This will come as no surprise to my family, but I am loving our front porch. There is nothing quite as nice as enjoying a cup of coffee/tea on the porch as the morning breeze rolls through or just chillaxing and watching people as the sun goes down.
Plus, I get a great wireless signal. If only there was an electrical outlet, a TV, and a small fridge… I could probably live out here all summer.
As I’ve been documenting, Stoney (our 4 year old yellow lab) is tormented by the many black squirrels who call our backyard home. For months he has been going jogging with Kristen work on his speed and agility so that one day he will catch, kill, and dismember his tormentors. (They are too evil to eat.)
Stoney is in good company. Many people dislike squirrels. They include David Crowder, Gerrard Fess, Barack O’Bama, and Ron Howard are all well-known squirrel haters.
Yesterday was a glorious day! Well, nearly. After an appropriate amount of rest in the house… we let Stoney outside as the family was taking me to the church for MainStreet rehearsal. Instantly he tore off into the yard in hot pursuit. The squirrel near the play structure quickly dove under the fence to safety and Stoney hung a quick left. So quick and agile that the squirrel under the tree froze in amazement. Before the emperor of evil knew what was happening he found himself in the jaws of our heros mouth. The family cheered as Stoney’s dream of ridding the yard of his arch enemy became true. Just then, the squirrel reached into his squirrel pocket and pulled out a nasty potion causing Stoney’s jaws to unexplainably release.
Stoney was obviously disappointed as he never saw the squirrel’s evil pocket before. As the squirrel slithered up the tree and started chattering with his friends Stoney circled the tree and peed on it out of protest.
His day is coming.
I have a new web addiction. It’s called, mynameisbill.com. Bill describes himself as an "Interactive World Traveler." Basically, he blogs and posts videos about his travel and responds to users suggestions and comments. Once at a location, he does a little video blog and links to the unique things he’s discovered.
It’s worth checking out. www.mynameisbill.com.
I absolutely couldn’t believe this story. Part of me still thinks it is a joke. It appears here at Slice of Laodicea.
Chuck Swindoll has been dropped from a Christian Radio Station because they thought he was too crude in teaching the Bible. If one of the best Bible teachers in the world today is too crude, perhaps this stations standards are messed up.
Here’s a great unofficial response.
Note to self, don’t put descriptions of a prostrate exam on the podcast.
It’s now been 2-3 months that our yard has been torn to shreds by our local government. Before the work began we got a nice note letting us know we’d be selected as the lucky ones with the manhole cover in our yard who would have workers camping out in our yard. Kind of like winning the dirt lottery!
Let me clarify, this is utility work and not the sole responsibility of our local government. They are running new gas lines for our neighborhood. It’s valuable work and I am certain that the contractors hired are very skilled people.
A second disclaimer. This isn’t technically "our yard" as it’s part of the easement. The 5 foot clump of grass between the sidewalk and the curb. While it’s not 100% ours, we are responsible for its care and it definitely impacts the way our home is looked at. And right now it looks terrible.
My point is, my yard looks horrible and has looked horrible for months. In talking to the company in charge of the project the secretary assures me that they will level and seed the area when the job is done. "When will the job be done?" "Let me check on that."
In the meantime. My yard looks awful and I have no idea when it will look normal again.
It’s a beautiful sunny morning in Romeo on Memorial Day. We were out late visiting with some friends so everyone is a little slow in getting up this morning. But as we don’t have many plans today, it’s just fine.
One thing I like about getting back from vacation is a fresh perspective on things. After being away for a Sunday from church, it was awful nice to be back home. This may sound cheesy, but I’m pretty pleased with the vibe the church services are putting off.
The church staff is full of perfectionists… me being the worst of them. I have a natural tendency to forget the 95% of things that went great and focus my attention on the 5% that didn’t go to my liking. (In fact, people are willing and have left churches over a .5% thing… but I digress.)
I think this comes from the "theater and music" background of growing up. Burned on my brain are the sharp criticisms of former mentors and teachers who instructed through insult. I remember finishing shows where everyone in the audience was elated about a performance only to get intensely negative feedback over tiny things. ("You didn’t stick a line the way we rehearsed it" or "that one note was a tad flat.") In fact, I think I’d gotten so used to the back-sided compliments in my life that I vowed to just cut to the chase.
I’m such a people pleaser that the compliment part… I always felt it was insincere, said only to earn my ear for the harsh critique.
The back-sided compliment/critique:
"The performance went great, we brought down the house… but there were 3-4 things we need to fix for next time."
In an effort to just be direct, I would have preferred this:
Blunt force feedback:
"The performance would have been better had you done these 3-4 things better."
Here’s something I’m learning: People prefer the back-sided compliment/critique. While I may have focused on the negative… it seems most people don’t mind the negative when a few nice things are mentioned first.
For a few weeks I have been drawn to a little website called kiva.org. Kiva offer microcredit to entrepreneurs in developing countries.
How does it work?
It’s really quite simple. You create an account, you chose someone you’d like to loan money to, and you pay with PayPal. 100% of the money goes to the person who then repays the money to you on a pre-determined schedule.
Sound shady?
When it comes to our money, we are so suspicious aren’t we?
Well, microlender Grameen Bank won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.
Adam, what are you saying?
Well, I read enough… tonight I invested in a small business in Samoa. The "why" is really simple. Rather than just giving someone a handout… why not help them get started in something that can secure their future?
We made a simple, small investment in order to help someone out.
It’s another one of my many experiments. I am keeping an eye on the benefits of this as I can easily see something practical like Kiva becoming a practical part of Light Force or even YMX.
Apparently the food I ate at the chippy last week wasn’t what I thought it was. Turns out it was shark meat! Ooops. Darn good shark meat though.
Since "spiny dogfish shark" is not the most appetizing name, in
recent years fishmongers have given it other names in hopes of
appealing to consumers. In France it is sold as small salmon. Belgians
know it as sea eel. Germans smoke the meat and call it Schillerlocken.
It is perhaps best known in English-speaking countries, particularly
the U.K., as rock salmon, one of the most common fish in "fish and
chips" shops.
"Since everything is fried, fish and chips can be almost anything," TRAFFIC program associate Jill Hepp told Discovery News.
Hepp said restaurant demand for "rock salmon" has devastated the
shark’s population off the coasts of Britain and France, where "the
spiny dogifsh is widely considered to be critically endangered."
Vendors now often look to the United States for catches. The sharks are
fished from around the mid-Atlantic states to the coast of
Massachusetts. Story