Saturday, May 31, 2008

See, I'm Not The Only One

Here's a few quotes from a Yahoo Tech article. See, I'm not the only one who is an unhappy Sprint customer.

"Chatters are growing happier with their overall wireless service, according to a new survey, with Verizon Wireless taking top honors and Sprint slipping into last place among the four big carriers."

"Verizon Wireless scored a 72 in the survey, giving it top marks among the four big wireless carriers. AT&T and T-Mobile both tied at 71, with AT&T gaining the most ground thanks to its four-percent spike since 2007 (thanks, in part, to the iPhone, according to ACSI researchers)."

"Meanwhile, Sprint's ACSI rating fell to just 56, an 8 percent drop from last year. "

"Just for comparison's sake, the spiraling airline industry got an ACSI score of 62 (tumbling almost 14 percent from 1994), the U.S. Postal Service got a 74 (up from a score of 61 in 1994), FedEx scored an 85, and both McDonald's and Microsoft made do with a middling 69."

Geocaching Pictures

Amanda and I did some geocaching last Saturday. Here are some pictures.

This one was hidden the the "Y" between branches of a tree. Amanda knew where to look, but I had to give her a boost to check it out.

Cachers sometimes hide their geocaches in 35mm film canisters. Amanda found a new use for the lid. Ahoy Matey!

Sign here, please.

We didn't know what kind of flower this was, but we thought it was pretty.

These flowers were in front of a park in Richardson.

The only way to make the flowers any more beautiful!

The Bird Lady?

Brooke grabbed a loaf of bread and we hopped on the motorcycle and rode over to Lake Arlington yesterday. There was a duck near the motorcycle, so as I tried to coax him to come eat out of my hand, Brooke went and sat on this park bench. My duck saw she was throwing her food to the ducks, so he flew over to where she was. This picture doesn't really do justice to all of the ducks that swarmed Brooke, but you get the idea.

What's Different?

Do you like those puzzles they put in magazines where you have to identify nine differences between pictures. You know...the ones where you can find 6 of them right off, but the other three take you 20 minutes? I don't like them, but if you do here's one for you. Hint: Don't try to find nine differences...I don't think you will find them.




This is really just a photo I doctored with Photo Impact so I can use it on my Facebook profile later. The touch up was more impressive before the photo was cropped. But now I'm thinking it might be fun to doctor some photos and make some of my own "find the differences" games.

Praying Mantis

I have always thought these things were creepy looking! Amanda saw this thing on one of the picnic tables at church this morning. In real life, he wasn't more than an inch long.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Monday, May 26, 2008

Book I Will Be Reading Next

"It seems as if every week I receive an opportunity by e-mail to boycott this, petition that, sign a covenant, or let a business know my Christian beliefs about its product. Honestly, these types of activities make me sick. Those businesses and organizations we want to boycott are being run and led by people-human beings-with families and kids and lives and choices. We may as well say to them, "Go to hell because I don't give a rip about your eternity. Just stay away from me and my family and out of our picket-fence -protected homes." Our actions are perceived as holier than thou, and they put us in the category of "all Christians are the same."

When did we decide the church should dictate, control, or mandate the direction of our culture? Isn't culture just a reflection of who we are as a society? Why are we focused on the fruit rather than the root? It would be like smashing all the apples from a tree in anger because they aren't big enough or tasty enough rather than considering the soil, sunlight, and environmental conditions; getting mad at the food when we should really be talking to the cook; or blaming the kids when we should talk to the parents."

Pop Goes the Culture: Should The Church Engage Pop Culture
by Tim Stevens

Memorial Day - God Bless America!!




Now THAT'S how you sing our National Anthem!
The Cactus Cuties

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Thursday, May 22, 2008

QUOTE

"If at first you don't succeed... so much for skydiving."

Henry Youngman

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

QUOTE

The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.

Charles Kettering

Saturday, May 10, 2008

GUESS-the-GOOGLE

One of the blogs I follow is Download Squad, and one of my favorite posts there is "Today's Time Waster". The time waster for today is a game called "Guess the Google". Twenty pictures are put on the screen and you have to guess word was Googled to get those results. Click on the picture above to give it a try. Feel free to leave your score in the comments section. I only got 168 my first try. If you beat me, I'm gonna stick with the "Well, your words were easier" excuse!

Monday, May 05, 2008

It's Like Golden Corral for Turtles

(click to enlarge)

Thursday, May 01, 2008

A New School

Amanda started a new school this week. They wear uniforms which Amanda did not think she was going to like at first, but it looks like she has decided they are not so bad. Here she is in two of the uniform options. The one on the right is not her "peace" uniform...it's the one she wore on her second day at her new school.

We have been pleased with the education Amanda has received at her public school, but some of the things she was starting to bring home (mostly from 'friends') had us praying a lot. We have talked about private schools in the past, but we want Amanda to learn to stand up for what she believes and learn how to do it in the 'real world'. Brooke found out about a charter school opening down the street from us, so we went to check it out. We were originally looking into Amanda starting there next year, but when we went, with Amanda, to check it out, we changed our minds. First of all, Brooke, Amanda and I were impressed with what we saw and had a peace about Amanda attending there. Secondly, like most charter schools, they are filling up fast. If Amanda waited until next year, the school would probably be running at capacity and would have to implement a lottery system for allowing new students. We prayed about it and all three of us felt a peace about Amanda starting this year.

Amanda was blessed with her mother's personality and never meets a stranger. She is already making friends at her new school and loves it.