Bag of Randomness

  • For the first time in my life, I used plumbers putty.  WifeGeeding made me install a new sink.
  • My favorite Llano Estacado Pastor is always encouraging me to read, so he should be proud to know that I’ve recently completed a book called Being Presbyterian in the Bible Belt.  It’s short in that it’s about 90 pages, but hey, I made the commitment and carried it through.  I really enjoyed it.  It was written for teenagers, so it was dumbed down for me and was pretty easy to understand, and I was able to relate to their descriptions of evangelicals, such as the friendly folks that are part of the SBC.  It’s quite fascinating to get another perception of Christianity, and this was definately a good start.
  • For you Methodists out there, there’s a Being Methodist in the Bible Belt book available.  What’s great about Amazon is the ability to buy used books such as this one for only a $1.50.
  • I let the Sunday school teacher that has been teaching denominational differences borrow that book I mentioned last week, and I forwarded the chart that I created.  When he stopped by we had a very nice conversation, and he I’m afraid I was a little long-winded in my answers.  On question in particular that he asked was what motivated me to study motivational differences.  After answering that question, we had some small talk and I told him how I kinda work in IT and that I teach several finance courses at LeTourneau University’s satellite campus in Dallas.  In reference to my background, my studies, and my career, he described me as someone who is always thirsty and never content.  I took it as a compliment, and I think that was the second best compliment that was ever given to me.
  • The highest compliment I ever received came in my first couple years out of college and was from a tall blonde at an after work gathering.  She told me I was extremely charming.  Sure she was a happily married mother of two, but for someone that has never considered himself attractive and never had luck with the ladies in high school or college, that acknowledgment really made me happy.
  • In that Sunday school class the teacher listed several denominations on the dry erase board and asked the class what were their impressions or what did they know about said denomination.  The one that received the most attention were the Baptists.  Being a visitor and a former Baptist, I just kept quiet because I truely wanted to see what others thought about Baptists, in particular, the SBC.  For the most part, they were dead on.  And as much as I intended on just remaining quiet and listening in, the teacher stated that I was an “somewhat expert” in denominational differences, in particular, the Baptist faith.  Well, I’m far from an expert in denominational differences and certainly can’t speak for all Baptists, but I did bring my notes in and shared what I could.  But for the most part, I would say I probably studied about this more than anyone else in that room.
  • What else can I call it besides Sunday school?
  • There’s a lot of hype around  Slumdog Millionaire, and I’m sure it’s a good movie, but the song played on the commercials make me want to light myself on fire.  Not so much the first 50 times I saw the commercial, but sometime thereafter.
  • WifeGeeding and I ate at the Cheesecake Factory this weekend, and the very first words out of our waitress’ mouth was a question directed at me asking if I was of mixed race.  She did it in a very nice manner, and I actually took it as a compliment.
  • On Saturday night I saw a comedian do a bit where he pretended to be a Fox News reporter and went out to a Democratic inauguration party in Los Angeles.  The idea had potentional, but the bit really stunk.
  • I saw Seal interviewed the other day, which prompted me to check out his Wikipedia page to try to discover what lead to the scars under his eyes.  In short, there’s no confirmed answer, but I did learn he had a really long name.
  • Last Friday I went to lunch with a lot of my coworkers, one of which is from India.  We talked about a lot of various things, but one of the topics was humor.  She stated she had a hard time understanding American humor as she was learning english, but it was through sitcoms she started to understand our humor.  She gave a lot of the credit to the audience laughter, which clued her in on what was and wasn’t considered funny.
  • I stated a while back how I sometimes just like to listen to instrumental music, a lot of which is by John Williams.  One of his songs was played at the inauguration by Yo Yo Ma and some other famous instrumental people I really don’t know.  If you liked the song, feel free to download it here.
  • Now that the Obama Administration has taken over the White House’s website, my previous posts that linked to the George W. Bush White House website no longer work.  But it turns out there’s a way to pull up those old pages.  All you have to do is replace “www.whitehouse” with “georgewbush-whitehouse.archives”.  For instance, I once made a 2006 post about a presidential proclamation about the 50th anniversary of having “In God We Trust” printed on our currency.  That link will no longer take you to the proclamation, but to the White House Briefing Room section of the new website.  But this link will take you to the intended 2006 proclamation.  Nerdy, I know, but interesting, don’t you think?  And if you are interested in all the coding aspects of the new website, here’s some nerdy stuff.
