EarthSwoop can take you there with some really cool trips to each of the NFL stadiums. The 3D realism is close to the real things. No smell of beer or rowdy fans. No live action. No cheerleaders. No bad calls.
I just reconnected with a good friend from college this past week on Facebook. Tim and I used to play in a band together called “Skydiver” named shortly after we all went skydiving. We caught up by phone this past week and it was like 20 years hadn’t just passed. Our drummer was Mike Zimmerman, Tim’s cousin, who lives in Nashville now and plays with Tracy Byrd. Just talked to him too. Anyway, Tim tells me about this little company he’s founded called ShareThis. ShareThis is one of the coolest new widgets out there because it allows you to do in one step what used to take several. Now you can send a url directly from the page with a single click. Already saving lots of time. Oh, and did I mention Tim’s got the attention of some big players looking at what he’s doing. Try ShareThis on your blog. You’ll have the capability to track who has shared your stuff with some really cool analytics reports. I highly recommend it to all the Watercooler Wednesday folks at Ethos.
From the House of Representatives website as I was trying to share some views about the current crisis.
The House of Representatives is currently experiencing an extraordinarily high amount of email traffic. The Write Your Representative function is therefore intermittently available. While we realize communicating to your Members of Congress is critical, we suggest attempting to do so at a later time, when demand is not so high. System engineers are working to resolve this issue and we appreciate your patience.
Dave Ramsey suggests the following course of action. From an email sent by his organization. It makes a lot of sense to me. Who do you trust more with your money, Dave Ramsey or congress? I mean think about it.
—Start of Email—
We are at a crucial time in our country’s financial history. Congress defeated the $700 billion bailout plan on Monday. However, they are revising it and trying to push it through again. I’m supporting an alternative plan that will keep our nation from going even deeper in debt, and I’ve been on TV and radio all week telling people about it.
We need everyone’s help!
3 Steps to Change the Nation’s Future
Follow the instructions below. Together we can change history.
Pray For Your Leaders
Pray for them to resist a spirit of FEAR and to embrace WISDOM. Even if you don’t like them or agree with them, pray for them and tell them you are praying for them. There is a spirit over this problem that must be broken. Also, most of the media personalities are afraid as well and that is affecting their reporting. Pray for fear to be removed from them; they are making this worse.
Send the Common Sense Fix
Send The Common Sense Fix to your Representatives and Senators and tell them how you expect them to vote, and that if they put this nation in $700 billion of debt, that you will vote them out. It’s their job to listen to us! (Whichever presidential candidate or political party that champions this plan from their leadership down will likely become the next president. That is because this plan fixes the crisis while going along with the wishes of the vast majority of Americans.)
1. First, read this page (PDF)
2. Next, copy the info on this page (text file)
3. Send it to your Senators and Representatives by copying and pasting the text in the web form you’re sent to.
*Note: If their websites are down, that means we’re making a difference! Keep refreshing the page until you get through. You can also go through Congress.org, though we don’t endorse this site.
Tell Others
Forward this email to everyone in your address book and tell them to urgently follow these 3 steps TODAY. The more people we have supporting this and contacting their elected leaders, the more likely we can turn our economy around!
— end of email —
Well I sent it off to Sen Corker and Alexander. The house website was down. I’ll try that later.
My kids just starting attending a private Christian school. Since my wife teaches there, we are able to put both of our girls in for free, which is nice. I’m really impressed with this school. My first impression is that parents are truly involved. The school has a program in which parents have to achieve a certain number of points each year choosing from a whole bunch of different activities in order to continue on the following year. Some of these activities include sitting in on your child’s class for an hour, maintaining a section of landscaping on the grounds (adopt a ground), teaching a class, attending parent-teacher meetings, helping with fall festival, etc. Yes, parents can get busy and forget about how important involvement in the school is and specifically the education of their child, but I think it goes deeper to something else.
These parents are paying some good money to get into the school. And in addition to those hefty tuition payments, the parents (whether property owners and renters) still have to pay for public schools through property taxes (renters pay through the lease payment). Though taxes are necessary, they become a hidden fee that you don’t see come directly out of your bank account each month. And that is my point.
When you have to put your money directly from your wallet into something you believe in, you darn sure are going to make every effort to ensure that it is put to good use. In the case of the school, parents show up. They spend time talking with teachers. They get on committees. They want success.
Unfortunately, when our monies are taken through backdoor channels like withholding taxes, electronic tithing (which I do), and property taxes, we can lose connection to that money and its purpose. If every American that now paid withholding actually had to pay it out of pocket like we do for gas in the car, there would be an uproar when it rises exponentially. The thing is, we just don’t see it. If we did, I think we’d each take a little more responsibility with how that money is being used. If public school parents were required to pay for their child directly and not through the property tax system, more public school parents would get involved (and not just in how good the football team is or who is the best chearleader). The effect would be more pressure on the school boards to do the right things and not the politically correct things. Teachers would see the trickle down effect of that. Kids that really want to be there would get a great education. Kids that don’t would save their parents the cost of the tuition and could pick strawberries for all I care. There appears to be enough of that work out there that we now need illegals to do.
