Day 14 - challenge 1 decision

Tomorrow is day 1 of my first challenge. I have decided to start with a challenge I call the foundation. For the next month I will read from the Bible and pray every day. It has been a while since I have read through Genesis so I thought I would start there. For quantity, I will read 2 chapters and pray for at least 5 minutes.

I am striving for consistency in month 1. I love the Lord, I read the Bible and I pray today, I just am not as consistent as I should be. I am reply looking forward to this challenge.

Day 13 - Dogs not allowed.

Daniel, our dog moacha and I decided to go for a nice canoe ride at pinicon ridge campground. We picked up the jeep and headed out around noon. The day was sunny and warm. We pulled in to the canoe rental. The three of us walked up to the rental counter and asked for a canoe. "I am sorry" the man said. "dogs are not allowed in the canoe". That was the strangest thing I have ever heard. How is my little 6 pond dog going to hurt a 70 pound metal canoe?. What a letdown. We Hung out for a while and then headed home. Two thumbs down for pinicon ridge canoe rental.

Day 12 - Key to the missing key.

Did you know that keys have little gremlins living inside them? Every know an then the gremlin decides that it is time to play a little trick. They slowly remove themselves from the place that you know they were left at and hide themselves under the car mat, in your coat pocket or under your bed. A most devious gremlin visited our house last night. We made the best of this unfortunate situation. Amy and I gwen a wonderful conversation on the way to work. I will go pick her up from work soon. Tonight the gremlins will pay. Wa wa wa ha ha ha.a

Day 11 - Rise of the prank

I started he morning by setting up a simple top the cans when the basement door opens prank. It must have worked. I unleashed a horror of retribution.

When I came home from work, Dan had a smirk on his face. Amy and Dan tormented me al night. When I went to bed I found lumpy hangers under the sheets. At 3:33 the alarm went off. After the alarm I turned on the fan and fo
und pent butter on the light switch. Wow, ruthless. I thought I was clear and free until I turned on the shower and found more peanut butter.

It's ok. I got them back this morning. He he.

Day 10 - Yard Cleanup

About 2 weeks ago we had a bad storm with 90 mile per hour winds. Quite a few trees fell in our yard and across our road. Last night Daniel and I cleaned up another pile of branches. We then went for a drive in the Jeep to look for fun roads.

Day 8 - Depart apart

Laurie just left (7:00 AM) to go spend a week with her ma. There is eating out, going to Fargo, and sorting through old stuff on the agenda. That just leaves the kids and I... at home ... for a whole week ... of adventures? ... of staring across the table? of spending time together. :)

I went to look at wood for my guitar in town yesterday. I found some wonderful cherry and walnut. Many books recommend using rosewood. I did not find any of this. I am torn between purchasing many pieces and building it all from scratch. I spent time watching a number of You Tube videos on people that have built guitars. My favorite videos are:

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XfBRdxzshI
2. Frank Pope - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBIaJRbiC4I&playnext=1&list=PLAAF3F9B1901B02C9

At Church today we learned about Ruth. When we came home after church, the kids and I read the book of Ruth.

Day 6 - Osama

Today is characterized by two main events. The first one was the presentation I gave to our director of engineering. I put together an idea on how to make an improvement in the way we work. Unlike other presentations to upper management, this one did not get shot down right away. I even have an opportunity to present to the VP. If at first you do not get shot down, try try again.

The second event was the awsome move by Morgan Spurlock that we watch called Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden. The documentary was witty, interesting, and fun to watch. I love to see the different "real" people that Morgan talked with. Very cool.

Day 5 - Hot summer = squirt guns

Our family went from epic Nerf gun wars to a room to room squirt gun fight. It all began with my wife bringing home 3 squirt guns from the grocery store. It was not long before the war broke out. There were no survives. I did not even survive. I actually wrote this on day 4 and fudged the dates to make it look like it is today. ... Or tomorrow. ... Or. I am confused.

Day 4 - Company from the past

I spent some time preparing for the "build a guitar in 30 day challenge". It will be quite a stretch to do this in 30 days. This may need to be 2 back to back challenges. Perhaps I can push it back into a month with an easy challenge. I will have to think about this.

Our good friends David and Debbie arrived in their motor home last night. Hugged, reminisced, and had brats, hamburgers, and hot dogs for supper. It sure is fun to visit with people you love and care about.

After the meal, we had one small problem to take care of. A large tree was blown over our road, hung up in another tree across the road. Our cars could drive under the tree, but the motor home was to tall. I took out my chain saw and cut it up into small pieces. After this we shot BB guns, bow and arrow, and road the ATV. I will take part of the day 4 off to visit with them.

Day 2, Guitar book arrives

This is day 2 of my blogging adventure. At work I am developing a new set of training materials to teach SysML. The modeling tool I am using is having trouble moving my training material from my travel computer to my desktop. Grrr.

Laurie, my wife, and I went for a walk tonight. It is 95 and humid. We only made it a mile. We talked about our transition into a new church in our area.

I received a book in the mail on building a guitar. I thought this might be an interesting 30 day challenge. I will start to study this tonight. This looks like fun.

Day 1 - Why am I blogging?

I was inspired by the Ted Talk on 30 day challenges to try one of my own. If you want to know more about 30 day challenges, check out the following video: http://www.ted.com/talks/matt_cutts_try_something_new_for_30_days.html. Here are some ideas I have for different 30 day challenges:

1 - take a picture a day
2 - draw a picture a day
3 - walk
4 - bike
5 - read
6 - eat vegetarian
7 - pray, read
8 - try one new thing a day.
9 - write a short story
10 - watch a documentary a day
11 - a video a day to you tube
12 - do one good deed a day
13 - read the newspaper every day

I plan to start my first challenge in August. I am not sure which one I will begin with. As I go through each challenge, I plan to comment on how the challenge is going at this site. Will the commentary be witty and insightful? Probably not, but then again, you will have to read on to see.