Jonathan On Ice

This is a video my nephew Jonathan sent me.  This is what he was doing during a recent snow day from school.  At least he was in a vacant parking lot and not out on the street somewhere.

Mizzou Basketball

Thanks to the University of Missouri donating some tickets to Big Brothers/Big Sisters, Jamel and I were able to go see a basketball game last night in Mizzou Arena.  We had a great time.  Mizzou beat Centenary 80-52. Jamel and I enjoyed the game and we got a chance to become a little better acquainted.  

Our next activity is scheduled for New Year's Day (tomorrow).  We will join some folks at Karis in serving dinner at the Loaves & Fishes soup kitchen in downtown Columbia.  This is an on-going project for one of our Community Groups at Karis as they try to meet the needs of some of Columbia's homeless residents.  Jamel seems to be excited about serving with us tomorrow.  He asked me the question last night, "Why are we doing that?"  I got to explain to him that helping people who need it is a really good thing to do.  I'm hoping that over the next year I can show Jamel how important it is to serve others.

By the way, he told me last night that his mother and brothers really enjoyed the sugar cookies that we made last week.

Airbus A320

Janice and I flew home from Florida this morning.  We had an early morning flight from Tampa to Memphis on an Airbus A320 with Northwest Airlines.  I've only flown on an Airbus a couple of times, and me being the aviation enthusiast that I am, I asked the captain for a cockpit tour once we arrived in Memphis.  He was very accommodating and even offered me a seat in the first officer's chair.  I was able to grill him pretty hard on Airbus A320 details.  He told me it has been his favorite airplane to fly by far.  He said he has flown just about every Boeing airliner there is, and he said nothing Boeing has can beat the fly-by-wire system that Airbus has.  He said he also never wants to go back to a yoke after using the side joystick that Airbus uses.

I was very impressed with the quietness and roominess of the Airbus. It seemed the aisle was wider than any other plane I've been on, and there was also a lot of overhead room, even under the overhead compartments.  We got lucky on this flight also by getting to sit in an exit row, so we had plenty of legroom.

We also flew in and out of Columbia for the first time.  Northwest recently started service from Columbia to Memphis with Saab 340 turboprop aircraft.  These are 34 passenger planes and they are also a pretty comfortable ride.  Our flights both coming and going were pretty full, and with Northwest offering competitive pricing, it sure beats driving 2 hours to St. Louis or Kansas City.  

Busch Gardens

Today Janice and I got to go to Busch Gardens in Tampa for a few hours with Bonnie, Eliana and Mikayla.  We had a great time, and the most fun was just being with the kids and watching their reactions to the different experiences they had. This picture is Janice and Mikayla visiting with the dragons that walk around the park.  These were people on stilts with these long dragon necks and heads that they could bend down with to get at the level of the kids.  They were a little scary for the kids. 

Bonnie and I got to ride the roller coaster Montu, which was a lot of fun.  It was a floor-less coaster with 7 different loops.  Top speed was 65 miles per hour and up to 3.85 g's.  What a rush.  

The weather down here was perfect for visiting an amusement park.  As you can imagine, being the Saturday after Christmas, it was very busy.

Our time down here is almost over.  We have one more full day left before we head back to Columbia.  I will post some photos later from the trip.

Christmas In Florida

Janice and I are in Florida for the Christmas holiday.  We're staying with Janice's sister Bonnie and her family which includes two of the coolest niece's (as I do have other cool niece's) in the whole world, Eliana and Mikayla. Eliana is 4 and Mikayla is 2, and for some reason they love their Uncle Tom.  Yesterday I got to show Eliana how to act like a monkey which was something that was enjoyed by all.  I'm working hard at not showing them anything that will get them in trouble, which for those of you that know me, is kind of hard to do.  

We're here until Monday which is when we have a VERY early flight out of Tampa.  I think we have to leave for the airport at 4 am!  

I hope everyone is having a great Christmas holiday.  Hopefully everyone is remembering why we celebrate Christmas.  It's a great time to visit family, give and receive gifts, and eat lots of good food, but Christ is really why we're able to celebrate.  Have a great weekend and I will write more later.

Karis Community Church

Someone was reading the blog and asked me about Karis.  So, in case you are wondering about it, take a look for yourself.

Merry Christmas!

