This is only a test.

I haven't blogged in six months or so. I just thought I'd see if any noticed a new blog post. And since I'm doing it, I'll make it worth your while.

There's a recently released album from Needtobreathe. Five reasons I like it:

1. Bluesy feel
2. great vocals
3. "Girl named Tennessee" makes me want to dance (but don't fear; it'll never happen)
4. alternate tunings
5. banjo!
   

Mondays

I am trying to make it back into the blog world after a several-month hiatus. It's hard to get back into the swing of things. This time of year, I just want to be outside doing something--anything really. I guess setting behind the computer writing doesn't sound so glamorous when it's beautiful outside.

My thought for the day revolve around Mondays. I like Monday. In fact, it is easily my favorite day of the work week (clearly we can't include Saturday or Sunday in such a discussion). But I find that I have so much more energy and I get so much more accomplished on Monday. I guess resting on the weekend is one reason why. I think having a two day break from the little brats is probably more of the reason.

But what struck me is that when I am more energetic, the class is as well. They kind of feed off of me. Now some times it's like pulling teeth to get them going, but when I really make the effort it tends to work. When I don't let them nod off or zone out and I really make an effort to keep them involved, it works. So why don't I approach everyday like Monday? I can't really fully answer that, but I think that is my goal for the week. I want to treat each day like a Monday. This is a scientific study of a sort. Results will follow.

What about you? Does your attitude reflect your productivity on a daily basis?

A return

I understand that I haven't posted since mid-February. I apologize for being too busy to blog. Baseball season is at full speed and that means I spend most of my waking hours there. However, this weekend I made a comment to my good buddy Adam about how much I hate country music. He immediately responded with a request for a blog on said topic. This is that response.

For the following reasons, I hate country/western/southern gospel/etc. music:

1. Four chords are more than enough for any good song
2. Too many women singers
3. Of course, the nasally vocals
4. Modern country music's attempts to dress and act like rock stars and have a hint of modern music, but yet they still sound country
5. Lyrical content--beer, women, marital affairs, trucks, mud, huntin', dogs, etc...
6. guys wearing earrings singing about those topics
7. songs that repeatedly refer to "mamma" or "daddy"
8. Mandolin
9. 1 of 4 songs deal with "cheatin'"
10. ending all lyrics with and apostrophe
11. Wranglers
12. artists who have one of the aforementioned songs about cheatin' and then follow it on the album with a song about Jesus
13. The steel guitar fetish
14. starting notes a half step low, and then scooping them up (or nearly up) to pitch
15. Mullets
16. The connection to NASCAR
17. Belt buckles and horses
18. cheesy bass lines....sounds like mariachi band
19. blind patriotism
20. it's bluegrass's retarded cousin

What's wrong with the world....

It's a pretty natural reaction to hate the Yankees. Most people do. I don't necessarily. I do think that Steinbrenner is a jerk, but that's no reason to hate the team. But I think I have finally found a really good reason to hate the Yankees. If you think I am talking about A-Rod and steroids, you're wrong. I'm not up in arms over the whole steroid era.

So what's this all about?

I was reading an article tonight about the A-Rod issue and the following is a quote from Brian Cashman, Yankees General Manager, in reference to Rodriguez:

"He's a huge investment. So he's an asset, and this is an asset that's currently in crisis," Cashman said. "So we will do everything we can to protect that asset. ... If this is Humpty Dumpty, we've got to put him back together again, to get back up on the wall."

I now can hate the Yankees because they don't think they're players are people--just "assets." What if you went into work tomorrow and your boss referred to you as a "huge investment and an asset?" Inspiring, huh.

And I think this could be a broader commentary on what's wrong with the business world today. Everything is so cutthroat, dog-eat-dog, and I think sometimes a simple fact gets lost in the shuffle and bustle--there are people involved. People are made in the image of God and should be treated as such. I think the last time in US History that people were referred to as "investments" and "assets" they were being bought and sold as slaves. When a person dehumanizes someone else they are in grave danger of destroying that person.

