Saturday, December 18, 2010

A-Team

Ok".......I grew up watching some A-Team and loved some Mr. T. I just watched the new A- Team and I thought it was great! I could watch this movie over and over.

I recommend watching for fun and then break down learning lessons.

1. No "I" in A-Team. The four man party couldn't make it happen without working together and trusting each other.

2. Honor"......give it all for our country.

3. A brother hood of rangers that is not broken.

4. Thinking ahead and planning is critical in everything we do.

5. Everyone needs an adventure. They thought Murdock was crazy, but really he was just bored.

6. There is always a great woman you can count on in the end!

Have fun watching and I would love to hear about movies you have watched.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

How do you get followers

Ok.....I am new to this blog thing. How do you get followers? How do you find cool blogs to follow? Can surf blogs?

I like righting blogs about all random things from leadership, business, family, and sports but if no one is reading what good does it do? Can anyone direct me?

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Classic movies

My classic movies"...........yes my call on classic movies will be slightly different than most and mine will surprise most people.

First is all the Rocky movies. What better movie could you ask for. Underdog makes a seeming loss turn into a victory. Just when you think he is out Mikey steps in a gives a gut wrenching speech that pushes Rocky into victory.

Gone in 60 Seconds".........awesome movie with fast cars, lots of action, and of course the guy gets the hot chick in the end. A great guy movie!

Tombstone".......and they say there is no such thing as guys with emotions. Wyatt with skin like sandpaper showing deep love for his brother and following in love. And then sticking by his best friend as he passes away. He stands up for his family and follows through. And this movie has the best one liner........"I am your huckleberry".

Yes classic movies are older but those are the ones you want to watch over and over.

What are your favorite movies!!!

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Where did this year go?

This year is almost over. Can you believe that Christmas is around the corner. With the birth of Malachi in April a big part of the year is a blur. This has been a big year for our family with a lot of changes. We went through the roller coaster ride of the adoption process, some major first time opportunities at work, God gave us Malachi, sleepless nights, learning to be parents, a phase of wanting to be a body builder (haha), first time being away from my wife and son at Bigstuff, our real estate and management company getting jump started off the ground, dreading work each day, interview after interview with no result, opportunity at a new job that stretches my brain to the max, and the everyday opportunity to juggle life.

That sounds like 10 years worth of activities crammed into less than 12 months. Wow how quickly life changes. How has your 2010 year gone? Have you taken the time to reflect on the past year? What about the past 5 or 10 years? How have you approached hard times? I can say with so many highs and lows this year, 5 years, and 10 years...... I have sucked at handling it all. I have avoided the situation, snapped when I should have listened, jumped to conclusion, and treated those close to me in a rude manor. Wow........that was ruff but it has happened.

I need to remember I can't fix it all, I cant do it alone, I have great people along side of me, and our God is amazing. If I get caught up in all the "stuff" life will just be a blur. Another year will pass and I will be caught trying to reflect on what happened. We are surrounded by love which is contagious if you allow your heart to absorb it all in.

Bottom line don't sweat the small stuff that want make a difference 100 years from now. Don't let "stuff" consume your heart!

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Random thoughts

Ok I have a list of random thoughts to share.

Thanksgiving is a wonderful time to be thankful and an awesome time to eat great food. The side note to all the food is that I am thankful for the $10 a month gym membership I have signed up for. Yes I am going to need it after this Thanksgiving season. A couple of us will be making the late night guys workout at PF starting the 6th. We have a great goal of 10k run and to push a lot of weight. If anyone wants to try hanging with a late night workout let me know.

Ok next random fact.......people are crazy at the holiday season. In the past week traffic has picked up and the stores are getting crazy.

My little man is cutting teeth and it is taking it out of him. I think he is falling to sleep earlier every night.

Tomorrow we are heading to Sparta to pick out a tree. Very exciting times since these are "1st" for everything we do with Malachi!

December 5th we will be hitting up the Kernersville Christmas parade with Malachi and I am excited to see how he likes the parade.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Good time

We had a good time tonight hanging out with a few guys playing Xbox and eating pizza. Ok I have to say I am so far removed from the game world. It has been so long since I have pulled up a controller. It was fun watching the guys go head to head combat in black ops.

