Lent Day 28

Weathering the storm.  Literally, there were some hefty storms that passed through our area during the night early this morning.  People in many surrounding counties awoke to debris filled yards and no electricity.  It was on the news and people were calling each other.  I had friends that attempted to warn me of the tornado warning at 4:40 in the morning.  Little did they realize that I have been exhausted lately and slept right through the notifications.  Of course, I do remember hearing some seriously close thunder. 

My family and I were very fortunate.  We were safe and secure.  Upon examination, I had one tree limb that came down in the yard.  I noticed how the community comes together instantly in a moment of crisis.  By the time I took the boys to school, I had been hearing from multiple friends checking on me.  I noticed that many trees and debris had been removed from the roadways already.  There were guys in pick up trucks with chainsaws, the Asplundt guys were in full force, and even the inmates were out picking up debris.  This must be the Bible belt of America.  God has surely blessed me and the people in this community.

Today started off with a literal storm, but quickly turned into sunshine, albeit it also turned cold.  My day at work had some storms as well.  It was just going to be a stormy day.  Regardless of the problems, I held my spirits high.  Even after all of the aggravating things today, I left for home late this evening feeling really good about the success of the day.  I work with a team of great guys that pulled together and accomplished a significant feat.  We worked very well together, had an enjoyable time, and did something that not one of us could have done alone.  It took a team of good guys.

It gets later and later trying to get some exercise in.  Even though I have a 5K coming up in a week and a half, I really don’t want to go outside in the cold dark night.  I sweat at work today; shouldn’t that count?  However, a little success can go a long way.  I exceeded my weight loss goal for the Lent period today and I felt really good about it.  Therefore, I said prayers with the boys, talked to my wife for a while, and then started doing my exercises.  I started with 40 sit ups and 40 push ups.  I am not sure why these sets of 40 have not gotten any easier.  That last one is so difficult.  Then I went outside and started jogging . . . with those dreaded 5 pounds dumbbells.  Monte and Molly have some new squeaky toys.  They noticed I had something in my hand so they wanted the same.  They grabbed their squeaky toys and ran all over the yard with me.  It was really cute how they wanted to mimic me.  However, my 5 pound weights quickly turn into 25 pounders after a few laps. 

I feel that no matter what the storm is, literal, mental, emotional, or physical, God has chosen to bless me.  He has given me the strength and endurance to find success through any of life’s difficult times.  In return, I have chosen to remain stoic in my dedication to Him.  I am very thankful for the blessings God has given me in my life.

Lent Day 27

Mondays are usually the day I want to go back to work so that I can relax . . . physically I mean.  I was tired today.  I went to the baseball park and watched Tyler play amazingly well tonight.  The boys sure looked like they were enjoying themselves.  Of course, my commitment to Lent means sacrifice, but I just wasn’t ready to leave the ball park tonight to go jogging on this overcast dreary evening.  So, by the time I got home to do my exercise, it was well after dark.

Tonight felt like a time to reflect on the beginning of this journey.  Going outside and running around in the dark reminded me of the first couple of days when I did this early in the morning.  Running on the road is certainly preferable, but I am not a fan of running through the neighborhood woods in the dark on a cloudy night.  Therefore, similar to the first few days, I ran around my own yard.  Monte and Molly enjoyed that much better since they could join in and stop anytime they wanted.  Besides, they didn’t have to worry about the leashes.  Molly is building up more endurance than Monte.  Either that or Monte is afraid of the dark and keeps hiding on the porch.

I tried to use my imagination to come up with some extra physical moves.  I would try some punching motions since I did have my “tough guy” gloves on.  However, I felt like an idiot so I thought it would be best to try something else.  I remember back in grade school if you got into trouble you had to stand with your arms outstretched to each side.  If you let them droop, then you had to either hold books in your hands or you had to swing your hands in small circles.  I tried the small circles since I didn’t have any books.  This gets progressively difficult the longer you do them.  Suddenly I stopped and thought, “Uh oh, I bet this is what they do in a spinning class.”

I was running a steady fast paced lap when I decided to slow down and walk while under the big oak tree covering my driveway.  Just as I was walking under some low branches covered in that creepy Spanish moss, a bird fluttered and flew right by my ear.  I jumped up and quickly decided to run the rest of that lap. 

