My Part of the Conversation

We’re leaving tomorrow for our Christmas voyage! A few days near Nashville, then over to Arkansas. We’ll first see most of Kate’s family then see a good part of mine. My sister got engaged yesterday, so we’ll get to give her fiance a hard time (for the rest of his life… bwaahahahahahaha).

Christmas sucks my brain power, but I’ll be back with more posts soon enough. Maybe I’ll even get a few in while we’re gone. We’ll see.

Merry Christmas!

Blaine

The other day Kate was working and I was home alone with Hudson and I was doing something in the kitchen. The tv was on in the living room, and Hudson was playing by the door and went inside. I heard him say “Oooooo, wow” then “Foo-baa”. I walked in there and he was mesmerized by the screen.

I have to admit, I cried just a little.

…well, at least not totally.

The other day I found out about the latest American Express promotion called “My Wishlist” where they put up highly sought-after items for sale for unbelieveably low prices. I heard about it when the put the XBOX 360 Premiums up for $150. They had 400 and they sold them at different times during the day. I actually tried for a while to get one, but to no avail.

It’s really a brilliant marketing. I found myself checking back to see what else was going up. Then on Thursday, they came out with Treo 650’s for $150. It’s normall $550, so it was a pretty sweet deal. I thought I’d try a few clicks, and sure enough, I got one! It’s a pretty cool phone, kindof like a Blackberry. I’m not a huge fan of Palm OS, but it’s still cool.

I’ll probably be “one of those people” that turns around and sells it on ebay. But, I promise to buy something fun with the money I make…

Anyway, it’s nice to win every once in a while.

Blaineism of the Day- How come saying “he’s a real loser” and “he’s a real winner” means the same thing?

What do you do with 20,000 baseball, basketball, football and hockey cards (most of which are basketball)?

It’s not a joke. I really need to know. I’ve got a handful of cards that I actually want to keep, but mostly it’s boxes of commons. What happened to cards? At one time people were buying them up like crazy! Now, brand new cards have value. After that, the individual values plummet.

Checking on ebay last night, it’s interesting that older cards have actually gone to extremely low prices. Coveted rookie cards can be found at bargain prices. I even saw the Magic Johnson/Larry Bird RC (w/Dr. J) for under $100 (ungraded) several places. Even those cool jersey cards can be found for next to nothing. Those who invested for money are probably disappointed right now. True collectors and sports enthusiasts are having a field day.

Oh well, I collected cards because it was fun for me. I hate the space it takes up, and need to get rid of a lot of it, but it was fun. My prized cards are my Karl Malone Rookie Card and an expansion insert for the New Orleans Jazz.

It’s a shame how some of those “fun” things have been turned into business, making little kids worry about “condition” and “book value”. I’ve even seen kids getting Star Wars action figures that they weren’t even going to open so the value won’t drop.

What a shame! In the long run, something will only have value later on if people really enjoy them now. Mark my words: in 20 years, people will be collecting video games.

Blaineism of the Day: Something is only worth what someone is willing to let someone else convince them they should pay for it.

Why do we just let stuff go? Why do we see people messing up their lives and continue to say nothing? Why do we fall under the tyranny of the weaker brother, and allow the squeaky wheels in our churches always get their way? What are we so afraid of?

What am I so afraid of?

This isn’t a response to one thing, but many I’ve been faced with recently. I prayed earlier this year to be more bold. You can imagine what God did with that. But I’ve been made more aware of how often we fail to make a decision because we fear the conflict.

Sure, we have good enough reasons. We’ve seen people abused by criticism, we don’t feel we have the relationship to say something, we don’t want them to think less of us or bring out our faults, we want peace to continue, we don’t want people to leave us or stop being our friends.

We we we. Me me me.

When does God get a say? When do we do something simply because it’s the right thing? When do we step in so a brother doesn’t get lost? When do we tell someone that’s what we’re going to do and leaving is their choice? I’m not saying there aren’t appropriate measures to take depending on a situation- I’m saying we don’t really bother to figure out what the measures are most of the time. In the “Why Men Hate Going to Church” book, the author points out that one thing men hate is that the church can’t make strong decisions.

I thing we have reacted too far to the abuses of the past, that we have turned abuse to neglect.

Anyway, I don’t have the answers, only questions I’m wrestling through.

Blaineism of the Day: Greasing wheels makes a mess whether they are squeaky or not.