Sixty some people all from Hannah’s side. Lots of good conversation. An abundance of sloppy cafeteria food. Two In n’ Out runs. Some swimming. Not so much sleeping. One long plane ride with a second tomorrow. And now some bad heart burn. All in all fun times. Oh yeah, and some family photos which were much better cooridinated than I thought they’d be. Good job Sarah!

Who would have expected that as a blog title? The flight went very well and the boys were very laid back and content so much so that when we landed in Phoenix the man sitting across from us asked “how much Benedryl did you give your kids?” I told him that I’d given them none and that we still had to go from Phoenix to LAX and that I was keeping my fingers crossed. They are running off energy at the airport play place which is not nearly as cool at the Tampa one. Our flight is delayed an hour so they should be totally zonked by the time we hit LA.

And if you’ve ever wondered why my wife refers to our youngest one as the Adventurer kindly observe the following photo sequence for evidence. (Don’t worry it wasn’t nearly as bad as it looks.)

I’ll be back Monday night so if my posts are sporadic you will know why. While I’m gone you should read this.

I’m looking to get a new health insurance plan for me and the boys (and then transition the wife over to once the baby comes) and I thought I’d ask you for your opinion.

I’m leaning towards a Health Savings Account, but have never had one and am curious to know what other people have / would recommend. The HSA seems like a good balance between catastrophe hedging and normal everyday medical expenses.

Feel free to fire away…

I was originally going to call this post “Why Are There So Many Tools In Ministry?” but figured its negativity would hinder getting at the bigger question, namely, why do people go to churches where the pastor(s) are clearly tools? I brought this question up on the ride home from church yesterday and Hannah said “I wonder how many people tolerate a pastor in order to fellowship with other believers.” I hadn’t thought about this before as I figured that people would not attend a church if they thought the pastor was a nincompoop, but maybe that’s just my jaded, overly black and white viewpoint and does not hold true for other people. Thoughts please…

I’ve been working out a bit more heavily since we’ve been in Florida and for whatever reason I am really digging a can of tuna and chopped celery for lunch. I don’t know if it’s the protein or the fish oil (which I’ve heard helps keep away the bugs) but it is definitely hitting the spot. We’ll see how long it keeps up before 1) I either get tired of it or 2) the tuna smell gets too much for my (lovely) pregnant wife.

My excitement for the imminent internet hookup on Wednesday was misguided. Yes, two Verizon guys came and dug a ditch for the line. No, they did not hook it up. That is happening today between 12 and 2 just as scheduled. I’m still excited. Although I did find a new Starbucks today, which has aided in breaking the almost unbearable monotony of working from the same atmosphere every single day. I don’t know how people work from the same office day after day. They must have way more patience (or tradition) than me.

If you’re wondering why my blogging has been a little sparse, it’s largely due to the fact that we haven’t had internet at our house since we moved to Florida. First, (in addition to all of the other things that accompany moving across the country) we had to choose between Brighthouse, Roadrunner and Verizon (and I think Comcast) and by the time we got around to ordering it we discovered we had to wait 10 days for them to come install it.

Luckily, I guess they just showed up 3 days early. My wife just called to inform me that 2 guys are digging a ditch in our front yard. They came in a van with a Verizon logo on it so I think it’s all good. This comes at just the right time, because I don’t think I can take too many more days of hopping around different Starbucks. I also think this means that my wife will soon get her blogging on again as well, which I am happy about, because I miss her funny and insightful takes on raising our kids.

PS - yesterday was our 8th anniversary which we celebrated last weekend with a nice dinner, a movie and an overnight stay of the kids at grandma’s house. Yesterday we really kicked it into high gear with a rambunctious Waffle House run with 3 hungry boys in tow. (FYI - I’ve always been a sucker for Waffle House even before I discovered that the one in Tampa lets kids eat for 99 cents.)

With the move to Florida, we have decided to abandon cable TV for the time being. There are so many things to do down here that we figure there’s no use in wasting time watching TV and the extra $50 bucks a month will allow us to do an extra $50 bucks a month of activities down here.

With that said, I forgot how funny these are. My favorite is “2007 - Tech Support”. Absolutely hilarious. Especially if you’ve ever tried to get a web cam to clamp to the top of a PC’s monitor.

I find it rather amusingly ironic that companies and people tout “wireless” like crazy when pitching services and products (like how I reversed those two?). Anyway, the irony is that my life seems to include more wires now than it did 5 years ago, as evidenced by the picture below, which shows 1) power cord 2) USB iPhone charger 3) headphones and 4) mouse. This doesn’t even include my iBook (which I currently do not have plugged in), nor my iPod (if you’re wondering why I need an iPod even though I have an iPhone, don’t ask - it’s a frustrating tale that involves me not wanting to switch from T-Mobile and thus not getting iTunes (at least not yet) to work properly.)

Wow, lot’s of parentheses in that last paragraph.

Anyway, here’s the anti-climatic pic, which is probably a lot less worse than I made it out to be.