Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, I had another great thanksgiving, including my best week ever as a blogger (79 unique hits and 149 total page views). For that I am grateful. Speaking of my natural family life, family life is truly great for the peaceful times to play some strategy board games as well as for the hectic times of trying to get my daughter to eat some turkey before she eats the turkey-shaped cookies. I love that a natural life is orchestrated to balance the small requirements for personal time with the large necessities of self-sacrifice to grow a family.

And I have time to blog about it. God bless the U.S.A.

Heisenberg Well Visit

I tend to generally distrust doctors, though my opinion is increasing as I realize the amazing stress they are under with uninformed patients, outrageous insurance premiums, heavy drug marketing, and lawyer sharks constantly circling.

But I detest well child visits. What is the point of taking all the healthy kids and having them sit in the same room, breath the same air, and play with the same toys that all the sicks kids touch? The dark and cynical part says that the point is to stay in business; the kind part says that they can see more patients if the patients come to them, than if they go to the patients.

In the end, I've decided that the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle applies. You can not measure the health of the child without affecting the result.

What the Free Market teaches about the Faith

My dear Magyar has a post recording an excellent homily which he recently heard at Mass. A suggested interpretation of the parable of the three servants who were responsible for the Master's talents while He was away. In brief, we aren't merely to use the talents we are given; we are to trade those talents that we have to get newer, more valuable ones. This type of trading is the basis of the free market system, as the humble Magyar points out.

Suddenly I feel much better about risking advancement in my corporate career to start a new business. I pray the Lord deems these talents more valuable.

This is a test....

Me to pregnant belly: "This is a test of the intrauterine broadcast system. This is only a test. 'Hello? Swim! Do cartwheels! Dance on the bladder!'... Had this been an actually emergency, you would have heard, 'Get me an epidural! You did this to me!'"

What a Play for the Knights, and what a Night for a Play.

I have just recently received my Third Degree as a Knight of Columbus and I am doing what every good Knight does. No, I am not hosting a pancake breakfast, not running a Bingo Night, not organizing a fifty-fifty, but advertising for the theatrical efforts of Todd Cardin, a fellow Knight and playwright.

MDP will be hosting a Christmas Play written exclusively for MDP on December 12, 13, and 14. This will be your only chance to see this play as executed by the uniquely talented thespians of MDP along with special performances by local actors. The Athletic Association and the MDP Knights are hosting the event so ticket competition should be fierce, get yours today!

See how the buzz is already spreading:

"Is the show heartwarming or quirky? Is it sentimental or goofy? I was going to wait for the reviews to find out...Please put two tickets on the side for me." - Brother Knight via e-mail

"Good prevails, evil is vanquished." - A recently minted Third Degree Knight, rumored to have a significant inside track

See you at the show!

If you don't get the title, see here.

Help Yourself

I have discovered a trait which ties us network marketers together and begins to explain the seemingly endless supply or pastor's wives that I have run into while learning the business. In one of our recent conference calls, the speaker was discussing the current economic situation and he said that the most dreaded words in the English language are, "I'm from the government and I'm hear to help." Us network marketers know that we have to do it ourselves. The government or a corporation can't replace our need to work for what is best.

Personal responsibility, gotta love it.

Absolutely sickening

I really try to keep it light here. I know there are heavy, important issues which weigh on the minds of all well-intentioned people. I also know that too much brooding on the darkness in this world can lead one to a place that is difficult to come back from.

But this is evil.

I praise the Lord for the solace that he provides in trying times. "Jesus wept."

Super Nerdism

Pregnant wife: "ACHOOOO!"

Me: "You're Bajoran!"

Click here if you are a normal person and want to get the joke.

Wrestling as a Christian

My dad recently got a chance to meet a professional wrestler who he watched intently as a youth, much to his delight. At the dinner, the wrestler gave a speech decrying the current state of professional wrestling with drugs, scantily-clad women, and no positive role models. This gave me the chance to remember the wrestling of my youth, especially when I knew it was "real."