Chili and Sugar Cookies

Jamel came over Monday for dinner and we enjoyed some great Chili that Janice prepared. We then made some Christmas sugar cookies that Jamel took home to give to his mom.  Great fun was had by all!  We also worked on mastering a motocross computer game, which we still need work on.  

We will be attending the Mizzou basketball game on the 30th.  Big Brothers/Big Sisters secured some tickets from the Mizzou athletic department for this game and we will get to sit in the student section. There will probably not be many people there as most students are home on Christmas break, and we're playing Centenary, whoever that is.  But, it will still be fun.

Then, on January 1st, Jamel and I will be serving dinner at the Loaves and Fishes Soup Kitchen in downtown Columbia along with others from Karis Community Church.  Keep checking back for more updates!

Ronald Reagan and Christmas

This article was emailed to me from one of my customers who shares my high regard for Ronald Reagan.  This is one of the many stories about him that show the kind of man he was.  Enjoy!

President Reagan's Favorite Christmas Gift
By Floyd and Mary Beth Brown
December 20, 2008

"Christmas has always been a very special day for as long back as I can remember," Ronald Reagan once wrote in a letter. "Maybe this was due to my mother and her joyous spirit about the day."

Although President Reagan could have spent his White House Christmases with family at his beloved ranch in Santa Barbara, Calif., he instead stayed in Washington, D.C. His sacrifice allowed Secret Service agents and other aides to spend Christmas at home with their families. He was a thoughtful person.

Reagan grew up in a desperately poor family. His father was a shoe sales clerk who had trouble keeping a job, partly because he was an alcoholic. "There were very few decorated trees in the years of my growing up. But never defeated, my mother would with ribbon and crepe paper decorate a table or create a cardboard fireplace out of a packing box. And she always remembered whose birthday it was and made sure we knew the meaning of Christmas."

His mother Nelle was an optimistic Christian woman who always looked for the positive side in every situation. President Reagan explained, no matter how bad things were for their family, his mother was always finding someone worse off than them. Reagan's most vivid early memory of his mother was of her with a covered dish taking it to a needy family. Nelle was always helping others.

Perhaps those lean years are one reason why Ronald Reagan once said a particular Christmas gift was especially memorable for him. It was his favorite gift and it came from his brother Neil. He called it "a gift truly in keeping with the spirit of the day." Neil had been struggling to find a suitable gift for his brother; they both were middle-aged adults and both men had successful careers.

Neil solved his dilemma by writing a letter. In the letter, Neil told his brother he had found a truly needy family with small children "who wouldn't go to bed with dreams of Santa Claus in their head." Ronald Reagan recounted how his brother Neil changed that and "became Santa 
himself, providing a Christmas from tree to turkey plus toys and gifts for all." Included in Neil's letter was a very detailed blow-by-blow account describing the "joy of the children and the grateful happiness of their mother."

This act of charitable giving by Neil reads like the end of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" and became President Reagan's most unforgettable Christmas gift. He called it "a gift that will never grow old," as he would re-read the letter or think about the family's reaction to Neil's generosity.

Helping and serving others gives true joy and happiness, not only to the recipient but even more so to the giver. Maybe Neil's gift was particularly touching to Reagan because he knew what it was like to go without.

Today, there are still families out there who are in difficult circumstances and they face a bleak Christmas. A gift like Neil's may be the perfect gift for you to give to that someone in your life who has everything. Your church or locally based charities such as the Salvation Army are aware of needy families. You could make a difference and receive special Christmas joy by giving to a family who has hit hard times. Then write a letter similar to Neil's describing 
the family's reactions and give it as a gift. This is the true spirit of Christmas.

On Christmas Eve 1984, speaking to the nation, President Reagan said, "families and friends across America will join together in caroling parties and Christmas Eve services. Together, we'll renew that spirit of faith, peace, and giving which has always marked the character of our people."

At the end of his tale, Dickens writes, "it was always said of [Scrooge], that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May this be said of all of us. And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!"

Merry Christmas!

---

©2008 Floyd and Mary Beth Brown. The Browns are bestselling authors 
and speakers. Together they write a national weekly column distributed 
exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. For more info call 
Cari Dawson Bartley at 800 696 7561 or e-mail cari@cagle.com.

