The elementary school where my boys attend is hosting a fund raising contest where students bring their change to donate. Instead of accumulating donations to win for their own grade, they are putting their change in other grades canisters. The grade with the lowest weight in donated change at the end of the fund-raising wins. Pretty innovative, I think. The kids seem motivated, so fortunately for the school they are not colluding to all bring nothing which would keep their weights down. Instead they are piling in the change especially those with siblings in other grades.

Strolling through the halls, I overheard a conversation where teachers were wondering if anyone had found out which coins weighs the most so they could give more of those.  Of course, that got me thinking.  The obvious answer would be that the larger coins like the half-dollar or presidential dollar would be the heaviest.

Although, don’t you really want to have the most weight for your money?  Sure, I could put in 10 presidential dollar coins, but which would weigh more, 10 dollars in half dollars, 10 dollars in quarters, or 10 dollars in dimes?

So, of course, I had to know the answer.  Checking out the U.S. Mint, I learned the following weights for each of the coins:

1 penny = 2.5 g  which means $1 in pennies is 250 g.
1 nickel = 5 g which means $1 in nickels is 100 g.
1 dime = 2.268 g which means $1 in dimes is 22.68 g.
1 quarter = 5.670 g which means $1 in quarters is 22.68 g.
1 half-dollar = 11.340 g which means $1 in half-dollars is 22.68 g.
1 dollar (coin) = 8.1 g which means $1 in a single coin is 8.1 g.

In spite of the larger weights for the larger coins, you are still much better off dumping in those pennies.  I did learn a pretty interesting fact though: A dollar in dimes weighs the same as a dollar in quarters which also weighs the same as a dollar in half-dollars.  Pretty cool!

These things feed my faith: epiphanies of beauty in nature, sunbursts of grace and forgiveness, the portrait of God I get in Jesus, stirring encounters with people who truly live out their faith. And these feed my doubts: God’s baffling tolerance of history’s atrocities, my unanswered prayers, sustained periods of God’s seeming absence.

Yancey, Philip (2008). Prayer (Kindle Locations 1055-1057). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

What are the things in life that spur on your faith and what are the things that feed your doubts?  For me, I have much in common with the author above.  Beauty in nature from the rising of the sun to the incredible formation of clouds to the amazing grandeur of the Rocky Mountains.  When I stare at God’s creation my heart is warmed by the Creator’s glow. Even the cycle of life which embodies the challenges for survival within nature is fascinating as it forever moves on.  Complicated. Intricate. Yes, even sometimes messy.  But always glorifying the Creator.

Humanity is what complicates the system. Within us, we have the image of the Creator that allows us to sense the justice and mercy of our God. We also have a human nature bent on usurping God’s rightful place in our lives.  In the end this means there is much evil in the world. It also means that we sense injustice where there is none. How can we know the mind of God that creates a world in which rain brings for life but weather patterns that bring rain often bring floods?  How can we understand why seemingly random events like tornadoes or hurricanes strike a populated area one time and dissipate across a barren landscape another?  In fact, for me, often the most challenging thing to my faith is just how random it is. I really don’t struggle with why a good God would allow catastrophes to occur and affect good people.  I struggle with just how random these events seem to be.  And yet, God fully admits this in his own word.

So that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.   Matthew 5:45 (NASB)

Evolving in Monkey Town: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask the Questions

by Rachel Held Evans.

My Rating:     

Status:    Read from June 25 to 30, 2011

My Review:

Based on a popular blog, this book walks through a twenty-somethings evolution of faith from a fairly fundamentalist background to a more liberal and reformed approached to Christianity. I was surprised a just how much of her experiences mirrored my own. She definitely poses the more difficult questions that a Christian must deal with today. I hoped to have her tackle the questions more directly than to just have her cherish the ability to pose them. Nevertheless, it was a good read and I would recommend it to any young adult who has struggled with doubt.

I was fortunate enough to have made it through a few years of piano lessons as a boy and I was most definitely a band nerd in high school (see the picture, if you dare). I was even drum major and marched at the state competition in the fall of ‘92.  There was a time when music was a BIG part of my life.

When it comes to the piano, I’ll confess that I really wasn’t all that accomplished, but that didn’t stop me from trying to prove to people that I was.  Over my Junior High and High School years, I managed to learn the first 2 or 3 lines of a dozen or more songs, ranging from pop music to Popeye, the Sailor Man.  If the mood struck me, I would demonstrate (i.e., show-off) my mad piano skills with just a few bars of something real fancy.  New friends would ooh and aah and old friends would begin to wonder why I never finished a song. Truth is, I never had the discipline, or possibly the skills, to finish one of them.

