In All Things Charity

This is one of my favorite sayings.
Not sure if you can tell by my many posts today but I am sitting in my wife's hospital room (yes they have WiFi) and posting up a storm while we are waiting for the insertion of a dialysis catheter.

The Amazing iBible

For all of you iPod and iPhone Mac freaks!

What God Thinks!

I love the idea that is communicated in this cartoon. What you think is important! How arrogant does one have to be to speak for God ... on the flip side ... I guess that is what the bible is all about - sort of J

Defining Mistakes

So I watched my DVRed version of the Republican Iowa Debates that aired yesterday morning. It was a pretty interesting debate - the first Republicn one I viewed this year. The highlight for me was this 3 minute clip ... it gives us a glimpse into the candidates' hearts when they nswer the question "what is a defining mistake that you have made?" Hang onto the end of the clip - Tom Tancredo got my attention big time!

Bob Sasnak

This post is dedicated to byevad, salguod and the many others like them. If you follow along please submit the names (and URLs) of other bloggers who qualify for this dedication.

Hillary Booed By Bloggers

According to this article:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton refused Saturday to forsake campaign donations from lobbyists, turning aside challenges from her two main rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination with a rare defense of the special interest industry.

"A lot of those lobbyists, whether you like it or not, represent real Americans, they actually do," Clinton said, drawing boos and hisses from liberal bloggers at the second YearlyKos convention.

YearlyKos Convention is an annual gathering of people from all walks of life who belong to the Netroots community, a somewhat liberal blogging community.

500 for A-Rod

Today Alex Rodriguez became the youngest player in major league history to hit 500 home runs, sending the first pitch he saw off Kansas City's Kyle Davies past the foul pole in left field.

Glad to see our Royals are helping someone :(

65% Addicted

Don't know why I take
these addiction tests.

At least I am less addicted to
coffee than I am to blogging :)

Organizationally Challenged

I loved this quoted quote from Pam's blog:

“Now I still don’t believe that just by being slick enough with your methodoloy that it obligates the Spirit to act. But while organization doesn’t make a church grow, lack of it can kill an authentic work of the Spirit. And that had been our experience.”

Pam ends her post with something that I wholly agree with: "At the end of the day I stand by my position: We can be Spirit led and have things organized both."

Vetoing Iraq Leave

My soldier son was home last weekend on leave from his US Army service in Iraq. It was great to have him home - even if it was for a brief stay. Too bad that more folks in our government don't have the same sentiments. The U.S. House of Representatives voted on Thursday to require more leave for U.S. troops in Iraq, defying a veto threat from the White House that said it infringed on President George W. Bush's authority as commander in chief. Here is hoping that they have enough votes to override his veto.

Plasmapheresis

So my wife is back in the hospital experiencing another Multiple Sclerosis relapse - that's four since last September ... frustrating. Over the next few weeks she will undergo a series of seven procedures called Plasmapheresis. According to Wikipedia:

Plasmapheresis (from the Greek plasma, something molded, and apheresis, taking away) is the removal, treatment, and return of (components of) blood plasma from blood circulation. It is thus an extracorporeal therapy.

The purpose is to remove elements in Ann's blood that may be causing her immune system to go into overdrive. Here's hoping that, between this therapy, more IV steroids and some planned chemo treatments, Ann will be back on her feet in a few weeks and better than ever. It seems that in these days I am getting another chance to follow my own advice about not taking offense :)

Eliminating Trans Fats

According to the Food and Drug Administraion trans fat is made when manufacturers add hydrogen to vegetable oil--a process called hydrogenation. Hydrogenation increases the shelf life and flavor stability of foods containing these fats.

Trans fat can be found in vegetable shortenings, some margarines, crackers, cookies, snack foods, and other foods made with or fried in partially hydrogenated oils. Unlike other fats, the majority of trans fat is formed when food manufacturers turn liquid oils into solid fats like shortening and hard margarine.

According to FDA data the major sources of trans fat by percentage consumed by adult Americans are:

40% - cakes, cookies, crackers, pies, bread, etc.
21% - animal products
17% - margarine
08% - fried potatoes
05% - potato chips, corn chips, popcorn
04% - household shortening
03% - salad dressing
01% - breakfast cereal
01% - candy

Guess I'll need to cut out the ... uhhh ... get back to you later on that :)

Hairspray | ★★★★★★★★

So I took Julie's advice and we saw Hairspray on Wednesday. Really enjoyed the experience and, like Julie, couldn't believe that I was watching a wonderful commentary on Civil Rights. I recommend seeing it - seeing Travolta in drag is worth the price of admission.

On a scale of 10 I give this movie ★★★★★★★★

5 Year Old Phenom Jan Silva

Watch this 35 second video and see if you can get your head around a 5 year old playing this kind of tennis. According to this USA Today article:

Five-year-old tennis phenom Jan Kristian Silva lives and trains at a tennis academy in France with all of his family's expenses paid. Patrick Mouratoglou, the owner of the academy, is spending an estimated $140,000 a year on the Silvas in hopes that Jan becomes a star.

Saw Jan on the Today Show this morning and couldn't help but dream a bit of the future of tennis. Here's hoping that he will live out his dreams and not those of the adults in his life.