Month: May 2006

  • The Thorn in the Flesh of the Kennedy Family

    KennedyOK, so Patrick Kennedy (son of Ted Kennedy) was involved in an accident on Thursday night.

    At 2:45 AM the disoriented Rhode Island democrat was speeding through a construction zone, clipped something which caused him to swerve. So a police officer tailed him and popped the lights on… to which the lawmaker promptly didn’t pull over and continued driving until he ran head on into a barrier.

    It gets better. The reporting officer describes this scene as he approached the representative’s 1997 green Ford Mustang: "Observed that D-1’s [the driver] eyes were red and watery, speech was slightly slurred, and upon exiting his vehicle, his balance was unsure. D-1 also report to R.O. [reporting officer] that he was "headed to the capital to make a vote." [Yes, at 2:45 AM!] Read the rest at the Smoking Gun

    Equal
    Of course, he being a Kennedy in Washington… nothing will happen to him. Instead of giving a field sobriety test the officer just took the representative home. But, as his website declares "Congressman Kennedy is a dedicated supporter of our law enforcement and firefighter communities." Apparently "equal justice under the law" doesn’t apply here. Anyone else in the country with those circumstances would have been field tested and probably spent the night in jail.

    I think they should remove this guy immediately until a proper investigation can be done. How can a lawmaker look like a law dodging lawbreaker? Oh well… at least his son didn’t get anyone killed.

  • Gas prices

    Since Katrina, we’ve not really seen gas go below $2.50. Who would of thought that we’d drive by a gas station and see $2.79 and sasy… "Oh, cheap gas so we better fill up."

    I’m not being nostalgic but the summer of 1998 I was buying premium in Chicago for $1.09. What the heck happened?

  • A good weekend

    It all started Friday evening. I drove down to Kristen’s folks house to have dinner and pick up Kristen and the kids. While I’m not a natural "big family" guy I really enjoy having Megan and Paul around their cousins and grandparents. So Friday night went in a blur.

    Saturday we got the play structure. Overall it was a yard day as we added yet more flowers to the yard and I got the front yard mowed and cleaned up. I’m having a general frustration with my gas blower/vacuum thing… I must have pulled that starter 250 times and it never got started well enough to actually work for me. Annoying!

    Sunday, obviously is "church day." With Bob out of town I had a couple more things to do than normal but not an obnoxious amount. After church I was in charge of running the last name change meeting. I tried my best to answer questions and keep everyone united through the discussion. (I mean that in an emotional way since there are obviously good people on both sides of the name change discussion.) I left church at roughly 2:00 and then went out to lunch with a church family. I finally got home from church at about 3:30 PM. Long day, stay home right? Of course not.

    The "big meet" was last night. I went over to YMX member, Bryan the madposter’s, house for dinner with Todd, Kim, and their friends. Also present was Chicago YMXer Cathy. I just kind of hung out and didn’t say a whole lot. But it was a lot of fun to hang out with Todd, Kim, Bryan, Cathy, Mary, Matt, Chris, and a few "non-YMX" folks.

  • Big day for the kids

    Play_fortFor months now we’ve been talking to a church family about taking their play structure and moving it to our house. Well, today is the day!

    In a few hours we’ll be going to get it. This is very exciting for the kids as they’ll have their own swings and something to climb on and be "theirs."

  • 400 and growing fast

    Ymx_arrowsLast night YMX reached a big milestone. 400 members. Barely past it’s 6 month anniversary, we’re excited about our growth rate. May has been a gangbuster month so far… pretty cool.

    There are several new developments that are right on the cusp of being able to talk about. Cool times for this little site and it’s community.

  • Youth Pastors Aren’t Planning for Retirement

    Sometimes I worry that a lot of young ministers aren’t investing in their future because they are too worried about paying off school debt and other things. Since investing is one of my hobbies, I keep track of some money-oriented websites. I came across this question today and thought it was worth posting:

    I opened a Roth IRA at my credit union, but now I’m confused. As I
    understand it, my Roth, which the teller told me is "just like a CD,"
    lasts only 23 months. Based on what I’ve read about Roth IRAs, however,
    I thought you could put your money aside for a couple of decades. Does
    the amount of time the Roth lasts depend on the financial institution
    you open it with, or do all Roth IRAs expect you to decide periodically
    whether you want to extend it?

    If you don’t know the answer, click here. (Ask the Expert on CNNMoney.com)

  • Time to spend some time updating…

    Romeo_logo_front_1I’ve finally got a day when I can spend some time working on the church website. One thing I want to do right away is get the same mp3 capabilities on the church site that we have on YMX. So if you get a minute, check it out and let me know what you think.

  • Put this on the list…

    There are a few thing I never had intended to do in my life that I’m both learning about and entering into at the same time.

    1. Owning any sort of business. Stocks are easy to do because you can get some minor benefit of ownership and none of the work. Being a part of the YMX team has been really, really weird for me. There’s a steep learning curve and I’m trying to catch up. We think we’re doing well. Maximizing what we do good and minimizing our mistakes.
    2. Going on tour. I have no idea how this came about, but there are some sketches of a plan for a YMX United 07 tour. More on that at another time… never even dreamed of that one. But this may actually make it from the dream stage to the real life stage.
    3. Being a part of promoting something. There is a thing that we can’t talk about yet that YMX is helping promote. It may always be 100% "behind the scenes" promotion… but since I’ve never done it before we don’t know what to do our say about it. We just think it’s cool.

    So there are 3 things that I’ve done in the past 6 months that if you had asked me 6 months and a day ago… I wouldn’t have imagined.

  • I’m getting really Sirius

    Siriuslogoblu_img_lrg_4Well I did it again. I’ve bought still more stock in the company I think will win the satellite radio wars. The bottom line why I keep buying more and more of it is that I just think it’s a good product, a good price, and it will be a money maker for a long time. I read an interesting article today that said that the average person listens to their radio 40% of the time they are in their car. But a satellite radio owner listens 75% of the time. This is good for ad dollars. I like it and think Sirius will hopefully go above $6 in the next quarter.

  • The Contender

    Boxing_ring_titleTonight I’m really excited about LF. Not only is it a perfect night to play games outside and play with diet coke and mentos and wear shorts and all that "nice night goofiness" that we’re sure to experience.

    But I’m also excited to continue on our teaching series. Tonight we’ll be watching the battle that Jesus introduces to us in Luke 20. His enemies brought the fight and for our sake he embraces it.