Conglomeration of Updates

It's been 17 days since my last post, and I am finally updating. I'll just start off with a brief rundown of my day, and I'll try to stay away from economics and sports today. I was running late this morning so I left for work (after taking Karissa to school and coming back home to finish getting ready) without eating breakfast. Jenn picked me up at noonish and we went to Bennigan's. It took them 15 minutes and 37 seconds to bring us our food, so we got it for free. They have this program now where they start a stopwatch after they take your order and if it takes longer than 15 minutes, lunch is on them. We felt a little bad for our waitress and offered to still pay since she was real close, but she insisted that it was free, so we thanked her and left a nice tip. Back at the office a broker from Ohio arrives, but I lucked out and go to miss out on all the afternoon meetings, aside from a quick little 15 minute exchange regarding his portfolios' performance numbers. Just as I'm finally starting to get some things accomplished, Jenn calls to see if I'll be able to leave at 5pm so I can make it to Math Night at Karissa's school. Realizing it was already 5pm, I start winding down and finally get out of there in time to pick up a pizza on the way home, scarf 2 pieces down, and then off to Math Night. Aside from being very unorganized, confusing, crowded, and extremely silly, it was an ok thing, mostly because the kids probably enjoyed it. I guess. They just went from table to table working out math problems while the parent helped them. I still don't understand the reason for having it, but I wanted to support Karissa and her school activities, so I went and didn't complain until I got home and told Jenn how silly the whole thing was. We put the kids to bed and then started Survivor. Half way through, our electricity goes out. This just happened a month or two ago and it stayed out until around 10am the next morning!! I drove around in the van and discovered that half of Saginaw was without power due to a fallen power line. I was thrilled about this, since everything I veg out to/with is electronic. However, it did allow Jenn and I to spend some time talking about stuff, so it wasn't all bad. Finally around 11pm, the electricity came back on, just as I had resigned to the idea that once again, I'd be taking a cold shower in the dark tomorrow morning.

I had some terrible news last night. A good friend of mine just pled guilty to an embezzlement charge and now will most likely face prison time. I won't go into detail here, but it has made Jenn and I both sick to our stomachs all day thinking about it. This guy is one of the last guys on earth you'd expect something like this from.

We have a very diverse group of people at work, in terms of spiritual beliefs/disbeliefs. We have me, the self-proclaimed "knowledge SEEKER", the agnostic college student, the 7th Day Adventist, a northerner whom is Catholic and democratic :), and the new, gung-ho, cliche-dropping, christian buzzword dropping, gullible believer who has not yet come up with his own thoughts on anything. Not that I'm judgmental or critical! HA! I admit, I struggle with that, and I'm not proud of it. Anyway, I had a brief conversation today with the agnostic and the new christian. It was an interesting struggle, trying to tame the grandiose cliches and buzzwords from the new christian and respect the agnostic's views while also putting in my two cents occasionally. The new christian couldn't understand how someone could NOT believe God exists. While I sincerely hope the agnostic finds faith, I found myself defending him against the new christian's onslaught of church phrases attempting to convert the agnostic right then and there. HA! The new christian had the bible and faith as his basis, but I had to explain to him as politely as I could that he is assuming the bible is a credible book, and he is assuming there is a God to have faith in. Neither of these assumptions are true to the agnostic's beliefs, so the new christian, therefore, has no meaningful evidence to provide to the agnostic. I personally don't think there's any way to "logically" prove the existence of God on strictly a cerebral level - the only thing that makes it logical and believable is faith. Without an inkling of faith, I don't think anyone can ever be convinced there is a God, definitely. Anyway, it was a very interesting conversation.

I can't wait for the weather to get cool enough to use our fireplace! I need to buy some firewood and a rack to store it on outside. Do you think it would be ok to store next to an external brick wall? I don't want to get termites!!

At work we are about to acquire up to $200million in assets. I think $100-125million is more likely, so it will almost DOUBLE our assets under management!! This will be a HUGE undertaking and we are looking over resumes now to hire 4 more people to assist us in the acquisition. I have never interviewd people before, so I'm actually looking forward to that a little. I'm hoping that with my increased responsibility, additional monetary compensation will follow. :) There's also a chance I may go up to Philadelphia for a few days, where the company is located that we are buying assets from. That would be fun!

I only have about 35 pages remaining in the Biography of John Nash and then I can start my book on the theological explanation of evil. I also had a friend give me a book titled "Raising A Modern Day Knight". It looks pretty good. Have any of you fathers out there read it? It's about a father's role in leading his son to authentic manhood.

Next Friday night we have the office Halloween party. I'm not sure what I want to dress up as...do you have any costume ideas?? Well, hopefully it won't be 17 days until my next novel, I mean post. I do enjoy reading your comments, so please leave me one! ?