On the other hand, I did learn quite a bit from my days playing trumpet, tuba and the baritone in the band.  There’s no doubt in my mind that the discipline and skills that I learned from those activities helped me in other areas as well, but even so, I often feel like those days were wasted when I’ve all but dropped music from my life today.

For some time, I’ve been meaning to take it up again.  I’m not sure exactly how, though. Currently, I’m going back through some of my previous recital pieces, lesson books, and daily piano “exercises”.  It’s turning out to be much harder that I remember.  I’m only a few days in but it’s going to take quite a while to knock off the cobwebs, so to speak.

Also, my mom has given me back the trumpet that I played in Junior High.  I haven’t started yet, but I’m considering working my lip back into shape.  Since I work at a university, I’ve also considered walking over to the band director and asking to practice on the old Tuba.  After all, I’ve probably spent more time playing it than any other instrument.

I look forward to my kids involvement in music as well.  Emily’s already close to where I was when I stopped taking lessons.  Emily’s qualified for all-city choir at school. Timothy and Emily both sing in an area chorus for which they had to try-out and get accepted.  Zachary loves fiddling with the piano and keyboard, more so than the other two, in fact. All three sing in the children’s choir at church. There’s no doubt that all of them are musical.  The icing on the cake is that Lori is a wonderful pianist and we can all still go to her with all my musical theory questions and she’ll set us straight.  I’m glad that she decided to join up with handbells at church, as well.

Music is important to our family and I hope to keep it that way.

1 Sing joyfully to the LORD, you righteous;
   it is fitting for the upright to praise him.
2 Praise the LORD with the harp;
   make music to him on the ten-stringed lyre.
3 Sing to him a new song;
   play skillfully, and shout for joy.

Psalm 33:1-3

I normally use a service called BackUpMyTweets.com to make an occasional archive of my tweets but for some reason, it is not allowing downloads now.  I’ve switch over to use TweetBackup.com.

What follows are what I thought were the best tweets of the year, or perhaps the most interesting events of the year which happened to be documented on my Twitter account, or perhaps just a few that made me giggle one more time.  Hope you enjoy.  If not, I will.

January

2010-01-01
SplineGuy: Happy New Day, New Month, New Year and New Decade. Praying that God richly blesses all of you and that we all draw closer to Him in 2010.

2010-01-27 SplineGuy: I REALLY like the people I work with. It’s so great to work with such considerate, kind and helpful folks.

2010-01-28
SplineGuy: After reading all about the iPad, I’m still very happy with my Kindle choice. Whew! I was actually worried for a short while.
(by the way, I now own an iPad)

2010-01-28
SplineGuy: The Alert just went out. All events and classes are cancelled and offices will close at 12:05
(during the great ice storm of 2010)

2010-01-29
SplineGuy: We took a walk down to Kidsville. Some morons had spray painted bad words into the snow and we took great pleasure in stomping them out.

February

2010-02-03
SplineGuy: Taking a group of students to Lubbock to participate in the TTU Engineering job fair (one of the perks of our pre-engineering program).

2010-02-10
SplineGuy: How can you tell when your Corn Nuts are stale?

2010-02-14
SplineGuy: What is this event? Skiing and shooting?  Weird.
(watching the Winter Olympics)

2010-02-28
SplineGuy: I think marriage means she doesn’t have to ask if she can drink my Mountain Dew. I wish it didn’t.

2010-02-17
SplineGuy: Looks like I’m going to Chicago for ICTCM. Abstract was accepted and I’m getting a discount on conference fees for volunteering to help.

March

2010-03-11
SplineGuy: Set up in my hotel – 30th floor of the Sheraton Chicago – working on my talk. Last time I stayed in a Sheraton was on my wedding night. TMI?

2010-03-13
SplineGuy: Next up, Decrypting Cryptography talk. Mainly interested in what software he uses in his classes. #ICTCM
(This was the when I came up with the of the honor’s course I will be teaching this coming Spring)

2010-03-13
SplineGuy: Interesting thought: offer an honors course in cryptography and personal security for non math majors.  #ICTCM

2010-03-15
SplineGuy: Between Timo and Lori: “Mom, what does oz. stand for?” “Ounces”. “Hey, Mom, look! The Wizard of Ounces”

2010-03-26
SplineGuy: Morning DE lecture went well with a total of 10 guests (8 students+2 parents). We laughed, we sang, we bounced things on springs. Fun stuff.

2010-03-28
SplineGuy: From today’s Plainview Daily Herald: “A llama has been found by the Hale County Sheriff’s Office, call … to identify”. Who loses a llama?

