I’m Not Saying I’m Warren Buffett But …
A while back my brother and I signed up for the Robinhood app which allows for commission free stock market trades. Our dad belong to a group of friends who got together each month, played penny ante poker, and made small stock market trades together. They called it the yenom club. “Yenom” is “money” spelled backwards. It was always small amounts of money because the whole thing was for fun. I don’t know if they ever actually made any money (or yenom) but I remember them coming to our house every so often and playing poker. I assume they actually invested too.
So Ken and I decided to do some small investing through Robinhood and then we could brag/trash-talk a little back and forth concerning who is doing better. Right now he is kicking my rear. Ken won (via a “refer a customer get a free stock” thingie) a free share of Apple stock. Since this is just fun money one free share of AAPL (worth $157.10 as I write this) is a huge hurdle for me to overcome. I too “earned” a few free shares, but the highest value of any of my free shares was $4. Ken is going to have to do some truly terrible investing and I am going to have to do some remarkable investing in order for me to catch up to him. But catch up to him I will!
If I can only find a few more shares like ZAGG I’ll be able to catch up to him. This wonderful little stock has increased in value 105%. So while I’m not saying that I am Warren Buffett, I am saying that I successfully picked a stock that doubled in value in less than 5 months. Of course, it will probably all go to pot next week.
At least I am smart enough to place my retirement elsewhere.
SIDE NOTE – I have been having a blast doing small stock purchases with Robinhood. I believe my brother had been having fun too. My retirement is through index and mutual funds, so it is fun to own some individual shares of companies I like. If you want to try it and would like a free share (I get one too and thereby you would help me to get a little closer to beating my dear brother) you can do so through this referral link.
SIDE SIDE NOTE – if you aren’t saving for retirement please begin to do so. The earlier the better.
SIDE SIDE SIDE NOTE – if you haven’t frozen your credit since the Equifax hack please do so. You can find instructions from Clark Howard on how to freeze your credit here.
Nation Demands More Slow-Motion Footage Of Running Basset Hounds
Thanks to Adam I saw this post on The Onion (and then several other friends who brought the article to my attention). Apparently our nation is in dire need of more slo-mo running basset videos. I would completely agree with this sentiment.
To quote the article:
“We’re calling for a dramatic increase in the number of slo-mo videos featuring droopy basset hounds racing toward the camera,” said Montana resident Peter Tomsett, echoing the sentiment of all 323 million Americans who declared it was urgent that they see curtains of skin flapping, ears waving back and forth, and drool slopping everywhere as the dogs bound through a field at a fraction of their real-life speed.
I thought The Onion just did satire? I say this because I see absolutely nothing satirical about the desire to see more slo-mo basset running videos.
I’ll also add that there should be an increase in basset moaning videos too. If you’ve never heard a basset moan then you have never heard the sound of utter contentment.
Doxology
I made one of the best decisions concerning worship in all my years of ministry this year. In January Tapestry began dismissing from our worship gatherings with all the “threads” singing the doxology.
I can’t believe that I wasn’t ending every gathering with the Doxology in every ministry situation I ever led. To all the youth and churches I have helped lead through the years I apologize. We should have been ending every meeting and gathering by signing the doxology.
Why?
Because it serves as a reminder that all creation does praise God and that we should live out lives that praise God.
ALL DOES PRAISE GOD
Ending the gathering with the doxology reinforces that the creation that surrounds us and the people and events we interact with during our days praise God. In the end, even our evil acts will not have have the last word but will speak of the mercy, grace, and love of God. All things will praise God. When we remember this we look with eyes that are focused on seeing the work of God surrounding us. We can’t help but see His blessings flowing because we have been reminded that they are all around us, even to be found in the valley of the shadow of death. The Doxology serves as a focus reminder – hey you’re leaving the worship gathering, now continue to look for how God is praised around you.
