6 More Weeks Until Favre Arrives!

Well here it is, 1am and I'm just now starting my blog. There's so much to catch up on when I finally get to sit down and cruise the net! Work has been VERY busy the past week and a half, but should start slowing down in about another week or so. Tomorrow evening three brokers are coming down from California for a little "educate and entertain" session. It will be fun! They're coming for business, but we will have plenty of fun. Together, they have around $60 million with us, which is a little less than half of our total assets under management. Tomorrow night, me, JAckie (dir.of Marketing) and Byron (owner)will go pick them up at the airport, get them checked into their hotel, and then go eat at a nice restaurant. A nice juicy steak with a fine glass of sangiovese should do the trick for me! Afterwards, we'll either go to Four Day Weekend (improv comedy show) or to Pete's Dueling Pianos bar for some drinks and laughter. Friday morning they will trickle in to our office whenever they want, and mingle with the office until lunch. We'll take them to a restaurant downtown and then come back for the meetings. They will pitch their new business direction with 401k's and we will convince them we can handle it from an operations, compliance, and portfolio management standpoint. I've never had to "present" to such a meaningful audience, so it will be fun and a very valuable experience. We'll see how well my presentation skills from my MBA translates into the real world. I'm not nervous, but I also know they could easily ask some questions I won't know the answer to. Anyway, they really like us a lot, so it won't be a hard sell, and it could grow our business quite significantly! At 5pm, we'll change into very casual clothes, go eat another nice dinner in the Stockyards, and then go out to Eagle Mountain Lake to stroll around on Byron's new pontoon boat. We'll float up to Kelly's, which is a lakeside sports bar with live music, food, and plenty of adult beverages. I'm looking forward to it!! One of the brokers races a car in the NASCAR division that is just below the Busch series...maybe the Winston West?? I look forward to chatting with him about that!

I'm researching TVs. I can't afford a big widescreen plasma, and I think the normal bigscreens are still too grainy and distorted for the most part...so I'm thinking about getting a 32 or 36 inch TV. It is amazing the price difference between a standard 32" and a 36"...more than double usually!! I want to pay cash, and I'm really wondering how much difference the extra 4 inches would make. I'm sure it's noticable, but the price jumps from like $300 to $800!! Our couch is a good 15 feet or so from the TV, so it needs to be big. Right now you can't read the DirecTV menus on our little 25". What do you guys think?

Today was a rollercoaster ride in the world of hockey and the future of Dallas and the Stars. Last night Mike Modano was trying to negotiate a contract with Armstrong and Hicks, but by this morning, a deal had not been reached. I checked online briefly on and off all day, just KNOWING that he would sign. Then by late afternoon, I saw that Modano had rejected the Stars' offer, and was talking to other teams. My heart sank. However, much to my relief tonight, I saw where they had FINALLY reached a 5 year deal, almost ensuring Modano would retire a Star. That is how it should be done folks. His entire 15-20 year career will be in Dallas (Minnesota before they moved to Dallas, but still the same club).

I've been spending a little time thinking about churches. We found one we like, Christ Chapel Bible Church, but it's a good 20-25 minute drive. If we only went on Sunday mornings, we could possibly make do, but we'd like to get more involved than that, especially with 4 kiddos. The bible church in Saginaw is just too down home country. There's not really any other bible churches around though, so that presents us with a dilemma. We don't like the legalism and extreme evangelism of the baptist church...we disagree with too many of the armenian Church of Christ beliefs...and really, we don't like the religious customs of any religion. We don't disagreewith all of them, we just want a church where God's Word and his grace is the main focus, as opposed to a religion full of rules and customs. This is the problem. We either have to drive a long ways to church all the time, or find a "religious" church nearby. So, I've been thinking of making a list of things we'd like, prioritizing it, and making a decision based on what gives our family the greatest good with what we have to work with. So I'll close this blog with a few things I'd include on this list, in only the order that they come to mind...I'll prioritize them later. Trimbles and Turners (and whoever else from Grace reads this), maybe you could help with some things to add to the list...as well as anyone else who may have some good ideas. Thanks!
- close proximity
- more cerebral approach to the bible (minimal storytelling, only when absolutely necessary)
- less sensationalism (developing a deeper understanding of who God is instead of just trying to stir up emotions and manipulate you)
- plenty of couples our age in our stage of life we can relate to and build a support system with
- opportunities to serve individually and as a family
- help build a solid foundation in Christ for our kids, free from guilt and confusion (as a result of measuring their level of spirituality by how well they follow rules, read their bible, and become "do-gooders" versus simply understanding grace and focusing 100% on God (not shoulds/shouldnt's) so that the fruits of the spirit can more naturally flow)