April

2010-04-02
SplineGuy: “Zach! Don’t lick your brother’s nose. Tim! Keep your nose out of your brother’s mouth”. This is my life.

2010-04-07
SplineGuy: Guess who’s preaching at First Baptist Church in Plainview on April 18?

2010-04-09
SplineGuy: Calculus Bowl is underway!!  Go WBU Pi-oneers!!

2010-04-13
SplineGuy: How come when you scratch your feet, your hands smell like your feet but your feet don’t smell like your hands?

2010-04-13
SplineGuy: “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment…” (Romans 12:3)

2010-04-14
SplineGuy: 10 minutes into my guest lecture, one of the students commented, “You’re very excited.” My repsonse: “Who wouldn’t be? It’s Linear Algebra.”

2010-04-22
SplineGuy: Do you use nouns as verbs?  I’m thinking of starting a club for us. We’ll facebook, blog, scrapbook, gas our cars, twitter, etc. Any others?

2010-04-23
SplineGuy: I think the spring research day was a success. We had over 100 attendees. Not bad for our size and our first time.

May

2010-05-03
SplineGuy: Someone explain to me how winning a 2nd MVP award is “humbling”? – You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means

2010-05-04
SplineGuy: Happy Star Wars Day! “May the 4th be with you”

2010-05-06
SplineGuy: Bonus question on today’s algebra final: How man sweater vests does Dr. Franklin own?  Any guesses?

2010-05-15
SplineGuy: Yay! We collected data on the amount of lift provided by helium balloons. Does anyone else get this excited about real world data?
(working on Emily’s science project)

2010-05-16
SplineGuy: Leaving for a week-long leadership conference at Baylor tomorrow morning.  Should be good but not looking forward to being away that long!

2010-05-16
SplineGuy: A Christian cobbler is one who makes quality shoes, not inferior ones with little crosses on them. (The same goes for a Christian educator)

2010-05-20
SplineGuy: Can we or should we assess all aspects of the Christian mission in our programs extending even to the spiritual life of our students?

2010-05-30
SplineGuy: Story time with the Kindle: realized today the kids had never heard of Rumplestilskin so I looked it up and read it to them on the Kindle.

2010-05-31
SplineGuy: Great cookout at Gran and O’Grandad’s, with Mom, Dad and Granny Brown, too. #MemorialDay

June

2010-06-10
SplineGuy: I’m so proud of my wife. Way to go!!!!

2010-06-11
SplineGuy: On the road to Amarillo for a great uncle’s funeral. The hardest part is that he won’t be there to make jokes. His laugh will be missed.

2010-06-14
SplineGuy: Hey cool! They just showed my hail storm video on the news (KCBD with John Robison).  Nice!

2010-06-17
SplineGuy: New question from the young one: Are bones harder than people?

2010-06-18
SplineGuy: Overheard in the next room, Timo to Zach: “It’s very easy to kill babies.” Should I be worried?

2010-06-28
SplineGuy: Never attribute to malice what incompetence will explain.

July

2010-07-14
SplineGuy: Question: Do you lose man points if you tear up when you say goodbye to your 7 year old son when he’s going to camp for four days?

2010-07-23
SplineGuy: Statistics means never having to say you’re certain.

August

2010-08-04
SplineGuy: We are off!  We’re on the road for our vacation. Hurricane harbor tomorrow and six flags on Friday.

2010-08-26
SplineGuy: Whew! Technology overload in algebra. Youtube, powerpoint, mobi tablet, ipad and an external hd. Next week, I’m introducing clickers.

2010-08-28
SplineGuy: Why would batteries come with a free glue stick?

September

2010-09-08
SplineGuy: Haiku of the day: Refrigerator, Where is my Dr. Pepper? Can I have it please?

2010-09-15
SplineGuy: When I walk into a public restroom that doesn’t have a urinal, I always exit right away to make sure I went in the right one. Is that weird?

October

2010-10-15
SplineGuy: Woohoo! Finished the goals I set for fall break research. That may be a first.

2010-10-16
SplineGuy: Off we go. Riding the church bus. Family outing for FBC today. Pumpkin patch, hay ride, corn maze, hooray!!

2010-10-19
SplineGuy: Just in case you were wondering, I’m really going to miss my pastor.

2010-10-20 03:56:45
SplineGuy: I just almost have a man crush on Josh Hamilton.

2010-10-20
SplineGuy: I can say with 95% confidence that today is World Statistics Day. Hope yours is statistically significant.

2010-10-23
SplineGuy: We’re going to the world series!!! #Rangers win.

