once a year to make sure accounts haven’t been opened in your name. Most states (if not all) allow that you get one free credit report every year – go to http://annualcreditreport.com. Fourth, and finally, I would recommend signing up for ID Theft Protection from Zander Insurance. Sonja and I signed up and for a couple it’s only $12.50/month ($6.50/month for singles). In the event that we are victims of ID theft, Zander will do a lot of the leg work and provide reimbursement for lost money/time to help us get everything cleaned up.

Something else you can do to check out emails like this (though not as reliable) is to pick some key phrases out of the email and Google them. If it is a phishing email, you will likely find information about other people receiving it.

Oh, one other thing you can do…get rid of the stupid credit cards! See how much hassle they cause!

So that's what those are for...

Sonja and I had two amazing things happen to us this weekend. Well, amazing for us anyway.

First, we started and finished a house project in one weekend - we cleaned out our garage! See, our town is the permit capitol of the world - you need a permit for everything -even a garage sale. But, once a year they do a city-wide garage sale weekend when they allow anyone to do a garage sale without a permit. And, even better, the following week they do free garbage pick-up. That's right, you can stack as much garbage as you want (with some exceptions) out on the curb and they'll pick it all up for free! Last year we got in on this just after we moved in. So, we figured we would take advantage of it again this year. As we were cleaning out the garage and going through boxes, we made three piles: 1) keep 2) garage sale and 3) trash. Of course whatever is left over after #2 will become #3 as well. We think we did an awesome job! And thanks to Craig's List we were able to get rid of some big item and make a little extra money.

The second amazing thing that happened to us is that we discovered if a person actually cleans out a garage, there's a lot of space in there. In fact, I told Sonja that I bet there was so much room we could actually fit a car in there! Crazy stuff! And I was right! Can you imagine people actually parking their cars in their garages?!? You've probably seen that email joke (or some variation) that goes around - "Only In America" - I've always thought the one was pretty funny: Only in America......do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and put our useless junk in the garage. Sonja and I were joking one day a few months back that someday we'll just be honest and stop measuring garages based on the number of cars you can get in there (like a 1-car garage or a 2-car garage) and we'll start calculating their capacity based on the number of boxes they can hold. "Look over there, George is building a garage - boy, that must be a 100-boxer!"

So...two days, three Craig's List postings and a church service skipped finds us with a much emptier garage and a car that is safe and warm. Amazing.

(Editor's Note: I know on the right side of the picture there it doesn't look that clean - that is the "garage sale" pile area and will be cleaned out in a few weeks.)

New Old Job, Old New Job

Ah how the wheels of life turn. So, just three months into my new job and I get a call from my manager at Jobster…offering me a position and wanting me to come back. So, after a week or two of Sonja and I giving it some serious consideration I accepted and will head back to Jobster on May 1. Hi ho, hi ho, back to Jobster I go. My resume is going to start looking like I copied and pasted one too many times: Tyrnstone > Jobster > Tyrnstone > Jobster.

I’m a little nervous because this is the company that laid me off (I mean, “dissolved my position”) just three months ago. But there are some good reasons to go back like great benefits (insurance and such), awesome team (Ops/IT) and a new/better position (Lead IT). Josh reminded me of one of the downsides of working for Jobster though - the commute. I do feel bad for leaving Tyrnstone again, but I will be able to wrap up (or mostly wrap up) the store installs project. I broke the news to my boss at Tyrnstone on Tuesday and while he seemed a little disappointed, he was pretty encouraging about it all. That was one call I was dreading to make (yes, I had to do it over the phone because I’m on the road so much and I wanted to give him as much notice as possible).

I just hope the company provided snacks in the Jobster kitchen are still as good as the were.

Halle?

At church yesterday we sang a song that we’ve sung a few times before. The song is called “That’s Why We Praise Him” (sample and lyrics). I like the song and our worship leader does a great job with it – very upbeat and worshipful (is that a word?). But, there is one part of the song that really bothers me. It’s at the end (or bridge) when we all sing “Halle, Hallelujah…” over and over again. Here’s my problem: “Halle” is just gibberish.

“Hallelujah” is derived from a Jewish word – according to Wiki:

Hallelujah is a composite of Hallelu and Yah (Jah). It literally translates from Hebrew as "Praise Yah, [third-person plural]!" or simply "Praise Yah!" Yah is the shortened form of the name Yahweh (Jehovah)

But, my gripe is that “Halle” is nothing. It’s just a sound that some song writer made up to make his or her worship song flow better. I think it bothers me even more that sometimes in church we just sing whatever is put on the screen – not stopping to actually read and consider the words. Most of the time, when I actually read and consider the words of a song, I am greatly edified – especially Hymns! But, a number of times I’ve caught myself singing along jubilantly with some song, only to realize the words are unbiblical or silly or, in this case – gibberish.

