#1 Thankful Thing

Number One Thankful thing... Well I have thought long and hard on this. I have tried to come up with something clever, something funny but nothing seems to do it justice. So I have decided to be real, transparent, and honest. The number one thing I am thankful for is my relationship with Christ. I did not grow up in the church, actually I probably grew up so far away from church it is not funny. My father was an alcoholic, workaholic, social anxiacal person, my mother, well she searched for meaning through all sorts of different circles in her life but never really found what she was looking for. I grew up thinking Church was for sissies, needy people who never took their lives seriously. Most church people that I ran into did not live their lives how I thought they should so I figured it was all just a coping mechanism for those needy people. But one day, at the urging of my girlfriend I decided to give Christ a try. It did not work. I was so frustrated, upset and mad until I realized that you can not just try Christ, you have to give your life to him. Non negotiable, binding, and totally dependant on you to surrender all to him. He does not want us to surrender some but to surrender all to him. So when I finally decided to give him all of me, there was a newness that came on my life. I came to realize my place in this world and my place in his creation. I came to realize that he cares for me more than anything else in the world, that he wants the best for me but also is willing to let me make my own choices in life, and sometimes to live with the consequences so I will appreciate him more. So the number one thing that I am most thankful for is my relationship with Jesus Christ, the risen son of Almighty GOD, the creator of the universe and the author and finisher of my faith...
Be Blessed,
Pat

#2 Thankful Thing

Number TWO!! We are almost there. What am I thankful for? Well speaking of number two, I am thankful for toilets. Have you ever thought what a marvelous engineering marvel the common toilet is? Able to accomodate both the male and female species equally, it is a wonder. A self contained water storage unit on the back that fills itself automatically. A porcelain bowl that requires little assistance to stay clean, throw in one of those little tablet thingy and you are good. A self trapping water space at the bottom that keeps the nasty odors out and a flusher that runs the water down into the bowl to get rid of the bad stuff, clockwise in N. America and counter clockwise in South America. I have never used a toilet in S. America so I can not confirm this. The toilet, without it our homes would be a very messy place.

#3 Thankful Thing

Number Three thankful thing for Thanksgiving is; Al Gore? Yep, not because he is an environmental watchdog now, but because he invented the internet!! I don't know what I would do without the internet! I would have to get my information for sermons through large reference books, I would have nothing but "clip art" to show in my slide shows, and I would know absolutely nothing as to what is going on in the world without the internet. Without Spacebook and MyFace, how would I keep up with everyone other than seeing them at Wal Mart? How would I play Football Fantasy with people I don't know? How will I get my mail without the internet, go to the Post Office? Yep, Al Gore, that guys is pretty smart guy to invent the internet, funny I thought it was some other computer guy.

#4 - Countdown to Thanksgiving

#4 Thankful thing.
I am thankful for indoor plumbing. Yep for an INSIDE bathroom. I remember the house we had in Missouri, it did not have a bathroom. We had a sink in the kitchen but that was it. The outhouse was about 50 yards behind the house and we had to take baths in a 5 gallon metal washtub that had a Pabst Blue Ribbon sticker on the side. This was not in the 1930's, or the 40's or the 50's, or the 60's but in the 1970's. Yeah we bought the house that time forgot. Nothing like having to get up in the middle of the night to make the long flashlight illuminated walk to the outhouse because nature called. And while you are there nature starts calling out all around you. Like the time a snake decided he had to go while I was in there and he decided not to wait and wiggled in through the crack in the door. Or the time when one of the cows decided to try to push the outhouse over while I was inside of it.
When we got our own bathroom in that house, that had a sink, a commode and a shower bathtub unit, we all did a little jig of celebration, none more thankful than me and the snake who now had his very own bathroom.

#5 Thankful thing

Number 5: I am thankful for the microwave oven. I mean imagine what life would be without a "nuclear baking machine"? Forget what it is doing to our bodies as we stand in front of it as it pours out its nuclear radiation to heat or reheat the hazardous waste we call food. Forget about the horror stories of things being blown up inside of them and the steam burns. I love the microwave! I can boil water in 90 seconds, I can heat up leftover Thanksgiving turkey in a minute, I can even get one of those special pizzas with the metal sleeve and have Pepparoni for lunch in three minutes. Too tired to cook? Throw one of those frozen burritos in the oven, nuke it for 60 seconds and Viola! you are ready to eat. Just be careful not to burn the roof of your mouth!