2010-10-23
SplineGuy: Good day at the Texas Undergraduate Mathematics Conference. Even if some of the talks were lacking, our students got to see some good stuff.

November

2010-11-06
SplineGuy: Sometimes I wonder why a man who hates crowds would decided it was a good idea to have three kids.

2010-11-17
SplineGuy: God gives clarity of mind and clarity of speech just when you need it. I give Him the glory for a good presentation at today’s lunch meeting

2010-11-22
SplineGuy: Ambiguity is the enemy of all things mathematical.

December

2010-12-17
SplineGuy: Christmas lights are now up. It’s a little late but not too bad. Let’s just hope they come down before Valentine’s Day.
(for the record, they were down on December 28)

I hate having to make the call on a pet.  After all, she’s a member of the family but she is just an animal.  I’ve always said that owners that spends thousands of dollars on treatments like chemotherapy or radiation are a little bit loony, but it’s harder to say that when your own pet is nearing the end.  We know that Lucy has lived a long life and she’s right at the average lifespan for her breed.  And yet, she’s still eating, drinking, playing and being … well, … being Lucy.

So, what do you say?  How far do you go for the family pet?  Can you put a price tag on the companionship from your puppies? $75, $350, or thousands of $$$?

We’re hoping for the best.  At this point, we all realize that she’s a pretty old dog but until now, we’ve always thought of her as the more healthy and more spry of our two dogs.  Cramer, who is also 12, has steadily lost more and more of his vision over the last year.  It was discovered in 2009 that his tear-ducts were no longer working as they should.  Dry eye is not uncommon among old Dachshunds, but his case was deteriorated to where he’s lost almost all sight.  He navigates our house quite well, but you really notice his difficulty when we visit other places, like last week in Canadian.

Lucy Lou:

Cramer:

This year we tried something new.  We bought a separate 3’ tree for each kid.  They’ve now accumulated enough ornaments of their own plus a few oldies-but-goodies from Christmas-past and they can decorate their own trees.  Plus, with the dormers on our second floor, where the boys have their room, we can put them in windows and add to our external illumination.

(See them up on the second floor)

The final benefit and probably the main goal was that we were able to decorate our tree with a more uniform style.

Here are the kiddos trees:

Zach’s Tree	Tim’s Tree	Emily’s Tree (with a photo bomb by Zach)

I’d prefer not to complain too much, especially in a forum where many folks could come and read. However, I’ve got to say it out loud to remind myself that there is such a thing as “too many irons in the fire”. 

Being raised in a small town, going to school in a small district, I was able to get away with doing just about every activity available in the school plus a few things in the community and church.  I remember being told by numerous people that I could choose to be mediocre at a lot of things or great at a few things.  I didn’t accept that and I made every attempt to do everything, from band to golf to academics to UIL competitions in math, speech, debate, science, journalism, etc.  You name it, I’m pretty sure I tried it.  (Ok, there was no ag or 4-H, but I didn’t own any boots or country music, so I get a pass on that one).

That philosophy set a precedent that has finally started to plague me as an adult.  The mindset that developed tells me that if I see a project that either I’m interested in or someone asks me to participate in or lead, I only ask one question, “Am I able to do it?”  If I can envision the work and mentally develop a strategy to accomplish the goals, I tend to say yes.

People tell me I need to learn to say no.  Truth is, I say no plenty of times, but I say no when I believe I’m not the right person for the job.  That is to say, I’m not capable to doing the job as it should be done.

In addition to weighing my capabilities as a function of only my strengths, I need to weigh them as also a function of my time and priorities.  I’m notoriously bad at estimating the amount of time needed to accomplish my tasks, but I am also notoriously consistent.  I always estimate a much shorter time than is actually needed.

Fortunately for me, one of the committees is nearing the completion of its duties. And while, all of this may sound like I’m really down on myself, things are actually looking up.  Three days ago, I didn’t know what was causing the severe funk I was in.  Being able to identify it and focus in on my real priorities, I’m able to relax into the loving arms of an all-knowing, all-loving God whose plans for me never fail.

No test or temptation that comes your way is beyond the course of what others have had to face. All you need to remember is that God will never let you down; he’ll never let you be pushed past your limit; he’ll always be there to help you come through it.   I Corinthians 10:30 (THE MESSAGE)

The rest of the FBC Plainview team performed very well with a couple from our church finishing 2nd and 3rd in the Lad’s division and another one finishing second in the Crusader’s.  I also learned that there is an adult division, so I may have to let Joel build his own and I’ll race it for him.

Here’s a few pics from Saturday.  Way to go, Timo!

2010 Pinewood Derby VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL