Everyday is Election Day!

Jesus would not be on the political ballot. I've been thinking about Jason Britt’s message 10/25/2020 - where he correctly states “Unless Jesus’s name is on the ballot, you are always voting for the lesser of two evils.” 

And if I read my New Testament correctly, I’d say, Jesus would not put his name on a political ballot.

I have to conclude that the only ballot Jesus is on is the ballot in your mind every morning that’s asks “Who is going to be first in your life today, you or Jesus?

Are you going to pick your wants & desires, your family, your kids, your job, your whatever or are you going to put Jesus #1 today?

Every day is Election Day! Who are you voting for today?

Luke 9:23 Then he said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me.

Vacuuming is Man Work!

What many of you might not know about me is that in my early 20's I took a 2nd job cleaning buildings at night. It pulled me away from some negative influences and some things I would normally be doing at night. I used to clean this entire office building every night. The Lord was working in my life and the job gave me solitude to pray and think while I worked away the night. 

I also worked for the WWE wrestlers Sting and Lex Luger cleaning their Main Event Fitness gyms at night. I was cleaning a gym when I felt the Lord was leading me to attend Bible College. But all that is another story. This is a much more serious post. 

Working as a janitor is where I learned how to efficiently wield a vacuum cleaner and be a man. The vacuum cleaner is really piece of machinery in disguise. Machinery should be measured in horsepower. Anything with a horsepower rating is okay for any man to use. Some vacuum cleaners have been liberated from from the appliance category. Those that have carry the moniker of Shop Vac and clearly have a hoursepower rating stickered on every one.

However, in an effort to feminize vacuum cleaners, Horsepower has been removed from most vacuum marketing, but the fact remains it is handheld and has a motor and thus qualifies as a power tool, not an appliance. Ladies, don't let today's Mad Men marketing people put vacuuming on you.

Appliances definitely fall into a different category unless you are Tim the Tool Man and can get away with turbocharging them. 

For you younger men that have yet to buy your family a real vacuum like a Dyson, I'll remind you of this scripture from 1 Tim 5:8 "But if anyone does not provide for his own, that is his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever." Come on. It's 2020, almost 2021. Enough is enough.(Sidebar - Never, Never, Never buy your wife a vacuum. Period. For Any reason, whatsoever. Even if she asks for one. Get her a bracelet and earrings. Buy the vacuum for yourself. See Blog Post Title.) 

I'm not saying go out and spend a grandino on an Electrolux or a Kirby. If you can't afford a Miele then you at least owe it to your family to have a Dyson. I currently have a DC25 but now that we have a dog, I'm looking to upgrade to the Dyson Cinetic Big Ball Animal + Allergy. 

For mental sanity, forget about what you just sucked up. The cost is nothing compared to the satisfaction of a job well done. 

When you see that special miniature clear, red, roundish Lego part, the one with the special purple tip that you know only fits the $50 Zurg Lego kit, you gotta let it go and just suck it up. 

First of all, your kids don't even know its missing. Second, you don't have time to pick it up and find its proper place. Third, the problem with kids today is pre-configured logo sets. Fourthly, those kids should not have left it there in the first place making more work for you.

Warning! Dad tirade here. In my day, had I been inclined to build a Zurg, he would have been multi-colored, with points (because there were no rounded Legos) and I would have built him out of the generic 250 Lego set that I had, using my imagination and not some step by step instruction manual. These days kids aren't taught to think for themselves. They are given a formula, a set of instructions, a set way to do things and they are expected and graded based on how well they follow the given procedure and come up with the expected answer rather than being taught how to look at a problem and come up with a solution. Don't misunderstand my sentiment. There is right and wrong and kids should be told when they have failed to answer correctly. 2+2=4. Not 5. 5 is wrong. My point is that in order to arrive at 4 we can say 1+1+1+1=4 or 2.5+1.5=4. So suck that special Lego part up and in the unlikely event that your kids complain the next time they go to build Zurg, tell them to improvise. (And to all of you parents with truly Type-A kids, their Lego parts wouldn't be on the floor so this doesn't really pertain to you anyway.)

All that to say in a very roundabout way is if you find yourself in a humble situation that you would not like to be in for the rest of your life, make the most of it and know that God is in control. Look for ways to do your best and honor him. Look for His leading. Read your Bible and give the Holy Spirit time to work on your mind by washing your mind with scripture.

Sometimes He just wants you to pull away from others, or develop something new in you, or teach you something or change your course. 

You are not forgotten! 

Joseph was a slave, working in Potiphar's house before he went to prison, before he became #2 in power in Egypt.

"Gen 39:20b-21a But while Joseph was there in the prison, the Lord was with him"

Gen 41:41 So Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I hereby put you in charge of the whole land of Egypt."

My life looks much different now than it did almost thirty years ago. But it was there that the Lord started me down a different path and I would not disparage the humble beginnings and the hard work I got to do. Praise be to God.

I Saw A Mullet Today

It was Field Day at my daughter's elementary school. I took some time off work to go up there, cheer her on and take some pictures. I was looking through the viewfinder of the video camera when I spied a mullet. I looked up from the camera and sure enough it was a for real, business in the front, party in the rear, "number one on the sides, six on the top and don’t touch the back" mullet. Upon further inspection, there was actually a horizontal part in the hairline between the short hair and the flowing locks. I don't know why I was so shocked. I mean, I live in Winder, GA, probably one of the foremost mullet capitals in the deep south. Don't forget we still have the Winder-Barrow Speedway just over the ridge from my house where every Saturday night we are blessed by the symphony of roaring engines until 11:00pm at night. I still remember the first spring we lived in Winder. I heard the races from inside my house. I stepped outside onto the front porch and was so astounded by the volume that I called 911. The 911 operator yelled over to someone named Crystal and asked if the races had started up yet. She thought it was too early in the spring but no, Crystal confirmed, they start in March. My investigation of the races the following week confirmed my fears. I heard phrases like, "Darlene, I think they're taking your husband to jail. Yep, they got him." I knew I had moved to Mulletville, USA. I divagate. Later, when the kids were playing on the playground between events, I saw the Mulletman playing with his daughter. Then I realized he was gamboling with several of the kids, carrying a zip line back and forth so the kids could ride. I couldn't help but think that under that coiffure was a person who loved his kids. He had taken the time to participate in her school event. Was this man anything like me? Could I larn anything from this gent? In the post-apocalyptic red dawn, I'll probably be at his doorstep begging him to take me hunting for food for my family. In the mean time, it should be a crime to wear a camo t-shirt, denim painters' shorts, flip-flops with a mullet in public. 

I say leave 'em in the 80's and don't look back.

Yesterday's Jam

"Look at you! My IT Team. Team players each and every one of you...Team! Team, team, team, team, team! I even love saying the word "team"! You probably think that's a picture of my family. Uh uh. It's the A-Team!" Denholm, The IT Crowd, Series 1, Episode 1. 

I am very proud of my team. I am writing this post while logged onto the web using the wireless cloud at The Woodlands of Columbia that is part of a CATV and Internet package we installed. Everyone played a part and it works beautifully. This has been the largest, most complex project we have ever tackled. 

Along the way we have had many hardware disappointments where something didn't work as advertised and we've had to go back to the drawing board. Each time my team has come up with an alternative solution and here we are today. Official move in day and everything is working, 2 days ahead of schedule. 

Congratulations guys. 

Now more about my new favorite TV Show, "The IT Crowd". Why hasn't anyone told me about this TV series. It is probably one of the funniest shows on TV. I must admit that when the American version came out a couple of years ago, I never watched it because I thought it was called "The It Crowd" as in another "90210" or "The Hills". 

Anyone wanting to watch a show about the "it" crowd probably doesn't want anything to do with the IT crowd and so you can see why the show failed to produce a following. Check it out on Netflix or buy it at Best Buy. It won't disappoint. It delivers, just like my team.

Wisdom at Waffle House

I met a man last weekend who gave me some unsolicited advice but I haven't been able to shake it. He was a working man in blue coveralls with his name embroidered on the pocket. He was an older, local fellow with some teeth missing and askew. 

He noticed me waiting for a table and stopped to comment on my children. He mentioned that he had raised 3 girls in his lifetime. And then proceeded to give me some advice. I leave you with his own words as best as I can remember them: "People say raising girls is harder than boys, but I say it's easy. You just gotta be right there for them when they need Daddy. When I'm at work and I get a call from home, I just close up my tool box and head on home. My friends ask me, 'Don't you have a job?' but I tell'em my wife has 3 kids to raise and she can't do it alone." 

I've reflected on his words all week and they strike a chord within me. You can find morsels of wisdom anywhere you go.

BUSTED!

At work we have a LATE CAMERA. It is a web cam that sits near the front door. From 8:31 a.m. until 9:00 a.m. any motion triggers it to snap a picture with a time stamp and then e-mail that to everyone in the company.

My Lame Excuse: I forgot that I needed gas and left the house just in time to get to work. I only pumped 2 gallons but even that made me 3 minutes late. Doesn't everyone have a lame excuse for being late?

There is a problem when people are later than 9:00, but we can't extend the time because the productive people are going back out the door. Also, some folks have tried to sneak in the back door.

An issue that I struggle with is that some of the people who are habitually late, stay late and are the most productive (aka profitable) people. Others not. Some of my early people leave before quitting time.

As an employer, I'm not sure if I should look at tardiness as a personal discipline issue or rather allow people to play to their natural rhythms and work when they are most productive.

Your comments welcome. Are you a late person or early person? Why?

The 2lb Double Face Sledge Hammer

I was feeling sort of down. My rental house that, until just a few weeks ago, had been occupied by a "family" was vacant. The tenants moved back to their home country and left $16,000 worth of damage to the house. (Apparently the phrase single-family home in English doesn't translate to the same thing in other languages.)

I left early Saturday morning, just after breakfast and protests from all of my children to try my hand at some repairs. The list is long and just reviewing it makes me unsettled.

After some bone jarring gravel shoveling on the driveway to try to smooth out the ruts, I started removing all the carpet. My hands were blistered and cramped up. I could hardly open them. I was beginning to get in a really foul mood.

But then it happened.

I was getting a knife from the toolbox and when I lifted the top tray, I saw it down in the bottom. There it was, beckoning like some sort of Tool Time Excalibur. It had been hiding down there, just adding dead weight but at that moment it was clamoring to be wielded by an angry soul.

The 2 LB Double Faced Sledge Hammer.

With fervor, I obliged.

First to go was the makeshift door frame they had installed to close off the family room in order to make it another bedroom.
Next was the makeshift closet in the same room.
And finally, the downstairs shower, damaged by the upstairs shower being used without a curtain, was the last resister.

I came down full force on the tiles. Crack. They easily busted into dozens of pieces. It was almost too easy. Then I hit it. The big block in the center. It was solid brick covered in steel reinforced concrete. A worthy adversary.

With every blow, the block barrier gave small but satisfying results. Chips and flecks, chunks and steel mesh loosening and crumbling. The sound in the small shower enclosure was deafening.

My ears were ringing but I couldn't stop until the whole thing lay in a heap of rubble on the floor.

Victory!

• 16" Length



• Double face



• Polished face



• Hickory handle



• Forged steel head



• Used for general sledging operations in staking wood, concrete, metal and stone



• Common uses are drifting timbers and striking spikes, star drills, hardened nails and home security



• No toolbox complete without one