Thankful #6

#6 thing I am thankful for.
Paperclips... yep not just because they help unruly paper stay in order. But all the things that you can do with them. I have used paperclips to fix a toilet, to reset a computer, to act as a make shify hinge pin, as an ear wax remover (you know you do it too...), as a desktop sculture, as a Christmas tree ornament hanger, as a picture frame hanger, and as a metal catapault to send paperwads across an office. I mean they are usefull for about anything. Who knew a twisted piece of metal could be so usefull?

Things I am thankful for #7

#7 Thankful thing...
Q tips. Yeah that's right, I am thankful for Q tips. I do not know who came up with the idea of putting a piece of cotton on the end of a stick. Might have been a kids who was almost finished with his sucker working in the cotton fields one day. It fell out of his mouth into the freshly harvested cotton, the sticky nub of a sucker stuck to a ball of cotton and there you have it, the Q tip. I mean without Q tips not only would we have waxy ear buildup but think of all the model airplanes that would have horrible deformities, the minor wounds that would go untreated, and the endless amounts of antibiotic that would have to be applied with a dirty, bacteria encrusted finger. Q tips rule!!

Things I am thankful for #8

Number Eight: Things I am thanful for.
Clothes Dryer is my number 8 thing I am thankful for. Now some of you are thinking it is because it dry clothes and we don't have to hang them on a line. It is not, how many men have you ever seen hanging clothes on a line? None, those that would have to hang clothes on the line, well they buy their wife a dryer. No I am thankful for the dryer because you really don't have to wash clothes sometimes when you don't have time. Have an old softball jersey you forgot to wash before the game? A dryer sheet and a dryer and about ten minutes of tumbling and you are all set. Have a pair of pants that got all wrinkled up in your closet, throw them in the dryer, Violla! All better. Gave your long haired dog a bath and hate that wet dog smell, well, I don't recommend it but it has been done albeit your dog will hate you for the rest of your life. They dryer fixes everything!

Things I am Thankful for #9

#9 - Toenail clippers.
Have you ever thought what the world would look like without nail clippers? Remember that lady in the Guiness Book of World Records with 9 foot long fingernails? Yuck!! And if your toe nails were that long, shoes would be out of the question! I think long toe nails are the nastiest things under the sun, my grandfather used to have those long old man toe nails. You know the ones you need to take a hacksaw too, maybe even a grinder to finish them off. Thankfully he always wore socks with his sandals!!

10 day till Thanksgiving

Ten things I am thankful for.
I am thankful for a lot of things in my life, but I am going to get sappy and mention some on here. First off I will not list my wife or my kids or my church or my job which I am so thankful for all of them, but they are a no brainer, without all of them I am a most miserable person. So I am going to be funny, smart and hopefully ellicit a few laughs for what I am most thankful for.
Number Ten Thing I am Most Thankful for....

10) Deodorant -
Have you really thought what you and the world around you would smell like without D-O for the B-O? I mean just thinking about it makes me wanna hurl.
Funny story I told on myself. So I am at a trade show working, and we are setting up our booth which entails a lot of sweating and putting up pieces to show to potential customers. So I keep getting a wiff of BO and I am thinking my partner there is in need of a shower. So later on I have this sign held up over my head and I look to the left and almost passed out as I smelled my BO. I was so embarrased! I mean you know when you have a true friend when they tell you, "dude, you need to take a shower". Apparently I forgot to apply the D-O in the A-M before I went to the E-H (exhibit hall) for our D-T (display time). Yes I am an idiot!

Proud Papa...