While outside exercising, I get to enjoy the peace and quiet.  I started to pray and see if I could just listen to God.  I need to listen to God even if I feel there is nothing I need to hear right now.  All is well in my life, I am happy, and God is busy . . . well, maybe I should listen.  I noticed that the clouds started to ease up.  The Big Dipper became visible.  The atmosphere had turned from cloudy, dark, and dreary to one of pleasant, tropical, and clearing.  I am not sure if God had anything profound to tell me tonight, but I know I was at peace while listening.  I know that no amount of exercise will get me into Heaven, but it feels good to show God and myself that I can commit to Him even it is a physical way. 

Valuation: Written by a guy that has paid too much for something

What is it worth?  That is the nagging question for everyone in any transaction.  I have always defined something’s value as being the highest price that someone is willing to pay for it. 

Many people try to sell something that isn’t theirs to sell and that shouldn’t be a factor in the price determination.  Often I have seen people attempt to sell “can be”.  Just because this pile of rusted metal and flaking paint is a 1967 Mustang convertible doesn’t make it worth more than what it is.  With a little work it “can be” something great.  “Can be” always belongs to the buyer because it is their effort and resources that make it into something.  This is a big misconception that some unsuspecting buyers fall into and pay too much. 

We try to get appraisals on items such as jewelry, real estate, and such.  Appraisers even have licenses and certifications to prove they are supposed to be the experts.  The reason for such is that some appraisers may have their own agenda and purpose.  Property Appraisers can be very biased since the tax revenue is based on their opinion, unless challenged of course.  Real estate appraisers used to work for the buyer for financing and went high, but now they fear for their jobs and go low.  Car dealers get opinions of value from local wholesalers and car buyers get their opinion from the all knowing internet.  The problem with any outside opinion valuation is just that: it is an opinion of what they think someone will pay for an item.

I have always said the value of anything is what someone is willing to pay for it regardless of their knowledge, expertise, or gullibility.  The problem with this theory lies in the fact of what happens after the highest bidder purchases that item. The guy holding that item cannot sell it to anyone for as much or more than what he paid for it . . . until he finds another unsuspecting purchaser or makes it better in some way.  This is particularly true in the auction setting of unique items.  If a guy buys an item for $22.00 at auction, then the best amount he can immediately get is from the other guy that bid $21.00.  So after the gavel drops, what is the value now?

Let’s talk about a specific valuation.  Yuri Milner purchases stock in Facebook with his $500 Million dollar investment.  http://www.newsweek.com/2011/01/06/yuri-milner-facebook-s-russian-sugar-daddy.html  The world is watching and asking themselves, what is Facebook worth?  Just because Yuri jumps up to the plate with the highest bid, does that mean that others will follow suit or will he be stuck selling his investment to the second highest bidder?  Time will tell.  In the meantime, Yuri is so confident in his purchasing ability, he pays $100 Million dollars for a single family home in California.  This is the highest price ever paid for a single family home in the U.S.A.  http://fremontupdate.com/www__Dbizjournals__Dcom/_news_Yuri-Milner-pays-100M-for-Los-Altos-mansion.php  There must be value in being able to say that you paid more for something than anyone else would.  I didn’t know arrogance was so valuable.

Lent Day 26

When I made the commitment to give up “laziness” and do cardio exercise every day, I had no idea what particular exercise I was going to do.  I know I started out jogging around the yard, sit ups, and push ups, but that was for lack of creativity.  The important part was to simply make myself get up and get going in some fashion, even if it meant dancing around like a teenager in front of a mirror practicing dance moves.  Fortunately, I had a better imagination than that. 

Almost a month into this and I have learned a lot about exercise.  Exercise can build our bodies up in strength and endurance surprisingly fast.  I have learned how much my body can take before I simply give out.  I think I know why God wanted us to rest on the Sabbath.  I have learned the joy of having a partner to take along.  The most important thing I have learned about exercise is that it doesn’t matter what you are doing, just make sure you’re having fun.  Some exercises are not work at all.  For example, playing an outdoor game with your kids and having a blast may make you forget that you are burning calories.  Yesterday, I walked with friends and family in the zoo.  Today, the family cleaned out the chicken pen.  Both smelled similar. 

Christy and I took on a real challenge with the chicken coop.  We have had chickens for about two years now and never did a full cleaning like this.  We shoveled so many wheelbarrows full of chicken poop that I lost count.  Tyler joined in the “fun” with a full size shovel.  I used the tractor to dig up a section of the garden to have for replacement dirt.  This should make for some great soil in the garden.  We shoveled so hard it made us just about collapse.  Before I started, I grabbed some work gloves.  Just before we finished, I remembered to put them on as my hands were about to get blisters.  It sounded like hard work, but Christy and I always make a great team doing project / hobbies together.  She keeps me motivated . . . trying to keep up with her.

