Dylan was right

Bob Dylan was right when he sang that “the times, they are a changin’ ” back in the sixties. However, they haven’t changed for the better.

Last night, my wife and I had to sit down with our son to address some attitude problems that have arisen.

We communicated the problematic things that we have observed and asked him to communicate what was causing this.

It pained me greatly to hear that one of the things that have been bothering him is being called “gay” at school.

My son is clearly not gay. He is a tough, kick butt wrestler. In fact, last year I learned that he had punched a few guys in the face who persisted in harassing him

“What do you mean, you hit him?”

“I hit him.”

“You mean you actually punched him?

“Yes.”

“With your fist?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you hit him?”

“In the face.”

Well…

Last year, three girls approached him and asked if he was gay. He responded, “No, but I’m not going to kiss a girl until I marry her.”

I wish I could have seen their faces when the handsome, athletic guy was telling the girls that he is determined to stay morally pure!

Why are some guys calling him gay? Because he is morally pure. Evidently, the only way to prove that you are not gay is to fornicate and watch pornography. Since he doesn’t, that means that he is gay.

I can’t tell you how this pains me. When I attended high school, the sexual “revolution” had just started to make inroads into our culture. A decided majority of the people left high as virgins. Now, evidently, here in wealthy, upper middle class Overland Park, KS, that is not the case.

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We found a house! almost…

When I received that inspiration to find this apartment, I had the distinct impression that we would be able to buy a house at the end of that six month lease.

In fact, when we signed the lease, the woman made the lease out for 12 months. I told her “No”, it’s only supposed to be for 6″ and made her change it.

Well, since learning that the corporate office had changed their acceptance criteria, I had really been questioning my decision! Will I have to look for another place to live in six months?

The answer to that question is “No.” Once your rental application has been approved, they don’t care how you pay for it.

Although I have been applying for every position that I can find for the past month, I still don’t have a job. However, what am I going to do about that impression of being able to buy a house? I can’t just give up on it. After all, my wife and I have attended a seminar on creative real estate financing…

Maybe we can buy a house with little to nothing down…who knows. I know that it won’t happen if we don’t at least try!

So, since she had the day off, we took a few hours and went looking at houses. Really, we are just trying to determine where we want to live.

Well, we found a house that we both liked. That is no small achievement.

The price was just a little above what I would like to ideally pay. But the location is great. The back yard is like a park!

My wife called the realtor only to find that escrow just closed on the house!

Oh well, back to the drawing board.

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Do you think that I’m a little late?

I am 48 years old. I have been working very hard since I was 12 years old. And today, I am embarrassed to say this, but I just set up my first IRA account with Charles Schwab.

We started out our marriage with a $7,000 nest egg.

We were a young, zealous Christian couple that was determined to reform the world starting with our family! We were going to practice natural family planning (no artificial birth control here!) and have our first child at home.

We payed the mid-wife $2,ooo. Everything was going according to plan until the contractions started! The mid-wife sent us to the hospital and our first born child was delivered via C-section! And we have had no savings account since then!

Oh, I know that I should have just put money in my 401K but for most of my married life, we have needed every last penny to pay the bills and feed the little rug rats.

And so now, at the very young age of 48, I am starting to save for retirement!

Well, who wants to retire anyway? Retirement was invented by Otto von Bismarck as a way to defeat his political opponents.

I agree with the Rascal Flatt’s lyrics: ” I wanna be running when the sand runs out.” I started out our marriage determined to reform the world, so I guess I will head into the next life with both guns blazing!

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Have I become a Charismatic butterfly?

Since the very beginning of this move, I have been telling my wife that I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up joining a different church and then spending time in the Prayer Room. Well, today we started looking for our new church. We will look at a few more and then make our decision.

The church we attended today is much smaller. However, it is very easy to see that we could help it to grow.

Well, see what happens. It’s just the latest little adventure with God.

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A good sign

I got dressed to go running feeling just like have for the past six runs: uninspired and tired.

However, when I actually started, I noticed that I had some spring in my legs. Wow!

And my lungs actually had a little bit of life in them! Well, what do you know!

And when I finished the run, I had my 10th best time of the year!

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Really? But it felt terrible…

I ran my full course for the third time this week.  Hurrah!

Howvever, all during the run, I was slightly disgusted with my slow pace. “How much slower would this be than the last run?”

Those type of thoughts plagues me right up until the time that I crossed the finish line and hit the button on my watch.

When I recovered enough to actually look at it, to my surprise, I ran38 seconds faster than the last time. How about that?

It just goes to show that you cannot trust your feelings. I didn’t feel like running at all. I felt like I was going slower than ever. To my credit, I ignored those feeling and just carried on with my plans and the facts showed up to prove that my emotions were wrong!

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This doesn’t look like progress

I was able to finish my full running course again. However, my time  was nearly one minute slower than the last time.

So much for being able to see progress.

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Her first day of school

Today, I dropped my youngest daughter off for her first day of school today!

While it is true that she is 15 years old…

and I dropped her off at the local high school…

but that didn’t seem to change how if felt to me. This is her first day at a PUBLIC school! I was so excited!

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I made it

Last week I tried to run my full 3.8 mile course three times and three times I failed. I did go a little bit further with each succeeding run. However, I just couldn’t make it the whole way.

Today, I finally succeeded in running the whole route. However, my time was…shall we say, less than inspiring.

Oh, well, I’m not training to be a contestant in the Olympics so I have time to improve.

Addendum:  I can’t believe that I forgot this! When I crossed the finish line, I was very weak. In fact, I started to faint. My legs grew weak, my knees started to buckle and I became very lightheaded! There was a woman walking her dog who quickly became very concerned!

“Are you all right.”

I smiled, held my hand up to wave as I tried not to fall down…

and then as I started regaining my strength, I whispered, “I’m just really out of shape!”

I have never experienced that before! Oh well, all for the cause.

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Who is Tim Allen?

When my son asked me what he should call his budding new business, I made him choose it. He came up with a great one-

HOME IMPROVEMENT.

His tag line underneath his name is “The Homeowner’s Best Solution”.

I told him that I thought that it was a winner.

I helped him format it on the computer. He is delivering them to his last customer as I type this. Pretty exciting!

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