Yep that is me.
My oldest daughter is graduating high school in the spring. She is a brain, has a 4.0, made a 29 on her ACT and is shooting for a 30 in December. She has great character, is a leader and will succeed in whatever she decides to do in life.
So approaching her graduation this spring from HS, She had to start thinking about continuing her education and what she wanted to do in life. Well she has always wanted to attend Southwestern AG Unniversity. I think it is from all the free T shirts she got at Preachers Kid Camp but she decided a couple of years ago that is what she wanted to do and she has not budged off of it. SAGU is a private institution, and private institutions cost a lot of $$$, somewhere around $20,000.00 a YEAR! Lets just say that is a significant chunck of my salary in a years time. To put into perspective that is more than we pay on our house payment, both car payments and my motorcycle payment plus the insurance it takes to insure them. Yeah, I just broke out into a cold sweat also...
So we tell her, you need to make good grades to get good scholarships because we can't do much to help pay for college. Then we started talking about maybe an athletic scholarship. Is it possible? Well she is a good athlete, but is she good enough to play college ball? She had the height, thanks to her dad she is almost six feet tall, but did she have the skills to play at the next level. Well she arranged a tryout at SAGU last week to practice with the team to see if she could compete. I told her, you are still just a HS Senior, seventeen and you are going to be playing against girls 3 to 5 years older than you, you don't have to dominate, just compete.
Well she goes out to warm up and the coach comes in, gives her the once over and shags balls while she was shooting to warm up. She missed her first couple, then she found her rthym and started knocking down shots. She is pretty good from fifteen feet in, and she kept floating farther and farther outside to where she hit at one time seven in a row from just inside the three point arc. The coach was grinning as she hit on after the other, we found out why after we saw his other big players range is only about ten feet.
So the other girls come in and it was so fun to just watch them size each other up. C ends up not just practicing but scrimmaging agaist the starting five and she held her own. She has some things to work on and she still has another year of maturation but from what she showed the coaching staff they agreed that they wanted her for next years team and offered her a "starters" scholarship which roughly is half the cost of school. Mom and I get a ten percent discount for being ordained so that leaves roughly forty percent to be covered by academics which I am hoping will happen.
So C if you are reading this, I am so proud of you and the hard work you have put in. No one can ever say you were given anything, everything you accomplish was earned with hard work and sweat. Keep working hard, be a leader and GOD will give you the desires of your heart, just like he did with your college.

Thoughts I think I think 2... airline travel

1) Airlines are always fighting to leave on time and many times it is the passengers that are delaying flights taking too long to get on. Heres a thought, use some common sense, quit charging for checked bags, cheapskates like me might check one every so often.
2) Have three lines going at security, first line for experienced travelers, not those that flew ten years ago, those that fly all the time, we get through the line in a hurry. A second line for the casual traveler, those that fly for vacation, going to see grandma and such. They get to the airport four hours before the flight anyway, they have time. And a third line for those that need help, like the old lady who has her entire bathroom shampoo, conditioner and rinse in the three gallon jugs and holds up the line when they tell her three onces or less. Or the little old man who doesn't take off his shoes, tries to get through the metal detector with his keys in his pocket and doesn't take off his jacket. Or the Mom with two little kids who all have their own carry on, filled with metal toys and stuff.
3) How about not giving anything for flights of less than an hour? I mean I can make it from Dallas to Tulsa without a drink. I just hate getting a drink in my hand and the stewdress ask me for it back. Gulp, thanks!
4) How about if you cancell a flight, make some arrangements BEFORE the people on that flight show up. Sometimes I think they hope that all 120 people affected just forgot they were flying that day.
5) A little honesty? Tell the passangers what is really going on with the delays, instead of our next scheduled departure time is X when everyone knows that will not happen.
6) How about making the seats with a little leg room? When the person in front of you has their head in your lap it is a little awkward. Does the three extra people on the plan really make that much of a difference?
7) Can we get a camera of the cockpit since we can't see in there? In light of the NorthWest plane situation, I would like to know what my pilot is doing up there. I know my kids would be a little worried if Mom and I installed a panel behind the front seats in our mini van to seperate us from the kids in the back. Who knows what they are doing, playing bingo?
8) How about we do boarding from the back of the plane to the front of the plane. Line up and go set down. Now they board the front first class so we can walk past them sipping their designer water, then the frequent flyers who sit all over the plane and the they start boarding back to front but people don't know where they sit, where their luggage goes and it takes forever to board.
9) How about some inflight entertainment, I mean, one magazine a month and the crosswords are already done?
10) How about a child section, you know at church we have these sound proof rooms for babies that are crying? Just a thought...