  • I couldn’t find a way to find any old Clinton White House links.
  • Here’s a nice time waster, even if it is about a week late in posting this, but zoom all around the inauguration, and admire the clarity and you see people close up using 1474 megapixels.  Link
  • And here are some behind the scene pictures of that day.  The one that stood out was of one where one of Obama’s daughters is taking a picture of him as he’s about to depart to a ball, as if no one else was going to take a picture of him that evening.  Just click on the pic to the the next pic.
  • Obama got some heat for mentioning non-Christians and unbelivers in his inauguration speech.  But not only do I think this guy from BeliefNet makes a good point about the religious foundations of this country, but this lady from USA Today found that George W said the same thing, just not at the inauguration.
  • Obama and Bob Dylan.  Link
  • LBJ placed his hand not on a Bible but a Roman Catholic missal, and seven presidents had to restate the oath of office.  I found that stuff out in this article.
  • For everyone that saw the last episode of The Office on Thursday.  Link The answer is no, btw.
  • I read an article about the Secret Service using digital camer’s to snap a ton of pictures of people and the buildings along the parade.  In case anything happened, they would have detailed high megapixeled photos that could help lead them in the right direction.
  • Obama-mania can get out of hand, big time, but thankfully some folks are well grounded.
  • For fans of Run DMC and Obama . . . Link
  • It appears the crown of the Statue of Liberta will be open again.  Article
  • I wasn’t aware that the shawls worn by archbishops are from lambs blessed by the pope.  Article
  • 2009 will have three Friday the 13 – Feb, March, and Nov.
  • Chris Rock made a documentary about hair.  Article
  • I didn’t know Best Buy sold exercise equipment like treadmills.  Link
  • WifeGeeding and I watched a little bit of the Miss America pageant.  One thing stood out during the swimsuit competition, the ladies wore a whole lot of tanning spray that didn’t match the color pale makeup on their face.
  • If you are easily offended, then don’t click on this link to a picture that I think would make a funny Valentine’s Day card.
  • For the handful of people that have actually heard about the Baker Hotel in my hometown of Mineral Wells, TX, this video might be of interest.
  • The main news article on the front page of the Dallas Morning News was another story about the 100-0 high school girls basketball game.  Man, that story just won’t die.  In other local news, one of the top stories was that Laura Bush was in town to take a look at the work being done on her house.
  • This bear want to say hello.  Flickr
  • I call this a dyslexic miracle.
  • While driving home the other day, Coolio’s “1,2,3,4 Sumpin’ New” came on the radio.  That is the only song I can think of that was “pork chop” in it.
  • Wanna feel old?  That song came out 14 years ago.
  • Speaking of old great songs, how about Arrested Development’s Mr Wendal.  Is there a better upbeat song about the homeless?
  • I thought Montgomery Ward was out of business, but they still have a website where you can order stuff.
  • I saw a special about Andre the Giant the other day.  I always knew he was big, but now that I’m an adult I have better context understanding how large a 7’4″ 500 lbs plus man is.  Even though he has sinced passed, he does have an offical website.
  • I wasn’t aware that Mr T had an infomerical for a cooking device.  YouTube
  • Someone ranked 185 Beatles songs.  Link
  • As a lover of presidential history and tradition, I made sure to watch the Air Force One and Marine One special on the National Geographic Channel.  If you enjoy this kind of stuff, I highly recommending catching a repeat.
  • The Air Force one special focused on the events of 9/11 and the president’s secret trip to feed the troops in Iraq on Thanksgiving (which was an awesome thing he did btw).
  • In that special I learned that Dubya preferred using an electric razor, that the plan has to travel 180 mph to take off, and when it was in the air during the events of 9/11 the fighter jets escorting it asked the pilot to slow down because they were having trouble keeping up and were burning too much fuel.  Those fighter jet pilots didn’t know that a 747 could travel that fast.
  • The Marine One special was interesting, but not quite as good as the Air Force One special.  You do get to some some great camera angles, such as flying towards the White House; and you learn just how much training goes into piloting such a thing.  Oh, and some of you may not know this, but they actually fit Marine One on a cargo plane to travel overseas with the president should he need one.
  • In case you are wondering, Dubya flew 1,675 time as acting president in Air Force One and flew to every state in the U.S. except for Vermont.  Article
  • Today’s random theme show intro is going to be one I’m sure most of my readers have never seen.  YouTube
  • Grace
Posted in Personal | 9 Comments

Peter Schiff Was Correct

From 2006-2007, Peter Schiff was on the finance talk show circuit and stated that the housing bubble was about to burst and that people should take their cash out and invest in gold.  Everyone at the time laughed at him.

Posted in Interesting | 2 Comments