Meet Jamel

Here is Jamel, my little brother. Today was our first time hanging out.  We didn't do anything real exciting.  We washed my truck inside and out, went to Staples and Sam's Club, and stopped by my office to drop some stuff off.  We even dropped by the house for a while and played some computer games.  We had a great time getting to know each other.  The great thing was that he asked a lot of questions about me, so we had a lot of conversation.  We're going to get together Monday evening for dinner so we can hang out one more time before Janice and I go to Florida for Christmas.  We even made plans for some stuff after Christmas.  So, my year with Jamel has begun and I think it will be fun. I'll keep you posted.

Introducing......

StimulateColumbiaMO.org

No, the website isn't up yet, but it will be.  So, what is it?  A few weeks ago Rob Gaskin and I were discussing the next stimulus package that congress has been talking about giving us.  We both agreed that we are against another stimulus check, but since you can't opt out of getting it our thought was we should just give it away.  Then we started taking the idea a little further.  What if we started some kind of organization that would direct people to give their money to local charities and invest in our community.  Instead of going to Best Buy and getting that TV you don't really need, what if you took your money and gave it to an organization that would truly keep the money local.  Here's an example:

You donate your money to Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Central MO which is based here in Columbia. They take the money and recruit more mentors for local kids.  A kid that is mentored through their program has a greater chance of staying in school and doing something with their life.  So, with that kid staying in school, the school gets funding from the federal government for that kid. So that's more money coming in to the local economy.  Also, when the kid gets older he/she gets a job and pays taxes which is more money in the local economy.  It also is a chance for that kid to not be on welfare, which is then less of a burden on us.

When you buy that TV the money may be spent locally, but then it's gone, never to be seen again.  By giving your money locally it could have long-term effects on our local economy.

So, we have decided to focus on three groups of people:  at-risk children/youth, low-income families, and the unemployed.  Our idea is to have 3 or 4 local charities for each of these categories that we can focus peoples' giving to.  This way a larger impact can be made by focusing on just a few charities.  We are currently in the process of putting all this together.  We have recruited some help from several people at Karis Community Church and a few others.  We are currently building the website, crafting a vision statement, choosing and interviewing local charities, and building an advertising campaign.  Our goal is to be up and running on January 5th.  We want to be ready when the announcement comes from congress that the bill has been approved.  The goal of congress is to have the bill ready for President-elect Obama to sign on inauguration day.  When the announcement is made that the stimulus is official we have to have the campaign ready to go, as people will spend that money in their heads when the announcement is made.  

We are excited and we have a lot of work to do, but we feel like this can make a huge impact on our local economy and our community.  Assuming that we get $600 each again, if 10,000 people donate half of that here in Columbia, we would have $3,000,000!    It can happen!

So, what do you think?  Are you willing to help?  Do you have any ideas for local charities we should consider?  Any feedback you have would be appreciated.

Postponing Reality

Here is a short article by Thomas Sowell where he talks about the upcoming bailout of the big three automakers.  G. Gordon Liddy calls Sowell the smartest man in the world.  I don't know if that's true, but he is very wise.  I find this very interesting and full of truth.  Let me know what you think.

Postponing Reality

By Thomas Sowell

December 17, 2008

Some of us were raised to believe that reality is inescapable. But that just shows how far behind the times we are. Today, reality is optional. At the very least, it can be postponed.

Kids in school are not learning? Not a problem. Just promote them on to the next grade anyway. Call it "compassion," so as not to hurt their "self-esteem."

Can't meet college admissions standards after they graduate from high school? Denounce those standards as just arbitrary barriers to favor the privileged, and demand that exceptions be made.

Can't do math or science after they are in college? Denounce those courses for their rigidity and insensitivity, and create softer courses that the students can pass to get their degrees.

Once they are out in the real world, people with diplomas and

degrees-- but with no real education-- can hit a wall. But by then the day of reckoning has been postponed for 15 or more years. Of course, the reckoning itself can last the rest of their lives.

The current bailout extravaganza is applying the postponement of reality democratically-- to the rich as well as the poor, to the irresponsible as well as to the responsible, to the inefficient as well as to the efficient. It is a triumph of the non-judgmental philosophy that we have heard so much about in high-toned circles.

We are told that the collapse of the Big Three automakers in Detroit would have repercussions across the country, causing mass layoffs among firms that supply the automobile makers with parts, and shutting down automobile dealerships from coast to coast.