I recently heard someone talking along these lines with the issue of our current attitudes toward sex. Sexual abuse has become such a huge problem today, and the only way a person could do that to another is to dehumanize them. If you look at them as anything less than a beautiful piece of God's most wonderful creation, then you are in danger of treating them poorly (if not physically, emotionally). If you truly cared about people, you couldn't do such a thing. We even do this in our language: men will look at a women and say "I'd hit that..." or "I'd like to get some of that."

"That" is a person.

I actually feel sorry for A-Rod. Because he's a human being, not a piece of property.

On a side note, most everyone who reads this already knows, but if you don't, you now will: I am going to be a dad. I know you're thinking, "Why not write a post about this?" The answer is that it is just too overwhelming right now. It's going to take some time to just take this all in. I'm super-pumped. Rickey, I think we'll be due about the same time as you guys. This is all crazy. More to come later.

Stimulating the Economy

Congress is bogged down trying to pass a stimulus bill that has more problems than an episode of Dr. Phil. I find it all very interesting. I think for the first time in a long while the American people are getting a really close-up look at our legislative process. And we don't like what we see, because the reality of it all is that Congress is operates as nothing more than an al a carte line. It's an "I'll vote for this bill if you'll throw in a few million here and a few million there that will benefit my electorate."

The House and Senate versions of the bill are somewhat different but both have been nearly a trillion dollars. Do you know how much money that is? I found this on Mike Huckabee's website to give us an idea:

1. If they divide $1 trillion among every American ... each person would get $3,271.
2. One trillion is 1,000,000,000,000 - 10 to the 12th power, or a thousand, thousand, thousand, thousand.
3. To put things in perspective, current estimates put the number of stars in the Milky Way at somewhere between 100 and 400 billion.
4. $1 trillion would be enough money to buy about a 1,000 boxes of Girl Scout cookies for every person in the United States.
5. A trillion barrels of oil would - at current consumption levels - fuel the world for about 33 years.
6. With $1 trillion, you could put 8.2 million students through a full four years of private college. That's just slightly more than the population of New York City in the latest U.S. Census data.
7. With $1 trillion, a somewhat different fleet of motorized vehicles could be sent to the Middle East. The average U.S. price of a 2008 Toyota Corolla S, before taxes and fees, was $14,627, according to Automotive Information Center data on Yahoo.com. At that price, you could buy a new '08 model for each of the almost 60 million people living in Afghanistan and Iraq.
   
8. A trillion dollar budget would cover the market values of Microsoft, Wal-Mart, Google, Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Time Warner and Apple, according to February 2007 figures in Forbes magazine; and you would be left with more than $23 billion in change to pick up a few 'smaller' companies.
   
9. You could buy every major-league professional sports franchise (football, basketball, hockey and baseball) in North America for about $45 billion total, according to recent market values in Forbes magazine. Then, you could pay each of them for more than 100 years, if the players' combined salaries held at 2006-'07 levels of about $9 billion.
   
10. The median salary for a family doctor in the United States is $144,719, according to Salary.com. With $1 trillion, you could hire 6.9 million general practitioners, or one for every 43 Americans.
    
11. With $1 trillion, you could buy slightly more than 3,000 Airbus A380 jets and some money left over for fuel.

A few of my thoughts:

1. I actually (being a nerd) got on c-span's website and looked at the proposed House bill (yes, it is over 600 pages, but I skimmed about 200) and it really was full of garbage that in no way will help me.
2. I really hate the "entitlement" attitude of people in the US today. People really think that their government owes them something. I think that is a major problem. And I think that we are teaching our children a really bad lesson by demanding that the government fix a problem in which the consumer is the root.
3. The idea of a stimulus does nothing to fix a recession or depression. Roosevelt's incredible New Deal spending package designed to "prime the pump" never really fixed the problem of unemployment. It wasn't until war-stimulated production and the draft that the problem of unemployment was really addressed. All those New Deal programs still left unemployment near 20%. Why do we think this will help?
4. One of the more disturbing provisions of the Bill is the "Buy American" clause. It would require the use of American iron and steel for all stimulus projects. This sounds like a great way to boost the sagging American metal industry, but a good look a history will show is this is a terrible idea. In a global recession, if we lock out foreign trade there will be massive retaliation for American products being sold abroad. How do I know? In 1930, Congress passed the Hawley-Smoot Tariff act which drastically raised the tax on imports. It was done as a way to worry about us and get Americans to buy American products. American exports plunged by more than 50%. It made the Depression turn into the Great Depression. I cannot believe our Congressmen don't know history. (Thank you John McCain for speaking out against it.)
5. I read on a buddy's facebook the other day a funny comment: "Obama in is Inaugural address said we will 'chose hope over fear.' Apparently we do that unless we are trying to pass a Stimulus Bill. (thanks Josh)
6. Pastor preached a good sermon today about worrying about others rather than ourselves. I thought the timing was appropriate.
7. This morning I was really drawn to the words of a hymn I've heard a million times and have never really liked (until Delirious remade it)--The Solid Rock. The first line is so appropriate and prophetic for our times: "My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness..." If we only could get hold of that and really believe it. Just for fun, here are all of the lyrics:

