Tag Archives: Life

Golf Balls & Coffee

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image When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough, remember the mayonnaise jar and 2 cups of coffee…

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some imageitems in front of him. He picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and filled it with golf balls. He asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed it was. The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly and the pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed it was. The professor picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. image

Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous, “YES!” The professor then produced 2 cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed.

As the laughter subsided, the professor said, “Now, I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things – your family, your children, your health, your friends, your passions. And, if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter, like your job, your house, your car. The sand is everything else – the small stuff. If you put the sand into the jar first, there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.

The same goes for life. If you spend all of your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Spend time with your parents. Visit with your grandparents. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your spouse to out to dinner. Play another 18. There will always be time to clean the house and fix the disposal. Take care of the golf balls first – the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented. The professor smiled and said, “I’m glad you asked. The coffee just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of cups of coffee with a friend.

 

got this in an email, the original author is unknown to me. The concept isn’t new, the moral was taught in a Seven Habits of Highly Successful People class that I attended 8 year ago. I’m not a master at keeping the balance, so any reminder is welcome.

Life up til now…

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Not a bad week last week. I took Tuesday – Friday off, to spend with the Fam, and to help with the timing of going to VBS each night at our church. I taught the 4th grade class, using LifeWay’s Game Day Central curriculum. I had three awesome helpers, and a class of 8-10 each night. Pretty good week of getting to know some new kids, and enjoying time spent with the rest of the PCBC VBS team. The whole week was well planned, and also a lot of work.

Also got to do some vacationy things, Tuesday we went in the morning to a splash park in north Dallas. Then later swam at the pool. Then swam a couple more times during the week. Caught up on a lot of sleep, and then stayed up late to make net sleep deficit practically nil, but at least I’m caught up.

Yesterday was Father’s Day, and I got cool cards and drawings from my girls, and hugs from my boys. Then in the afternoon Dan and I went golfing with Bobby2, and the younger Bobby passed onto Danny his old clubs. So we got to play 9 holes (and it was free thanks to the rumbling stumbling rainstorms that deluged us the past few days … soggy course … free golf… bout evens out) of carefree golf with no one rushing us. If only I could hit a golf ball close to where I want it to land. I guess I need to practice more.

On the geek front, I’m evaluating the Microsoft Windows Home Server (RC1) on my old home built machine (800MHz PIII, 512 RAM, a few hundred gigs of hard disk space). For an RC this is fairly well polished. The jist of Home Server is to automate backups and provide a place to share files within a home network. The guts are Windows Server 2003, and it is designed to run headless (no attached monitor and keyboard). Cool concept, and the implementation is actually pretty good. After installing it Saturday, both of our laptops have been backed up twice, and I’m moving over files from the drive attached to my NSLU2 onto the server. The kids have given up their WinXP machine, but I’ve figured out how to give them console access to give them computer time (fyi, this isn’t what this is designed for, and really not a ‘best practice’ but until a new PC falls on my doorstep, I gotta do what I gotta do). Another post with a review is most likely forth coming.

Flying Pink Unicorns – budgeting and envelopes oh my!

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First, to help set the stage for why I think doing this Financial Peace thing, read this day-by-day strip, g’head, I’ll wait.

back?  good.

I don’t want to know how much of our money each month goes to interest.  Not just mortgage interest, but credit card interest.  My lord, I think we could probably fund all of our children’s college through that Harvard Master’s they’re all gonna want if we just sunk what we pay in interest each month in the mattress.  Simply because we went pure and simple daffy crazy in 2005.  Sure we had a family vacation to end all family vacations, but we also refinanced/consolidated our credit card debt, then went and doubled if not trebled the credit debt we had.  *shakes head*

Seriously, our behavior reminds me of the movie Tin Cup, when in the final day of the US Open, tied, and needing a birdie to possible win, a safe par will force a playoff, Roy McAvoy goes for the green on a long par 4.  He hits it, only to have his ball roll back into the water hazard.  (we hit it, we had a plan to be credit card debt free like right then, but then rolled into some ‘necessities’)  He then proceeds to whale away at the pin from 300+ yards, when a drop and a pitch would have still put him in the playoff.  While he descends into pure selfish madness, threatening even his qualification for the following years tournament, the announcer says, “Someone tackle that guy!”

srsly.

There are a couple of slides in the FPU videos that bring this home, one is how much you’d accrue in wealth if you socked anything away at 18% interest.  I took the bait and admitted that saving anything at 18% interest is pretty much impossible to sustain, unless you invest in some pretty risky ventures and end up guessing right, and impossible to sustain for the long term.  Except that, as Dave Ramsey explained, that is pretty much the investment that banks make all the time, though they aren’t investing in a company, but in their own marketing of credit card debt to the public.  Think of how much interest you pay on your lowest interest card.  Then look at your savings, and consider if you had done the whole ‘save first, pay cash’ thing, how much larger that savings line could be.