WE SHOULD PRAISE GOD
While all things, events, and people will praise God the Doxology also reminds us that we should choose to praise God through positive action, not just praise God through proving that His love will win out. We have a choice. He has commanded those who follow Him to live in manners that praise Him and therefore we should and can choose to do that which proclaims His worthiness. We want to be among those that praise God by doing that which brings joy to His face. The Doxology serves as an exit command – hey you’re leaving the worship gathering, now go and praise God.
I’m not saying that every church should dismiss itself with the Doxology, rather that I am glad that we at Tapestry do now and that I wish I had been doing it all the years that I have led ministry. I should have started it when we started Tapestry … if not long before. It is such a great reminder before I walk out the doors.
Saints versus Packers
We had pretty awesome tickets
Oddly enough when we parked Noah thought “Mhmm, the voice sounds familiar.” Turns out we had parked by one of his professors from UWEC,
It was raining at this point but we didn’t care.
It was still raining but we finally began to care.
They had a performance painter for half-time. I thought it was stupid until I saw him perform. Actually pretty cool.
When it stopped raining
We were pretty close to the field.
Pano shot.
Had to stop by Tom’s because we both love it.
Last week Noah asked “Do you think we could get Saints v Packer tickets?” I didn’t really hold out any hope for getting any at a price that I would be willing to pay (after all I am a little cheap), but then Pam sent the word out and Aaron Rodgers broke his collarbone. Suddenly we were able to get really good tickets for face value. Best tickets to a Packer game I’ve had. Thanks Pamela … and Rodgers’s collarbone. Go Pack Go … even when they lose.
Funniest moment of the day was when we parked and Noah thought “That voice sounds familiar.” We turned around and discovered that our of 73,000 paid spectators and who knows how many additional people who had not paid to be there we had just parked right beside one of his professors from the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire. Small world moment.
SIDE NOTE – I heard good things from Tapestry’s morning worship gathering today. I love being a part of a group where I don’t have to worry about not being there and in fact things may go better when I am not there. 🙂
SIDE SIDE NOTE – yes I wore a Bama hat to a packer game. I had on Packer apparel otherwise.
Apparently I Am The Worst Hunter
So according to Eric, my friend and the guy who lets me hunt on his property, I am the worst hunter. This wasn’t the first time I have received such a title. Yesterday it was because i allowed Eric’s dog, Gretchen, to accompany me to the tree stand I was going to be sitting in.
I figure she would just walk a little distance with me and then head back to the house. I continued to think this until I was about a tenth of a mile away from the tree stand. That is when Gretchen scared up a deer and I figured i wasn’t going to be able to get rid of her. I walked to the tree stand and sat while she ran through the woods. I kind of hoped that she might scare something over to me, instead of away from me. Nope that wasn’t going to happen.
After she ran around for awhile she then came, grabbed a stick, and sat down around 15 yards away from my stand to chew on the stick. Eric drove his four-wheeler out to get her after I sent him a photo of her sitting by me, but he didn’t have to. I was fine with Gretchen being there. The good news was that I had C.S. Lewis’s “Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer“with me and I like dogs, including Gretchen. All together it was a pretty enjoyable afternoon sitting in the woods reading and watching a dog run around.
I can’t always control my circumstances but I can control my response to them. Viktor Frankl writes about this in his classic book “Man’s Search for Meaning“. Frankl writes the following:
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
Frankl was dealing with the horror of the Holocaust and I am definitely not comparing dealing with Gretchen to the Holocaust. She can be a pain but she’s still a sweet dog. I just like to quote Frankl whenever possible. If you haven’t read “Man’s Search for Meaning”, you should. Like right now.
Anyhow, while I do enjoy actually getting to harvest a deer every now and then (right now I average 1 every other year, which is better than the Wisconsin average. Last I heard 1 in 3 Wisconsin hunters get a deer each year. I’m ahead of that ratio.) the real reason that I hunt deer, especially bow hunt, is how loud the forest becomes when you deer hunt. The forest seems real quite till you sit in it for a while. Then you notice how noisy it is.