So what’s wrong with that? I think it’s a bad spot to be in because at that point worship has just become an emotional thing, carried along by the hype of the song, and is no longer intellectual. Now, don’t get me wrong – worship is an emotional thing – it’s ridiculous to think we can interact with the Almighty God in worship and not feel an emotional response. But, worship should not be only emotional – we should also worship with our minds. Worship without emotion is misplaced piousness (and I think is like what C.S. Lewis is talking about when he talks about the “cold self-righteous prig who goes regularly to church” in Mere Christianity). On the other hand, worship without intellect is a step in the direction towards cultism – that is, when we detach our minds and let someone else direct us emotionally, it is then when we are most open to being misled.

Of course I trust our worship pastor and our church. And, I’m sure I’m making a much bigger deal out of this than it is. But, that kind of stuff just bothers me. I will say though, that we had a great Easter service yesterday. The church was packed, the worship was great, and Pastor's message was good. So, I guess I should just get over the whole "halle" thing.

Stonehenge

Earlier this week I was down in Oregon doing a couple of installs (work stuff). I happened to be driving by one of my favorite “places to visit” and so decided I needed to stop and stretch my legs. Being a fan of medieval fiction, this place is really fun for me. I took Sonja there once when we were dating while driving down to visit my parents – it was before we were even engaged (which was narrow window of time – 4 ½
months between “just friends” and engaged). I told Sonja that I loved this place and now that I had taken her there she could never break up with me because if she did any time in the future that I visited the site, I would think of her and it would be all sad. Whew…dodged that bullet!

Anyway, you can read more about it, but it is basically a replica of what they think Stonehenge looked like (you know, thousands of years ago). I haven’t been to the real Stonehenge, but I doubt it has the view that this one has.

So, if you find yourself passing through Biggs Junction on I-84 east of Portland, pull over and take a look.

Final Class Numbers

Well, we had our second week of class this past Sunday and the final count is...52 families! Or right at about 100 people (a "family" is an individual, couple, or couple with their high school/young adult children). We think that about 400 or 500 people attend our church, so that's about 1/4 or 1/5 of the church! We've heard a lot of great feedback already and people seem to be enjoying it. One guy told me that he and his wife have discussed finances more in the past week than they have their entire married life (I'm sure he was joking though...I hope). Another guy told Sonja that he's actually even eating better because of the class! He said when he started thinking about being responsible with money that he started to look at other areas of his life, too. So, the class is off and running and we're totally excited to see what will happen with it. In related news, we have exactly 1 month left (2 pay periods) before we are credit card debt free! We'll still have the student loans and the house, but that will be it. I still can't believe that we're almost there. Yeah for FPU!

Our New Friend George

I'll make a long story short - tonight Sonja and I bought a George Foreman grill. Best investment ever (well, hopefully - it might be a little early to make that call). But, it certainly did produce some great steaks (thanks to a recommendation by Heidi at QFC). And Sonja made seasoned red potatoes that were amazing! Paired with some Henry Weinhard's root beer, bread and salad. Yum!

Tomorrow night we're thinking chicken.

UPDATE (10:00pm 3/20)
Chicken was very, very good. Tomorrow night we're going to get some Alaska Halibut we have in the freezer and try that!

Who's Your Daddy?

Not sure if you've heard all the latest buzz about them finding Jesus' family tomb. I guess there was a special on Discovery recently about it (for those that still have those shiny contraptions with pictures inside called TVs). I guess it was produced by James Cameron (Mr. Titanic) and was made pretty well...kind of like a movie. Wasn't there another movie recently that pretended to be historically accurate and was just full of a bunch of fiction? But I digress...

I didn't see the special or even hear about it until I listened to Stand to Reason's weekly podcast where Greg Koukl had Gary Habermas on the show talking about the tomb and the Discovery special. Koukl is an apologetics guy (really practical stuff) and Habermas is one of the world's foremost experts on the Resurrection of Jesus (and also an apologetics guy). You should download the mp3 (or podcast it) if you have heard about this and have questions about it - or if your co-workers are talking about it.

Touché

We were getting low on gas (gas light was indeed on), but we only had a few minutes so I just put $5 worth in. Later when we were driving I told Sonja that only with today's gas prices and in today's economy can we put $5 worth of gas in and STILL have the gas light be on. Sonja then remarked (as we sipped our Starbucks) that only in today's economy can we pay twice as much for coffee as we did to put gas in the car. Touché.