We had a good group tonight and have enjoyed hanging out with the group but we will be taking sometime off to get through the Thanksgiving holiday!

See you guys this weekend!

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Leaders

Yes my wife states that if I had my choice I would be a full time student. I love to learn and study. Yes, most would think I am crazy, but I love this! I have taken classes on management, leadership, and ethics through different schools but none of them touch real life.

Leaders will be forced to make tuff decisions in hard times that ultimately impact others on all different levels. So what makes them more capable of making the right decision over the rest of us? Were they born with a crystal ball or a direct phone line to God? How do they do it?

Here is what I see. I see confident leaders make decisions based on not what they want but what is best. They look at past history, circumstances, impact on others, and lean on others for their input. Seeking wise council can be tricky. Not everyone in your phonebook should be considered wise council. Those you trust the most and those you believe will provide you the highest level of council should be your wise council. The highest level of council will not always be what you want to hear but what you need to hear.

The second thing I see from confident leaders is the ability to own their decision, right or wrong. This is not easy because we are human and we want to always be right. Making tuff decisions means at some point we will be wrong and others may be impacted. Stand tall take ownership and do everything to learn from that opportunity. Maxwell has a book called Failing Forward. It is going to happen and don't allow the wrong decision to set you back.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Dreams

Have you ever had something you just could not remember? If you know me well you know that there is no retaining for me. I would forget my name if people didn't constantly tell me what my name is. Well the other day my wife told me that she had asked me to do something.......a year ago and wanted to no if I did it. Ok.......first I don't recall what I did yesterday and I sure don't recall what happened a year ago. But it puzzled me the rest of the night wondering what I did or didn't do. I even went to bed thinking about it.

Ok during the night I had a very detail dream outlining exactly what happened one year ago. Crazy yes, but when I woke I was like did it really go down like that. So after taking my shower and I went downstairs and opened up the random spot that I had not opened in over a year and bam there was the missing book.

Ok no moral to this story but that was crazy.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Football weekend

Wow I was not ready for the release of Moss, but who knows with this team. Farve is beat up and they are playing for a draft position at this point. They say Moss blew up concerning a sub par buffet and maybe being released will humble him. Ok.....really humble Moss....sorry just a good laugh.

The next major shock was the benching of McNabb. What....you can't blame him for this....he has NO supporting cast and the Redskins are so up and down. They should be jumping up and down they are now at 500.

Ok and for fantasy football I pulled of a 48 point come back on Monday night. If Foster could have caught one more catch I would have not ended in a tie.

No matter what my Colts won and baseball is over!!!!!

Friday, October 29, 2010

Do you know the history of Halloween?

As European immigrants came to America, they brought their varied Halloween customs with them. Because of the rigid Protestant belief systems that characterized early New England, celebration of Halloween in colonial times was extremely limited there.

It was much more common in Maryland and the southern colonies. As the beliefs and customs of different European ethnic groups, as well as the American Indians, meshed, a distinctly American version of Halloween began to emerge. The first celebrations included "play parties," public events held to celebrate the harvest, where neighbors would share stories of the dead, tell each other's fortunes, dance, and sing. Colonial Halloween festivities also featured the telling of ghost stories and mischief-making of all kinds. By the middle of the nineteenth century, annual autumn festivities were common, but Halloween was not yet celebrated everywhere in the country.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, America was flooded with new immigrants. These new immigrants, especially the millions of Irish fleeing Ireland's potato famine of 1846, helped to popularize the celebration of Halloween nationally. Taking from Irish and English traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money, a practice that eventually became today's "trick-or-treat" tradition. Young women believed that, on Halloween, they could divine the name or appearance of their future husband by doing tricks with yarn, apple parings, or mirrors.

In the late 1800s, there was a move in America to mold Halloween into a holiday more about community and neighborly get-togethers, than about ghosts, pranks, and witchcraft.

At the turn of the century, Halloween parties for both children and adults became the most common way to celebrate the day. Parties focused on games, foods of the season, and festive costumes. Parents were encouraged by newspapers and community leaders to take anything "frightening" or "grotesque" out of Halloween celebrations. Because of their efforts, Halloween lost most of its superstitious and religious overtones by the beginning of the twentieth century.