A renowned economist of the past, J.A. Schumpeter, used to refer to progress under capitalism as "creative destruction"-- the replacement of businesses that have outlived their usefulness with businesses that carry technological and organizational creativity forward, raising standards of living in the process.

Indeed, this is very much like what happened a hundred years ago, when that new technological wonder, the automobile, wreaked havoc on all the forms of transportation built up around horses.

For thousands of years, horses had been the way to go, whether in buggies or royal coaches, whether pulling trolleys in the cities or plows on the farms. People had bet their futures on something with a track record of reliable success going back many centuries.

Were all these people to be left high and dry? What about all the other people who supplied the things used with horses-- oats, saddles, horse shoes and buggies? Wouldn't they all go falling like dominoes when horses were replaced by cars?

Unfortunately for all the good people who had in good faith gone into all the various lines of work revolving around horses, there was no compassionate government to step in with a bailout or a stimulus package.

They had to face reality, right then and right there, without even a postponement.

  Who would have thought that those who displaced them would find themselves in a similar situation a hundred years later?

Actually the automobile industry is not nearly in as bad a situation now as the horse-based industries were then. There is no replacement for the automobile anywhere on the horizon. Nor has the public decided to do without cars indefinitely.

While Detroit's Big Three are laying off thousands of workers, Toyota is hiring thousands of workers right here in America, where a substantial share of all our Toyotas are manufactured.

Will this save Detroit or Michigan? No.

Detroit and Michigan have followed classic liberal policies of treating businesses as prey, rather than as assets. They have helped kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. So have the unions. So have managements that have gone along to get along.

Toyota, Honda and other foreign automakers are not heading for Detroit, even though there are lots of experienced automobile workers there. They are avoiding the rust belts and the policies that have made those places rust belts.

A bailout of Detroit's Big Three would be only the latest in the postponements of reality. As for automobile dealers, they can probably sell Toyotas just as easily as they sold Chevvies. And Toyotas will require just as many tires per car, as well as other parts from automobile parts suppliers.

---

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His Web site is www.tsowell.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

It's Official, I'm a Big Brother

I met Jamel tonight along with Megan, the Match Coordinator with BBBS.  He was a very friendly kid and he was excited to meet me.  I also got to meet his 2 brothers, ages 12 and 8, and his mother.  Both of his brothers are also in the Big Brother program.  We set our first "hang-out time" for this Saturday at 1:30.  I don't really have anything planned other than just running some errands with Jamel.  I will try to keep you posted as I get to know him better.

Tomorrow Is The Day!

After a frustrating evening at the Holiday Inn Express in Farmington (the hotel WIFI has been going off and on all night and I had to get caught up on my US Cellular work),  I finally finished my work for the day, at 10:15!  Anyway, before heading to bed, I decided to check out the Karis Website (our church, http://karischurch.org/).  I linked over to Seek Shalom (http://seekshalom.org/) and I saw Ryan's new post about Big Brothers/Big Sisters (http://seekshalom.org/?p=298).  It reminded me that tomorrow evening I meet my little brother for the first time.  All I know right now is that he is 10 years old, and his name is Jameil (spelling?). My commitment is to spend 2 to 3 hours a week with him for the next year.  The Match Coordinator, Megan, from BBBS of Central MO and I will be going to Jameil's home tomorrow to meet him and his mom.  The meeting is set for 7pm.  So, please pray it goes well, and pray that I don't get stuck in Farmington tomorrow with freezing rain.  My meeting with Jameil has already been postponed from this past Monday as Megan had the flu.  I'm excited and a little nervous.

Google Maps

So most everyone knows I use a BlackBerry.  Today I'm in Farmington on a 2 day sales trip.  I needed to find a location in an area I wasn't familiar with, and once again Google Maps worked great.  It's a free download on your BlackBerry, and if you don't already have it on yours you need to download it.  On your BlackBerry browser, go to www.google.com/gmm, and download away.   The more you use it, the more you'll realize how great it is.  It is a GREAT tool, and it's absolutely free!

So, Here it goes!

Me with a blog?!?!  I know what you're thinking...I know I'm not really a computer kind of guy, but Sunday night at the Larson's, Maureen Harris said I should start a blog to keep people up to date on my new Little Brother.  After some thought, I decided that was a good idea.

So, the idea is to keep you up to date on several things.  I will try to make short entries often, and hopefully it will be interesting stuff.  Let me know what you think.