An Observation

I learned something today...had an epiphany you might say. You know how when you walk into a Teriyaki restaurant they usually have their menu up on the wall with bright pictures and prices? And usually there is a white board with "today's special" (that often never changes).

Well, today I learned that when you walk into a Teriyaki restaurant and neither of these features are there, you're likely in an expensive Teriyaki restaurant and they don't want to put the prices in plain sight because people could see them from the door and make a run for it before they were already well inside and committed. Sure, it was served on a fancy plate, but I was just looking for some $5 rice and chicken. Lesson learned.

Not Blockbuster!

So, I just called to cancel another credit card (cheers!). When the guy asked why, I told him we were cleaning up our credit cards and closing them out. He asked which cards we were keeping (obviously wanting to talk me into his being one of them). I told him none of them. Getting rid of all of them. His response? "Well, then you won't be able to open an account at Blockbuster without a credit card." Oh the horror!!! Nooooooooooooooo!!! Not Blockbuster! Please, don't take that away from me. I'll stay in financial bondage and be in constant temptation to use debt...just don't take away my Blockbuster!

Seriously? Is that what they're trained to use to try to retain customers? I told him I bet Blockbuster would let me rent a movie if I had money. And that if being able to rent at Blockbuster was the one benefit I had by keeping a credit card, then I guess I could do without Blockbuster. He then went on to tell me I couldn't rent a car without a credit card. I told him you can rent a car without a credit card. He firmly declared that you can't. Whatever...just close the account.

This is what we're up against people. These companies have just been feeding us lies and we've been buying into it. No more.

I feel like going and renting a car today with my DEBIT card just out of spite. Anyone want to go for a drive?

More numbers.

So yesterday after church we had another orientation video for the class. 12 more families signed up (that we know of) and a few more are thinking about it! That brings our count to 38 families (counting Sonja and I)! We are so excited! People seemed really interested and a number of them have heard the Dave Ramsey show on AM630 KCIS already.

Class starts next Sunday...yeah!

25?!

Sonja and I are getting pretty excited! On March 11 we are starting FPU (Financial Peace University) at our church (class details here). This past Sunday was the first time that it was announced in church and Sonja and I couldn't be there (we were in Oregon). Since it was the first Sunday the church was hearing about it, we had no idea how many people were going to sign up. We knew that Pastor Mark and his wife were going to be in the class and that he had encouraged some of his staff to sign up as well, but beyond that we had no idea. Especially since it was such a short notice! The class requires a 13 week commitment and were only giving people two weeks to make that choice and sign up.

So, Pastor Mark emailed us today and said that after last Sunday there were 25 families signed up! 25? Wow! That's like 40-50 people (depending on how many of those are couples)! And, we're still pitching it next Sunday, too. Sonja and I will get to give a 4 minute commercial about how much we learned from the class and then we'll show the orientation video again - so we might get even more people to sign up. The only part we're worried about is how to keep our commercial under 4 minutes. If you've ever heard either of us talk about Dave Ramsey or Financial Peace University, you know that we could talk about it for hours!

So, yeah, we're totally excited. If you can join us for the class, please do! Sundays 4-6pm starting March 11. If you can't join us (because of distance or schedule), then find a class you can go to! We hear there's one that might be starting at Edmonds Open Bible...(hint hint!)...

We'll post an update with the final numbers after next Sunday. Stay tuned...

A good reason to get a YouTube account

This was the funniest thing ever. This dog is my parents'/grandma's dog, Apollo. He is the coolest dog - well behaved, smart, a great protector, etc. And, when I first saw him doing this, I though "dumb dog". But then I realized he's just playing. See, when my dad would get in the backhoe, Apollo would sit and stare at my dad (in the cab)...then as soon as Dad revved the engine, Apollo would look at the bucket and get ready. If Dad waited, Apollo would look back at him as if to say, "come on! let's play!"

Dad was telling me that Apollo will sit on the front porch and whimper for him to come out and play with him. I can understand why - Dad has the biggest dog toy ever!

Click here for part 2. (the sound and video quality isn't great on these - stupid camera phones)

"Math and Journalism Don't Mix" -or- "Orcas Have Longer Days Than Humans"

See any funny math in this article? Here's a little hint:
"The orcas can travel about 3 miles an hour, and cover 75 miles a day."