So while we have made our zero based budget, and allotted for a $1000 emergency fund, and giving again (something we haven’t done during our descent into madness) to our church.  The line I’d like to keep track of, is what our monthly outlay to the interest line is, and watch that value decrease to zero over the next 2-3 years.  That should help us keep on track, I think, I hope.

Time she keeps on marching…

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As my children grow older, we are starting to see some of the fruits of whatever parenting wisdom we’ve somehow induced into our children.  This past weekend had a few moments where I felt awful proud of my kids and how they have grown and molded.  The four year old still has some rough patches that need to be ground out, but hey, he’s four.

This Friday/Saturday was Momma-goes-retreating weekend so I had the first half to myself.  I took the opportunity to abandon them.  Well not abandon them per se, but allow them to co-habitate for a while with another large group of kids while me and fellow bachelor for the night went and saw 300.  The payoff was that all 9 children/teens still had all their limbs attached when we got back a scant 2 hours later.  No bruises, or cuts.  There was a sliver that had to be excised, but some ice, a needle and a pair of tweezers made quick work of that.

Post movie madness, I took my brood of four to Wally World to shop for a present for the forty-fourth Pirate themed party of the year that Danny would attend in the morning.  While it was kinda dicey taking the somewhat tired four year old shopping at 9:30 PM, I was proud of my older boy taking said brother under his wing and helping him along.  In and out in 30 minutes wasn’t too hair pullingly bad.

Then morning drive to the pirate bay (20 minutes away) to attend the party, and having even the 12 year old join in the festivity with gusto (she brought her own pirate garb, and they all have their assigned pirate names, gratis multiple talk-like-a-pirate linkages).  I stole away with the non-invitees during the lunch/present/cake phase, to feed them from the TriplePlay KFC-Pizza Hut-Taco Bell mashup, and then got myself some life preserving Starbucks for the second half of the day.  They all played well, and again no puncture wounds or bruised pride.

Sunday after church was the biggest challenge, and the biggest pay off.  Four families from church decided to go to lunch together.  A table for 19 is a bit dicey at 12 PM in these parts, but we accepted a table for 6 and a table for 13 in the outer rim of the On The Boarded establishment.  On this occasion the table of six was actually the ‘kids table’ for the non-toddler set, and all four of my kids sat, actually. sat. at that table and set a good example for their younger compatriots.  Truth be told, they probably acted more polite than us brutes at the big boys table.  But somehow through the 2 hour ordeal they survived without any bruised eyes or egos.

So Huzzah, this whole parenting thing is reaching the payoff stage.  Now I need to find my rifle to clean and sword to polish for when the young men start stopping by to woo my gels.  They won’t be chased away, but they might swallow a bit hard.

UPDATE: Extra bonus footage of eldest gel performing at the 6th grade choir performance over at Sweet Bippy.

Okay you want an update… just remember you ASKED for it.

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Like I have time for you little blog readers, but whatever. 😉

Okay first week in December I tried to kill myself… well not literally, just figuratively.  Big project at work that must be done by Friday.  No problem, really, just lots of hours actually doing work.  Then in the off time there was Dinner Theater practice, just about every night.  I played mean ol’ Col. Walling (I think…) a roundhead (apparently) constable during the English Civil War that tossed a bunch of worshipers into the brig for having a Christmas service.  Serves them right I say!  Sorry, still trying to get out of character.  Angie had a role as part of the adult chior, and sang a solo in the opening scene, she also worked her bottom off getting the sets painted and working.  The older chilluns were also involved the girls took part in the opening scene and then had featured roles (at least to us parental units) in the ‘Dickensish’ orphanage scene.  The show went off without a hitch Friday night and Saturday night.  Leavning us dead on our feet by Sunday.  ‘Course (say it with me) ‘Dinner theater doesn’t end until after service on Sunday’ meant we fulfilled our duties and then collapsed into little pools of jello mush.  Called in sick on Monday, helped clean up what we’d been ignoring the final three weeks building upto the performance.

Tuesday was better, as was Wednesday, but c’mon no new TV really, and none of you are as absorbed in Day Break (which is excellent, and much better than ‘The Nin3’ idocy) so what am I to talk about?