Squirrels and mice are the ADHD teens of the woods. These little creatures are constantly making noise. I can hear them all around me when I am sitting in a tree stand. Chatter, chatter. Rustle, rustle. Hide a nut here. Nope let’s move it over here. I believe my favorite thing is hearing geese fly over me, just above the forest canopy. I’m not talking about their honking, though I like that too. Nope I love the sound of their wings cutting through the air. When you sit in a tree stand long enough for them not to know you are there you can hear the act of them flying. It is very cool. Then, of course, every now and then you get to hear a deer come close … though it usually turns out to be a squirrel instead. Those stupid, little rodents are really loud.
I’m sure there is some greater point to sitting quietly enough to loudly hear all the small noises, but I’ll leave the development of that point up to you.
SIDE NOTE – if you are looking for something that will contribute to your love of dogs I would recommend two items: 1) a book I just finished “How Dogs Love Us: A Neuroscientist and His Adopted Dog Decode the Canine Brain“, and 2) this Facebook Page of dogs that UPS drivers meet along their routes. The UPS Dogs FB page is really making me smile today.
It Worked
Six weeks ago the church website (www.sptapestry.org) was going to have to migrate from a older server to a newer server on our website host. The church website had been on the old server for close to ten years. You may not have noticed but a few things have changed on the web in that time span. So I backed up my blog of nearly 15 years and started the migration process. I have been blogging since 2003. I haven’t always been consistent. Some times I have blogged daily and sometimes just monthly. Still it is something that has been important to me and therefore I backed up all my posts to keep from losing them.
Unfortunately I didn’t check the backup to make sure it was good.
It wasn’t good.
I found this out when I moved my blog to my own website instead of keeping it on the church site. I set up everything and imported the thought to be good backup file. Instead of suddenly seeing all my old blog posts on my new website what I found was an endless loop of my posts trying to send visitors back to the non-existent blog back on sptapestry.org. Some how my backup was corrupted in such a manner that the posts seemed to believe that they were actually stored on the old, non-existent website. This did two things: 1) it produce a lank blog page, and 2) it didn’t allow me to access the blog backend page and thus I couldn’t access any of my old posts.
I freaked out because my old blog had by now been wiped out by problems with the migration of the church website.
I tried several different methods of backing up the still functioning database of my now defunct blog. I reinstalled my blog three times and tried different versions of my backed up posts. Each time it either created the weird webpage loop or imported all my blog posts up to 2007. The 2007 posts were the first sign of hope.
Today I came up with the fourth version of my Plan B while I was running in the rain. i find that some of my best ideas pop into my head when I run during inclement weather. Plan B v4 involved installing a temporary wordpress blog on the church website to then import my blog backup. I figured that if my blog posts were continually trying to send everything back to www.sptapestry.org, then why not just set a temporary blog backup on www.sptapestry.org for the purpose of importing the posts, and then export from the temporary blog to a file that I could import to my new website.
As you can tell if you look further down the page Plan B v4 worked. From now on, when I do blog it will be here at www.raterrell.com. Woohoo. I guess this means I should start blogging more frequently now.
Hello world!
This was WordPress’s start up blog post that I am now using to say that I am trying to reestablish my blog on my own server. My blog was over on the Tapestry’s sever but we had a problem with that server (i.e. it crashed) and I had to reinstall everything for the church. I had been wanting to set up my own url again and decided this was the time. Only problem is that I am having a hard time migrating all of my blog over to the new site. The SQL database backup wants to send everyone back to sptapestry.org.
I have installed, uploaded the backup, experienced the problem, erased everything, and started back from scratch three times. I have even tried importing a modified sql export file into my old blog over on wordpress.com. No dice. It has been very frustrating. But I will endeavor to persevere.