Just up in the attic

Part of my new job has been driving around to different Red Apple and Thriftway stores and getting them ready for a conversion to a different network (for ordering and inventory stuff). If you've heard of AG (Associated Grocers), then that's the old network and the new network is called Northwest Grocers. It's been kind of fun...last few weeks I was in Marysville, Granite Falls, Kingston and Bremerton (via the ferry), and Renton. The other day, I went to a grocery store about 5 blocks from our house...best commute ever. Next week I'm headed to Poulsbo and Olympia. They also have stores in Eastern Washington, Oregon and Alaska (I already volunteered for the Alaska stores). But I digress...


Last week I was at a Red Apple store in Bremerton. The DSL company had already installed the DSL modem, but according to my notes, the store still needed to arrange for a cable to be run from the "telco" area to the office. I needed to put ends on either end of the cable and we would be good to go. Sure, no problem. I get to the store and the manager tells me that he DSL modem and telco area is up in the attic...let's go have a look. We headed out to the warehouse/loading dock area. I knew I was in trouble when the manager grabs a ladder.

I got even more nervous when he leans the ladder up against the side of the building and turns to me and says, "you aren't bothered by heights are you?" Well, luckily I'm not, but I can't help thinking what if I had been. I think the pictures say it all, but it was a bit of an adventure.

Oh, How I Miss Thee

Oh, How I Miss Thee

Snow, oh snow, where have you gone?
It has been so long

You came for a visit in the sweet month of November
And came back again in December
I thought for sure you were going to stay

You were clean and pristine for so many days
Earth was quieted by you
People went outside and played with you

Why did you leave?
I was not ready for you to go
I miss you sweet and beautiful snow

Please Take Your Seat

Who's throwing the tantrum here?

Hold on a sec...

Just happened to see a news article on MSN that caught my eye: "Faith in marriage". (Aside: of course, this article caught my eye, too: "Wife induces labor so hubby won't miss Bears game" - huh?!?)

Okay, back to the "Faith in marriage" article. It starts out all sweet and nice...and I was almost beginning to think they wouldn't try to pull it...but they did. Almost the last line of the article they get it in there: "We tell them that different people envision God differently and different people take different paths. But in the end all paths lead to God." Hold on a second...

We hear that in our culture today and a lot of people just accept it...even a lot of Christians. And even if we disagree, we may not even know why. It sounds wrong...but how do we unpack that?

Greg Koukl (Stand to Reason) has talked about it a lot and has a great article about it here.

Dread

On Saturday Sonja and I signed up for a gym membership. I don't remember being drunk, but I can't think of how else she would have gotten me to do something like that. Anyway, we paid a little extra so we get some one-on-one training. I have to be at the gym in 25 minutes for my first session. Dread.

Old Job, New Job

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks. As I posted earlier, going into the new year we weren’t really sure what was going to be happening with my job. Well, I found out on January 3 (along with 60 other Jobsterites) that my job was ending (or more politically correct…my position was being “dissolved”). That sucked. There was some good news, though: 3 weeks of severance pay and (more importantly) that I was going to get to stay on as a contractor for a short time. So, after getting over the frustration of being laid off, I realized that if I could get a job before my contract time was up the severance would be more of a bonus.

As a result, the last 9 days have been busy with sending out resumes, making contacts, and scouring the job boards (and, really, I even started doing that before January 3 due to all the rumors).

On Wednesday I had lunch with David, the owner of Tyrnstone Systems – an IT consulting company in Seattle. I had spent about 5 months contracting with Tyrnstone back in 2005 before I got hired on at Jobster. David offered me a full time salaried position at Tyrnstone and yesterday (Thursday) I accepted. (whew!) So Tuesday will be my last day at Jobster and Wednesday I’ll start at Tyrnstone.

Tyrnstone caters primarily to the SMB (Small/Medium Business) market and does some pretty cool work. I think in addition to Windows systems administrator stuff, I’ll also get to do some project management. My official title is “Senior SMB Systems Engineer”. I’ll still get to take the bus to work and when I need to visit a client site I’ll get to take the company car. There’s some other cool perks as well (like a Windows Mobile phone – I’m soooo ready to get rid of this Blackberry!).

All in all, it’s looking pretty good. Sonja and I are feeling truly blessed. And you can bet that the severance/bonus is going straight at some debt!

Need to start saving my pennies...

http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/09/the-apple-iphone/

Love is a Fallacy

I’m reading a book called Why Good Arguments Often Fail by James Sire (Christian philosopher). It’s a great book and I highly recommend it.

He opens with a reprint of a short story that I thought was pretty good and wanted to share: "Love is a Fallacy" (originally from The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis by Max Shulman).