I loved watching wrestling on the weekends, though I could never have said why. In retrospect, I think I loved the morality play which it represented. The bad guys like Nikoli Volkoff and the Iron Sheik, always lost the match. The good guys, like Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior, always won. The only exception was treachery, when the bad guys would sneak in brass knuckles or some other weapon, like a bazooka, without the referee noticing. I never understood why they didn't hire referees with better eyesight. The morality play even included redemption stories, with Rowdy Roddy Piper and Macho Man Randy Savage switching from mortal enemy to tag team partner united against evil. The egotists were always ridiculed, even when they had a perfect record, like Mr. Perfect. If only WWF (sorry, WWE) wrestling could get back to its roots, it could participate in the formation of real men who fight external and internal evils, and who know that goodness ultimately wins.

Not a Complete Idiot, but Tending that Way

"The Complete Idiot's Guide to American History" by Alan Axelrod

I have been wanting to bone up on my American history and since I have had such great luck with the "... for Dummies" series of books, I thought I would try the "Idiot's Guide to ..." series. My brother credits this Idiot's Guide to getting him through high school history so I grabbed it when he was tossing it.

The layout of the book was very like a textbook and had none of the interesting attributes of the "... for Dummies" books which I have read. The topics jumped around more than I would have liked, but this did make each section a good read individually. The author mostly kept the book entertaining and even succeeded in explaining the Native American issue with balance and tact. Unfortunately, the research and balance seemed to drop off as the modern era was approached especially anything since the New Deal. From FDR onward, there are blind assertions that socialist policies are good, while free market policies are bad. Clearly, it is difficult to write history while history is being written but that only underscores the need to provide good research to back up claims. All in all, I would recommend this book be treated like my American History class. I paid attention and learned good stuff but we ran out of time and stopped abruptly after the Industrial Revolution.

Big Announcement

This weekend will be a new product launch for Reliv. I'm really interested in what they come up with. Watch the news! Call me to find out more! I'm really glad they waited until after the election.

Now in a New Package!

As I have worked to develop my own small business, I have discovered that I really enjoy supporting other small businesses. Since I briefly considered marketing as an occupation during college, I suppose that I should not be surprised. Supporting small businesses naturally acts against the mass marketing approach which I now despise so I'm happy to help out a fledgling business in a targeted manner.

Dear reader, if you love the Church as much as I do and you own every Weird Al CD, like me. You will thoroughly enjoy Nick Alexander. Check out his new website. Also, if you want to buy me a present to celebrate Christ's birth, I'll take any of his CDs. For right now, you can check out some samples here.

The Next Big Tobacco

If there was a product that was unnecessary and completely avoidable, that caused blood clots and death in young people, the FDA would surely stop its release. Clearly, the government would never let an agenda color its opinions of a drug that was designed to damage a healthy, functioning body system. And doctors would always hold to the Hippocratic Oath and, "Do no harm."

Too many auto-dialers

Me (Picking up phone when Call Id shows unknown, expecting another recorded message from the party telling me to vote for the party): "Stop Calling Me!"

Lance Rogers: "uh... Hi... I'm Lance Rogers. I'm calling to talk to members of this district. I'm tired of those calls too. Are there any issues which I can talk to you about? Any questions you'd like to ask me?"

Me: (Aside to Jen) "It's actually Lance Rogers."

Me: "I'm sorry. I thought you would be another auto-dialer."

Well, Lance Rogers seemed like a nice guy. I'm not thrilled with him but he certainly did comport himself well, even with a belligerent caller like me. We didn't agree on everything, unfortunately, but it was refreshing to speak to a person.

My Friend ROI

I just recently calculated the return on investment (ROI) for my home-based business and I was stunned to find it was 21%! I imagine that it would have taken me far more work to get that kind of ROI on a real-estate deal. Yet another bonus for network marketing, small start-up costs yield better ROIs! Imagine how my ROI would look if I'd invested in the stock market in March.

It makes me thankful that I received a nice tax credit this year, so that I could direct the funds to a small business.

Note: This is not a promise that anyone can achieve results like this, I am merely telling my story.

David wins again

As always, when the Bible is proven to be true, no one seems to notice. Only when certain people with agendas try to prove that it is false by misinterpreting it, does the event make the news. The AFA (David) has defeated McDonald's (Goliath) in only a few short weeks with a boycott. Something you won't hear from major media outlets. However, when environmentalists boycotted McDonald's in the 80s because of polystyrene packaging, not even grade schoolers could escape the news.