I think I have figured out another work around that I am going to try next. I am going to establish a temporary blog on the church server for the purpose of importing my backup sql database into it. I think this might work since the problem with sql database backup file is that it leads my blog to point back to sptapestry.org in an endless loop where i can see the content but can’t reach the blog admin page and thus can’t add anything new to the blog. We’ll see what happens.
You’ll know if this works by the fact that this post is still here and the post below it will no longer be from 2009 (which is the case right now). Of course, noone knows that my blog is here now, so you probably won’t know if this works or not till I start re-posting my blog posts in various places (i.e. Facebook & Twitter).
His First Time to Watch TOJW
It is a momentous evening. Tonight Clive is watching The Outlaw Josey Wales for the first time. TOJW is my favorite movie. i don’t remember how any times I have seen it. At one time in my life I was watching it once a month. Clive will end up seeing it many, many times. As you can tell from the photo above he is very excited about watching this great movie.
Houston Harvey Relief
I’ve contact some of my friends who serve in various churches in the Houston area, first to make sure they were okay and second to find out what we as Tapestry can do to help. As I paraphrased Shakespeare to my friend J.T. (blessed be his name) “Tapestry may be small but we are fierce”. In other words, we may be a small church but we give wonderfully.
Thus far the pastors I have messaged have said they are in the rescue phase and what they really need are boats and places for people to stay after they were rescued. The rebuilding won’t begin till the waters recede. Therefore, my number one recommendation is still that you give through the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief agency. You can do that here (https://missionaries.namb.net/projects/full/hurricane-harvey-response). When you give to the SBDR you will be providing immediate help as well as resources later on. The SBDR will stay in the area for a long while and will feed a ton of people. In addition, they will help with mudout work, chainsaw crews, laundry facilities, shower trailers and more. If you are interested the Minnesota/Wisconsin Baptist Convention (of which we are a part) is already planning on sending some SBDR groups down. Some of us have been trained by the SBDR and more of us can be for the future.
Next I am going to recommend that a list some local organizations. Giving local is a great avenue because the local groups will be there once the immediate emergency need recedes. The national groups will leave. The local groups won’t. These local groups are the ones who will be dealing with the long term repercussions of the flooding.
Here’s the list”
Galveston County Food Bank: http://www.galvestoncountyfoodbank.org/
Corpus Christi Food Bank: http://www.foodbankcc.com/
Houston Food Bank: http://www.houstonfoodbank.org/donate/
Texas Diaper Bank: http://www.texasdiaperbank.org/
Austin Pets Alive is a no-kill shelter taking in Harvey pets: https://www.austinpetsalive.org/hurricane-harvey-evacuatio…/
Portlight is a local grassroots organization that provides disaster aid to the disabled specifically: http://www.portlight.org/home.html
The Coalition for the Homeless is an umbrella organization coordinating shelters and orgs across the city: https://www.homelesshouston.org/take-action/donate/
https://www.unitedwayhouston.org/flood/flood-donation
HT to Chad Schoonmaker via Megan Kelly for the list.
Some of these local groups will begin to put out wishlists of what they need. When I see them I will post them. If you see any please pass them on to me.
Let me end with a plea to not give to just anyone who calls you. It saddens me to acknowledge the fact that when some are in serious need there are others who just see the need as an opportunity for their scams. There are going to be people who use the misery of the people of the Houston area as an opportunity to scam those who like to help people in need. Don’t give money to groups you don’t know or ot that isn’t recommend to you by someone one you trust. There are phone calls and emails going out now pleading for money to help Houston, and some of phone calls and emails are just scammers taking advantage of the fact that we like to help our fellow human when we see genuine need. Don’t stop helping, but be wise. Never let the scammers keep you from giving because it is better to be scammed than to turn your back on a genuine need. Still I would rather our money and resources go to the right places so be smart. Gentle as doves and wise as serpents.
The Tapestry Leadership Team will be discussing what we can do as an organization, but there is no need for you to wait on us. Give and give well … my small but fierce friends. 🙂