Happy Halloween!

Things I enjoy about Halloween:

1) Taking my daughter trick-or-treating and appreciating every second of it. I realize there are only a few years in her life she will want to trick-or-treat with her father.

2) Pumpkin spice latte's at Starbucks

3) Burt's Pumpkin Farm (although we missed our visit this year).

4) Charlotte's annual Halloween party

Things I don't enjoy about Halloween:

1) The Company potluck Halloween lunch. I am against any activity at work that calls for me to bring food for others to eat, or that requires me to eat food that others have made. I have gotten very good at making a stealth exit from the building while everyone else is stirring around trying to heat up their food.

2) Adults dressing up in costumes - especially at work. I have trouble having a serious conversation with the portly, 50-ish manager of our claims department when she is dressed up as 1973-era Cher.

3) The redneck group in our neighborhood that pulls along a wagon of beer and wine while they take their children trick-or-treating.

4) Handing out halloween candy. Thankfully Staci takes this chore while I take Charlotte trick-or-treating. There are 2 things that make me feel creepy and inappropriate - giving candy to strange children and paying high school cheerleaders to wash my car in the Wendy's parking lot.

Opening Day!

To celebrate the long-awaited start of baseball season, this video is for my friend and fellow pfsp-er Dan(and the only Milwaukee Brewer fan I know):

Frozen Daze

As the picture indicates, things are pretty routine around here. However my friend Dan, who I have been going to Refreshers with for 11 years, is off on another trip to Antarctica. I look forward to reading about his adventures.

W and Reading

I am not the biggest fan of George W, but I thought this was an interesting article that a friend emailed to me today.

I probably read 20-25 books a year. Quite a few are about baseball, but I try to mix in various historical and self-help books. On his radio show, Dave Ramsey often throws out the factoid that "the average millionaire reads 12 non-fiction books per year." I believe he got that from The Millionaire Next Door, one of my all time favorite books. Some books I start and I never finish (the Bill Clinton biography - I did not like how it ended with him leaving office).

Happy New Year!

A belated Happy New Year! Since almost being crushed to death in a crowd at Underground Atlanta on New Year's eve 1989 (hey Kurt!), I have never been a big fan of the actual New Year's "Holiday". In fact I spent most of New Year's eve and New Years day last week watching Lost season 4 on DVD.

What I like to do as the year changes is reassess my life goals and determine what actions I need to take in the next 12 months. I consider this a little bit different from resolutions. My standard life goals are as follows (in no particular order):

* Become more fluent
* Become a better father
* Become a better husband
* Continue to develop spiritually
* Increase my income 20%

The specific goals I set for the next year pretty much all relate to the above 5 life goals. For example, for fluency, I am already planning on attending a Refresher in last May. I called Dan last week and reminded him he is coming with me. I also have smaller goals that relate to that, such as working on my PFSP practice CD's at set times (usually before work meetings and on my way to Small Group).