Girls always like the “good ole country boy”.  I don’t believe that has anything to do with them looking like Bo or Luke from the Dukes of Hazard.  Rather, I believe it is because country farm work makes you physically and mentally stronger.  It makes you feel accomplished like a real man, which is something you cannot get from doing Pilates at the gym in the strip mall next to Starbucks.  Sure a spinning class will . . . actually, I don’t know what they do in a spinning class and I hope I don’t find out.  

Another benefit of fun exercise with the family in the farming manner is the quiet time.  Sure there is the occasional “stop throwing dirt on my shoes” or “you’re not doing it right”, but generally we find ourselves working too hard to speak.  This gives us plenty of time to be quiet and listen to God.  The preacher talked about this today.  We are supposed to listen to God and then be witnesses to each other.  However, we have to be careful to only witness what we truly hear God say to us.  I think the only thing I heard Him put in my heart today was “you’re doing fine Ben.  Go take a bike ride with the family now.”  And we did.  What a great day of family time . . . and exercise.

Lent Day 25

In addition to strengthening my relationship with God through Lent, I did set a few other goals.  Well, I did assume that God would bless me with peripheral benefits if I would live my life with obedience.  I wanted to get down to 200 pounds by Easter (47 days).  I did it in 25 days.  The only problem with attaining goals is that people tend to stop there or reward themselves too much.  This was not going to be the case for me.  Of course, it is much easier to not be so prideful knowing that this is still Lent. 

The exercise today was focused on endurance while having fun.  The exercise was with family and friends today.  We walked, walked, and then we walked some more.  We skipped while holding hands.  We jogged to hurry to that next exciting thing.  I carried a 36 pound weight on and off for hours.  I had to weigh Blake when we got home to see just how much weight had been pressing down on my shoulders.  There was very little sitting down time and we were on hard concrete.  Our feet, ankles, legs, and knees where aching by the time we got back to the car.  Oh it felt good to sit down.  It was a wonderful time with friends and family at the Jacksonville Zoo.  I should always remember that the best exercise can be time spent with great people.

We couldn’t stop there.  We went downtown to the Jacksonville Landing to walk around some more.  We watched the boats go up and down the river. We even got to see some tall buildings and big bridges.  Some of the bridges would raise up for the big ships.  We even saw a multitude of pigeons and seagulls up close, because seeing all those animals at the zoo wasn’t enough.  We enjoyed dinner outside overlooking the river.  Then you would never guess what we did; we walked some more. 

It was about a two hour drive home.  As I drove home, I noticed a few things.  First, I noticed my wife sound asleep before we even left town.  Second, I noticed that my feet were swelling up and aching.  I had to take my shoes off.  Later, I noticed that Tyler was sleeping soundly.  Fortunately for Blake, he also noticed Tyler sleeping and decided to reach over to see what he could get out of Tyler’s back pack. 

Home at last.  Normally this is the moment after a long day that I want to say forget the junk in the car, just let me go inside and lay down on the couch.  I forcibly put my shoes on and went inside where I realized something important; I had not done any “cardio” exercise today.  I changed clothes and decided to go jogging before dark.  As soon as I started getting warmed up, the blood flowed into my legs and feet.  The muscles in my legs stretched out.  I had full range of motion in my legs.  I had . . . no aching feeling in my body anywhere. 

They say some days you step in it, some days you don’t.  Today, we smelled all kinds of nasty stench at the Zoo.  There was hog poop, giraffe poop, zebra poop, bird poop, alligator poop, fish poop, monkey poop, and certainly plenty of stinky people.  We saw so many kinds of animals today and everyone one of them had an aroma of their poop near them.  However, we did not see any horses today.  Well, I guess I should have been watching where I was running tonight when I kicked that pile of horse poop in the middle of the road.  Awe man . . .  

Lent Day 24

Work to have fun.  I have a friend that calls Friday “Little Saturday”.  That was appropriate for today.  As I prepare for this weekend, I find myself with so much to do before we can go have fun.  I kept thinking about how much fun I am going to have with my family and friends going to the Jacksonville Zoo this weekend.  First things first, I must get my work done.  That’s why it’s called Little Saturday.