• My hope is built on nothing less Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;I dare not trust the sweetest frame,But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.
  When darkness veils His lovely face,I rest on His unchanging grace;In every high and stormy gale,My anchor holds within the veil.
  His oath, His covenant, His blood Support me in the whelming flood;When all around my soul gives way,He then is all my hope and stay.
  When He shall come with trumpet sound,Oh, may I then in Him be found;Dressed in His righteousness alone,Faultless to stand before the throne.

Refrain: On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;All other ground is sinking sand,All other ground is sinking sand.

No posts?

If you have wondered, which I'm sure you haven't, why I haven't posted in a good while it's because of the tremendous ice storm that hit this part of the world a week ago. Luckily we only lost power for a night. Others still do not have electricity. We were, however, without Internet access for a while. So here' some catching up to do:

1. I have had a week's vacation with this storm and have absolutely nothing to show for it.
2. The Steelers won the Superbowl, but it was actually a really good game for once.
3. I never watched a Superbowl until I was an adult (can't miss church, of course), but thank you Mr. DVR.
4. A candlelight dinner is not nearly as romantic when you are doing it out of necessity.
5. We lost a week of baseball practice....kinda hard to get any better that way.
6. Went on a little hike to Smith Creek Preserve near the Buffalo River....I love that place...saw some elk, eagles, and of course, waterfalls
7. We had a bunch of visitors from other churches at ours Sunday, because many churches still didn't have power. One day I'd like to just go and visit random churches for several weeks and observe them.
8. Knock on wood, I didn't fall on the ice even once

Baseball Season

Baseball season is upon us, for those of you who don't know. Colleges will begin next weekend. High schools will be playing in a month, and then pitchers an catchers will report for spring training about that time. Yes, it's cold, but that does not deter the powerful spirit of the game.

We started practice this week and it looks as if there is a long way to go. But then again, it always looks that way. Overall, it looks like we have a group of kids who really want to get better, and that in itself will take us much farther than just talent (which consequently there isn't a ton of). I really like teaching baseall better than teaching in a classroom. I guess the reason why is that you can see immediate results so much better on the field. I'll take a pitcher who is struggling and give him one little tip and then he'll throw three straight strikes. You just do see obvious, immediate results like that very often in the classroom.

On a side note, I am finishing up a baseball book this week. It is about how in 1888-1889, AG Spalding (think Spalding sporting goods) took a group of the nation's best ball players on a trip around the world. They played games in Hawaii, New Zealand, Australia, Egypt (under the shadow of the Sphinx), Italy, France, England, as well as all across the US. They played games in front of kings, diplomats, and other dignitaries, and they were treated like superstars wherever they went. They were ambassadors of the sport. It's an interesting read. Other countries, often times, were not quick to adopt the "American" game.

Then there was the group of people who said that baseball was just an adaptation of an old children's game "rounders." We'll in one city ( I can't recall right now) the took on a little dare to play a game of rounders with the local studs, and then a game of baseball. They played two or three innings of rounders and lost 16-14. That was respectable. Then they turned around and played some baseball. The locals went 1-2-3...all striking out. Then the touring baseballers put up about 35 runs in the first inning. So they only played one inning. It might have been better not to embarras the locals, but they had a point to prove.

I smell it in the air. It's time for baseball.