Yesterday my father popped in for a nice visit, he got to take the kids to the park while Ang and I showered (hadn’t gotten the chance with the last minute cleaning and all, TMI? surry)  then we went to Brenna’s Christmas show at school (only 4th graders allowed, 2nd graders must not be able to sing and play the xylophone that well), then went and had yummy BBQ at Shady Oak.  Dad had a hankering for some good Texas BBQ (because KC BBQ, sorry, just isn’t the same…) and so we got the Trashcan lid (really that is the menu item) loaded with Ribs, Chicken, Brisket and Sausage, and yummy sides.  The youngers still had their chicken-like substance floursed and deep fried, but Lauren and the big peeps devoured a lot of meat, then saved more of the meat for future devourings (D’OH forgot to pack that for my lunch!)
Oh, since this is stream of conciousness reporting, I should probably mention, though I still try to not remember than my oldest turned 12 on Wednesday (12 grandma, not 14.. m’kay?) which means I’m that close (holding thumb and forefinger that mush apart) from having a teenaged daughter.  I’m not quite ready to handle that, and the double whammy next year of that actually occuring, and me advancing in age past double-digits that start with three, really makes for a bummer December next year.  *sigh*

But we must be jolly while there is still time, there will be time for wailing and gnashing of teeth next year.

So, while not exactly 40 days of silence for my sins of not completing NaBloPoMo, I think I’ve done my pennance, so stand by for more content-free (TM Fireant Eric) posting in the days to come.  We’ve got exciting tales of house cleaning, and packing and journeying to the great white northern wilds of suburban St. Louis (Missouri side).  Oh and the monster-in-law (just kidding, I LURVE my mother-in-law, because when she comes I at least have someone fighting on my side… 🙂 ) is dropping in for a few days visits before we drive north to St. Looey.  Course she’ll go to St. Looey first, then fly down to the big D, then fly back to St. Looey so we’ll all be under one roof (or one roof and a hotel) for the larger part of whats left of 2006.

See, that is gripping isn’t it… about as gripping as the last epi of Surivior.  Yul is so not going to win, but he’ll push Ozzie to the top spot, and be happy with his second place dough.

Little Help for the Big Tuna

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Gutsy move coach. If it doesn’t work out and Gramatica truns out to be Scatteratica you’ll want to pick up a good kicker in the draft.

May I suggest Alexis Serna? Made a 58 yarder against the Trojans. His percentage is down a bit this year, but only because the guy has 14 attempts greater than 40 yards, 6 from over 50 (making 4 of them). Oregon State, you might question as a poor football school, well Chad, Steven and TJ all say neeeyaahhhhh.

R.I.P.

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We all knew it would happen sooner or later… Farewell VHS, one doesn’t expect to outlive childhood technology.  Oh how I loved you, even with a wired remote, and the flashing clock thing.  (I know it wasn’t you’re fault, you being just the media, not the console, but you two were practically inseparable in life, and, hopefully, flashing clock will soon die as well.)

I know.. I’m a dark and twisty type of guy.

Futbal

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Must post something, so I’ll opine about a good weekend of football.

Turkey Day, watched the ‘Boys romp on Tampa Bay and now all the kids in town are talking like its 1995 all over again.  I moved to the DFW area in 1999, so I missed all that.  Though I lived in Monterey when the Niners won it all in 1994, and in Rhode Island when the Big Tuna coached the Pats in 1996-97 (With Beldsoe and Glenn mind you).  It is kinda cool to feel the vibe in a town with the team doing really well.  Teams that replace Drew Beldsoe with an unknown do fairly well. *snark*

Friday, I taped the UT-A&M game for Matt.  *yawn*  Then waited on pins and needles for the real game to start, and The Mighty Beavers whipped the wimpy ducks in a sodden Reser Field.  Whoop!  So far a pretty good weekend, and I’m really not used to good football weekends.  I grew up a Seattle fan when Jim Zorn was pitching, and enjoyed the San Diego Chargers, and went to school at Oregon State in the late 80s (good for basketball, not so much for football) so I’m aquainted with sadness.

I was actually rooting for the hated Trojans in their tilt against the Irish, mostly because since the Beavs beat the surferdoods, a win by the Trojans enhances their cred come bowl selection time, and also beacause I despise the Irish a bit more than the Trojans.  Boy, the Trojans looked really good in that game, if they go head up on Ohio State, the Buckeyes better buck up.

A good day also on Sunday, for my fantasy team at least.  Going into tonights Seattle-Green Bay matchup I’m up 82 points on my competition.  If that holds (he has a Seattle receiver and the Seattle D, I think I’m safe) then I think I’ll lock up a playoff berth for my fantasy league.  (hear that Tony!  Whoot!)

Danny has gotten bit by the football bug, and has been tossing around a little toy football, or a larger stuffed version.  We played a bit of catch outside yesterday, while the weather was nice, and before we turned the house around… or actually all the furniture inside the house.  Time to deck the halls.  GO SEAHAWKS