Star Watch in Chattanooga

I can't tell you how many times I have wondered why the Times Free Press had the right to throw trash in my yard. Does anyone actually read the Star Watch? Well there is now something you can do about it.

Call the circulation office at 757-6262 if you no longer want them to litter your yard.

Here is a great quote from City Councilwoman Marti Rutherford that got me all excited!

more Tennessee politics

Joe Public has a nice write up on the three Tennessee Republicans running for the opening Senate seat. My take on it is that if Corker wins the primary he will lose the election. I am probably totally wrong about this, but I think the large majority of those who will vote for Hilleary and Bryant will not vote for Corker for ideological reasons.

I grew up in the New Orleans area and there was once a gubernatorial election between Edwin Edwards and David Duke. A lot of people voted for Duke because they knew what his sins were. They did not vote for Edwards because they knew he was sneaky and involved in things that were shady if not outright illegal.

I think many die hard Republicans will feel the same way come November if Corker wins the primary. It is not that I think Corker is involved in anything illegal. I just think his party switch from pro-choice lib to shinny republican back in the early nineties is a big issue for most Republicans. Also, I think his TV ads which have been proven by several nonpartisan watchdog groups to be lies about Hilleary and Bryant will solidify the non vote of those who vote for Bryant and Hillary in the primary.

For me I think I would be willing to lose that seat to the dems for a term and place a real conservative in the seat the next time around. The way conservative Senate sets go in this state is if Corker gets in he will be in for a long time, and that is not a chance I or many other true conservatives are willing to take.

Ed Bryant bling

I've decided to do my bit and add a cube ornament to the ole' cube. Enjoy. :-)

Ed Bryant for Senate

Celebrating Ezzo week

TulipGirl is blogging about Ezzo week. Please stop by her blog and take a few minutes to read some of her posts. Here are two links (1 2)

This reading is not just for new parents. Make sure you know who Ezzo is so that when he and his books are brought up in conversations at church you will be able to speak intelligently about topics such as Failure to Thrive, Loss of Milk Production, Lies about Family beds (remember they use to call SIDs "Crib Death" for a reason), Cry it out, and Gary Ezzo's 2 Excommunications

Back when I went to school up at Ravencrest one of the guest speakers had a saying that still resonates with me to this day. He said: "Rules without relationship leads to rebellion". One of my biggest beefs with Ezzo is that he focuses on the rules and behavior and thus lets the relationship take the backseat. Remember that God says "...with loving-kindness I have drawn you" Jeremiah 31:3b. One easy question that we should ask while rearing our kids is: Am I drawing my kids into a relationship with me and by proxy into relationship with God, through loving-kindness? I think ultimately you could ask yourself: Am I parenting my children the way that God parents me?

Though, the problem with my last question is that a lot of Christians are so busy punishing, chastising, disciplining, and belittling themselves that they don't have a clue how God parents them. All they know is what their legalism tells them, not what God in his word has told them. Yes, it ain't pretty.

update

I have been just way too busy to blog. I think about it everyday, but I am just finding that everything else is taking precedence. So much has happened over the last month or so that I hardly know where to start.

One in the oven:
The biggest news is that Leslie is expecting. She is due in early January. We are getting excited and nervous about the whole prospect of there being five people under one roof. Leslie is reading Good Nights: The Happy Parents' Guide to the Family Bed (and a Peaceful Night's Sleep!) . We have loved having a family bed, but when Elliot came along we realized that 4 was the max number for our king size bed. We are now in the process of figuring out what our next step should be.

FoxDenLane.com:
Our little home based business adventure has been picking up over the last several months, and the two of us have been busy working on growing the site. We have a long way to go, but we are thankful the Lord has given us the growth that we have seen so far. As you probably know the hardest part of building a successful site is getting other sites to link to you, and to date that has been one of our biggest challenges. Well, if you have a website or a blog we would be so very grateful if you could give us a link. Or better yet, if you want to write a blog post about our site and bury the post way back where only search engines will find it we would be more than appreciative.

Other side projects:
On of the items that have kept me busy has been some work I did for one of the companies that we are distributors for. It was quite a fun project using google maps. I wrote a whole engine so that when the company adds a new distributor it should in most cases add that distributor to the map. You can check it out here.

Family activities:
Here lately we have been riding bikes quite a bit. Twice over the Fourth of July weekend we went up to the occoee and rode our bikes. The boys really like being pulled around, and Leslie and I are enjoying it as exercise and as a great family outing. I wish I had some of the pictures of the boys on the bike ride with me, but these of them swimming at the Ocoee will have to do.

Work:
Work has been very busy lately, and will be for the next year or so. The project I am working on is probably the largest project I will ever work on. It is not that the project itself is overly exciting, but the new technologies we are working with are fun. I wish I could go into more detail, but if I told you more I would be legally obligated to kill you.

I just remembered that I wanted to blog about some of the house projects we have going on, but I really need to get going. I hope everyone is doing well.