Random Really Good Memory #3021

A 2 year old Joshua Robert singing O Tannenbaum in his cute little voice.

"O kwitamas twee, o kwitmas twee, how wuhvwee awe yo bwanches"

Oh and if you think that I'm not celebrating, you would be wrong.

Never has there been, nor will there ever be a team that will go down in history like the 2003-2004 Lakers. Four solid Hall of Famers on one team. The balance of power has shifted...all teams will fear them and bow down to them.

Bring on the season!!!!

You wanna know who, up to last night, was the most underrated outfielder in MLB?

Garrett Anderson.

In the past I was pretty critical of Garrett. It seemed that for every thing he excelled in, I would find something wrong. If you brought up the fact that he was one of the league leaders in doubles then I would point out his poor walk record. If you pointed out his RBI totals, I would tell you that the RBI stat is overrated and has more to do with opportunity than ability. For some reason I could never bring myself to give this guy his props. Maybe it was the fact that he was an Angel. Perhaps it was becasue of his quiet non-chalant attitude which to the untrained eye, looked like he was loafing whenever he played. Maybe it was his lack of walks.

Whatever it was, it exists no more. This guy is a bona-fide stud.

Slowly and quietly, Garrett Anderson has been creeping his way up from solid major leaguer to star. Now, it seems he's ready to make the transition from star to superstar. Sure his OBP is atrocious, but the guy more than makes up for it in his ability to get a hold of the ball and crush the living poo out of it. Take a look:

Year     OBP   2B    HR    SLG

2000    .307   40    35   .519

2001    .314   39    28   .478

2002    .332   56    29   .539

2003    .345   30    22   .579

I'm beginning to feel the general disgruntlement that I get at least once a year with my job. Most of it is due to the numbers (or lack of them) that appear on my paycheck and in my bank account. One of the goals that we have in the next few months, is to be able to live on one income, where Karlene can resign from the daycare business and focus solely on raising our kids. This will be no small feat in CA where 40% of your paycheck goes to pay taxes. Add into the pot that we don't know how financially we are going to put Josh through school next year and things just keep getting muddier and stickier. All I know is that he needs to go to NCA, he has grown by leaps and bounds at that school and we have seen just too much fruit for us to say that it's no longer an option.

Anyway, this whole money issue has been keeping me awake at night lately. I know, "trust in the Lord" and all that, but that doesn't keep me from feeling that I'm not doing enough to provide for my family. I feel like a failure although I know that my family doesn't see me that way. Whenever I sit down to try to figure out a way for us to exist on one income, I just kind of fall into this mini-funk of depression, which leads me to seek other activities to distract me.

I'm trying to avoiding the fact that like it or not I may have to go into full-commission sales in order to provide. I've been flitting around with the idea of calling up my friend Scott and selling cars part time or something like that. The problem is is that I know that I'll succeed at that, and in turn will open up a whole new world of greed and temptation. Perhaps though, now is the time for me to look into that. Maybe I'll be strong enough. I dunno...

At any rate pray for me to get a better job, pray for our family to be able to afford life on one income.

"Jesus Christ is the Master who can comfort and strengthen a man, a laborer and working man whose life is hard—because he is the Great Man of Sorrows who knows our ills, who was called a carpenter’s son, though he was the Son of God, who worked for thirty years, in a carpenter’s shop to fulfill God’s will. And God wills that in imitation of Christ man should live humbly and go through life not reaching for the sky, but adapting himself to the earth below, learning from the Gospel to be meek and simple of heart." - Vincent Van Gogh

Oh yeah about this.

I'm happier that we got Rickey Henderson (I hope we get posession of his portrait, so we can lock it up far away from him) than I am about Burnitz. Nonetheless, Burnitz looks to be a good replacement for the pasture-bound Brian Jordan if not an upgrade. Still, a couple of things concern me about Burnitz:

1. His slugging average is monstrous, his ability to get on base is not.
   
   
2. He's a horrible at-home hitter, with Dodger Stadium being comparable to Shea Stadium. Nonetheless the Dodgers play 13 road games at Arizona, Colorado and Houston where he has done his best work.
   
   
3. He spells his name "Jeromy". Seriously, what the corn is up with that?

Ron Paul gives a pretty good summary of why I cannot in good conscience remain or vote Republican.

Some things never change. Especially the love of party spirit.

In Given for You Mathison quotes McLelland:

“In a sense it is not Martyr (Peter Martyr Vermigli – RC) but Calvin who succeeded in drawing together these precious strands into the golden chain of theology historically and doctrinally representative of the Reformation. Yet the three, Bucer, Calvin and Martyr, must be considered as holding an essentially identical doctrine of the Eucharist (emphasis mine), a doctrine positive and dynamic, in general transcending the false antithesis that so hampered the Reformation, in their teaching the “real presence” of the Divine-human Person who nourishes His people by the virtue or power of His new humanity”