I was excited to know that I was home in time for exercising well before sunset.  I left the dogs at home so that Tyler and I could go by ourselves.  We had to switch it up a bit.  Tyler got to ride his bike while I was jogging.  This worked out much better until . . . the hills.  The hills were not too bad for Tyler, but really difficult for me.  I understand that if this becomes too much like a chore for him, then he will not want to do it with me anymore.  Therefore, I find myself right behind him, pushing at the back of his seat, running all the way up the hills.  I would be totally spent by the time we get to the top and he’s say, “that wasn’t too bad”.

I suppose God is like that for us.  He goes with us and enjoys the companionship.  If the journey with God gets too difficult, then people may tend to lose interest or even worse, lose faith.  He knows how much we can handle, and when we think things are getting too tough, we may not even realize when he is pushing on the back of our seat helping us up those big hills.

We saw two deer in the edge of the woods and then a hawk fly right over our heads.  It seemed strange that both things were moving right past us so quickly.  Then I heard a rustling through the edge of the woods.  It sounded like something was coming right at us.  Just at that moment, Tyler hit some soft sand and fell off his bike.  I ran toward him and just as I got there, I looked to my left to see the most horrifying sight.  It was a small bear cub.  Right beside it was a huge mother black bear.  The cub came toward Tyler and I yelled as loud as I could.  The cub meandered by Tyler but the mother being protective, started charging right at me.  I knew I had my pistol with me, but I didn’t even have time to put a round in the chamber.  I reared back and threw the hardest punch I could right in the nose of that bear.  I knocked it back just enough to stop it so that I could get my gun out.  As I grabbed my gun, it sat down holding its nose and whispered, Happy April Fools Day. 

One more thing, I also found a key in the road.  It was a key to a Toyota.  I wonder where it is and how it got away without the key.  Ok, back to work.  Isn’t it funny how much work we have to do so that we can go relax and have fun?  Happy Little Saturday my friends!

The Engine of a Free Market: An Analogy

What makes the car go faster?  Do you know what you are doing when you push the gas pedal?  Sometimes, when we get that energized feeling or maybe we are simply hurrying to that important thing, we mash down really hard on that gas pedal.  We “push” that engine to go faster.  We feel like if we push it through the floor it would really haul tail.

An internal combustion engine requires a mixture of air and gas to be sucked into a chamber and then ignited.  When this happens, the piston moves up and down creating vacuum on the down stroke.  This vacuum then pulls in more air and gas to repeat the cycle.  In fact, with a completely “wide open” carburetor, the engine would go faster and faster until it literally burns up and “crashes”.  The carburetor is there to slow the engine down to a manageable speed so that you may drive with some level of control.  The carburetor is controlled through the gas pedal.  Wait a second; the carburetor restricts the amount of air and gas mixture going into the engine?  Yes, when you push on that gas pedal, you are only opening a flapper valve allowing the engine to do what it does naturally: speed up.   

Commercials for nearly 70 years have been advertising that slogan “effortless driving”.  Well, that is a spoof because there is nothing you can do from the driver’s seat to make that automobile go any faster than the engineers designed that engine to run.

Have you ever watched NASCAR and hear about restrictor plate races?  That restrictor plate is supposed to even out every car to run the same by having the same size restrictor plate on the intake manifold.  No one driver can open up that valve more than any other.  This allows the race to be determined based on driving skill rather than engineered speed. 

Any free market economy is fundamentally based on needs or wants (demand) and the amount and availability of goods or services (supply).    When transactions are happening quickly, it is said to be going with some speed.  When masses of people perceive this speed and join in the process of buying and spending, this creates momentum often referred to as a booming economy.  Too much speed and momentum can lead to high and even out of control inflation.  Rapidly rising inflation can cause pandemonium and the whole system crashes.  This is similar to the engine running with no restriction.

The US government has two economic systems:  a monetary policy and a fiscal policy.  The monetary policy attempts to control the amount of money in the system.  The fiscal policy is how much the government taxes and spends.  Both of these systems are restrictions on the free economy.  They are that little flap that opens and closes when someone pushes that gas pedal.  The more a government taxes, it starves off cash (gas) from the economy (engine).  In order to spend money, it must first take some.  When adjusting the amount of money in the economy, it is adjusting the flow of the carburetor (lean or rich gas mixture).

Currently, we have people in charge that believe in a lot of restriction on free open markets.  They don’t understand what they are doing behind the wheel.  They think they are pushing the gas pedal by spending government money, but fail to comprehend that they are restricting (taxing) that free economy (engine) from doing what it does naturally.  Any increase in government is an increase in restriction on the free open market. 

How many politicians are trying to pedal this car?  This isn’t the Flinstone’s car.  Open up the free market by shrinking the size of government restriction.  Does anyone know what a choke does?