So how involved are you?
Head on over to Ethos for Watercooler Wednesday. You’ll find some good folks there.
So you are stuck with all of these Delta frequent flier miles. Baggage charges are starting to go through the roof. You’d rather be flying Southwest but they don’t fly into your town. Well, now you can feel better about sticking with Delta. Wireless internet will soon be available for domestic flights. Through a company called Aircell, Delta plans to install a program called Gogo which will enable Delta customers traveling with Wi-Fi enabled devices to access the Internet. Gogo will not be free, but then again this is Delta we’re talking about. Gogo will be available to customers for a flat fee of $9.95 on flights of three hours or less, and $12.95 on flights of more than three hours. I suppose if you are surfing the internet, you won’t be thinking about how many delays you’ve had or whether your luggage will make it to your destination.
The picture above: it’s Delta’s new way of getting extra luggage to your final destination. Not the best fit, but its more money.
I stopped in at Walgreens in Donelson this morning to pick up supplies for our new office. The cosmetics register was opened and I struck up a conversation with Sandy, a former guidance counselor from Chicago. Sandy worked in the Chicago school system in the same high school for 47 years, retiring recently after the pace got a little too crazy, not to mention the students. We chatted for 15 minutes about kids in school and how so much has changed since she first began working with kids. The conversation turned to parents and how much of an impact they have during the formative years of child’s life. She remembered times when she would have to call home and tell a mom that she wasn’t supposed to smoke pot with her high schooler before school.
Then Sandy mentioned the antics of some children who visited the store this past weekend during the tax holiday. On Sunday she said these 
children were very rude, some asking that she leave the register (whose line was long) to find an item. Others got irate at the length of the lines. One child actually spit at a cashier when he didn’t get his way. Sadly, these weren’t children, but adults acting like children. Boy, some role models we are for kids. It reminded me of a visit to Kmart recently (it also was this past Sunday). Same situation. One lady got so angry that the line was long that she stormed out, dropping her items on the ground and stepping over them on the way out.
Where does this anger come from? This particular Kmart lady was in her 50’s from what I could tell. If she’d waited about two more minutes she would have been out the door with her stuff. When we as humans brush up against things or people we can’t control, especially when we are used to controlling everything else we can get our hands on (kids, husbands, wives, employees, cars, cable tv, etc.), something snaps. Coincidentally, this “control freakism” usually comes when you’ve intentionally decided to throw out the notion that someone greater controls things anyway, including your own perfect self. It sure is humbling (and frustrating) when you realize you can’t control everything. A data stream of garbage directed at a unsuspecting cashier usually makes it all better, just like a drink to help make the pain go away. You feel in control again for a time. It won’t last long, but there are always more cashiers, more drivers on the interstate, more spouses to get your fix.
Well, once again I’m sure glad I get to be a part of Watercooler Wednesday over at Ethos. People there will treat you nice.
I guess I forgot about this, but if you still have shopping to do for school, this would be the weekend to do it. Clothing, Computers, and School supplies qualify for tax free.
This shot from my back deck reminds me of my brain most days. A random fog rolls in. After a time, the sun tends to break through the haze. Things are clearer. Thankfully this doesn’t happen every day.
Music is like this. Certain songs on first listen don’t get inside. A few more listens and it catches on. Reading certain texts like scripture or the Declaration of Independence has a similar effect. Upon a second or third reading, even years later in some cases, causes certain nuggets of truth to appear as if out of nowhere.
I suppose even relationships can take on this mystical quality. One day I realize something really special about my wife that wasn’t there before (from my vantage point). Little by little, the fog lifts.
I’ve realized I have to recognize it as the fog that it is, and the mostly temporary nature of it, before I can see the truth.
I visited a small city in Russia a few years ago. It’s really not that small. Formerly Stalingrad, now Volgograd, it’s a city where history lives just down the street from my good friend Vitaly (and a million or so others). I met Vitaly on a trip there with a all-volunteer orchestra from the US. Vitaly and I hit it off quickly. He knew English well enough and had a neat sense of humor. He is a taxi van driver and the pastor of a small church there. He gets paid by doing the former so that he can help others doing the latter.
So we’ve been keeping in touch via email regularly. I got to visit him again last year when I visited Moscow, Tomsk (Siberia), and Volgograd performing with a big band jazz group. This is one of those friendships that just picked up again as if I had only gone down the street for some groceries. He tells me his English is good but he always confuses kitchen and chicken in translation.
I sent him an email asking if he’s experienced the same kind of thing I had where weeks go by and the time in between vanished as if stolen by a thief. He responded well.
You said interesting thing about time. It is true. It is difficult to understand that every minute or hour which God gave us costs “very expensive”, and we shall to spend it very very wise. I pray to God about that regular. Life is short, pray hard.
Such truth from halfway around the world. I look forward to visiting him again next year as our family plans a trip around the world with stops in Moscow, Volgograd, and then Taipei. And don’t you forget to visit the online destination called Watercooler Wednesday each week at Ethos.
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