By the 1920s and 1930s, Halloween had become a secular, but community-centered holiday, with parades and town-wide parties as the featured entertainment. Despite the best efforts of many schools and communities, vandalism began to plague Halloween celebrations in many communities during this time. By the 1950s, town leaders had successfully limited vandalism and Halloween had evolved into a holiday directed mainly at the young. Due to the high numbers of young children during the fifties baby boom, parties moved from town civic centers into the classroom or home, where they could be more easily accommodated. Between 1920 and 1950, the centuries-old practice of trick-or-treating was also revived. Trick-or-treating was a relatively inexpensive way for an entire community to share the Halloween celebration. In theory, families could also prevent tricks being played on them by providing the neighborhood children with small treats. A new American tradition was born, and it has continued to grow. Today, Americans spend an estimated $6.9 billion annually on Halloween, making it the country's second largest commercial holiday.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Friends............and then Real Friends!

Have you ever looked at your friends and stepped back to evaluate the status. You know we have different levels of friends. Here is my view of the levels.

1. Life long friends-No matter when, where, why, or how you can pick up like you never missed a day of speaking to each other. They know when you are happy, mad, sad, telling a story,or dodging a tuff conversation. A friend that is there when it all goes south and someone that you can share your deepest thoughts.

2. Your every day friend- the person you can grab lunch with, watch a game with, talk about work, and someone that you can just go below surface level with. These can be great friends but hard for one to share your deepest secrets.

3. The how are you doing friend- the friend you have and the conversation starts and ends with how are you doing.

If you pulled in all of your friends what category would they fall into? I have found as you get older the number in each category changes. The number of life long friends become less and the number of how are you doing friends increase. Why is this?

One, our issues increase and we are less likely to share with others creating hurdles between friendships. I think this can easily be over came, but my second reason is the hardest. We allow our lives to come so busy and full of busy activities we miss out on relationship
building. We miss out on times where you can actually communicate. Real communication......no texting, emails, or face booking. We get stuck being busy and unable to just relax long enough to enjoy a real relationship.

My goal for the next month is to "unbusy" myself to a point where I could enjoy a relationship. Do you need to unbusy your life so that you can fill your life with meaningful relationships.

Your meaningful relationship will only go as deep as you are willing to allow it to go!

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Good News

Good News......what does that mean? Does it mean Fox News covered the weather well, does it mean your best friend just purchased a new car, does it mean today someone had a child, or ............? How would you rank the good news in your life this year?

Defining Good News can be difficult because our ability to define it varies from person to person. Why so hard? Because over time our view of Good News has changed.

Paul writes about him being filled with the joy to spread the Good News. He said "Good News" seven times in the first 17 versus of chapter 1 of Romans. When you say the same thing over and over it must carry some type of value. So what was the Good News? Good News to Paul was the amazing opportunity he had to teach the gospel. Good News was the gospel that he could share with others. Romans 1:12 I mean that I want us to help each other with faith we have. Your faith will help me, and my faith will help you. Paul wanted us to know that having faith in God and putting our trust in God allows God to use his power save us.

Wow.......to teach the gospel, that seems so far from winning the lottery and never having to work again. That sounds like work, so how is that good news?

The power of God to save me........that is Good News.

So I ask you, how do you define good news? Romans 1:17 states the good news shows how God makes people right with himself- that it begins and ends with faith.

Has your ranking of good news changed?

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Ok

Ok I am watching Teen Mom on MTV tonight. I think teens should watch this show. Why? Because this is the life of those that have babies to early. It is hard, you get tired, you have no sleep, and it is a struggle. A baby at 16 limits your chance of finishing high school, going to college, finding your forever mate, and obtaining that post college life changing job. I am not saying those things want happen but having a child at 16 makes it much harder.

Outside of the above things think about the differences between a teen parent and a teenager.
1. Going to the movies without taking a new born or worrying about a babysitter.
2. Paying for the babysitter.
3. Getting up several times a night to feed the baby and change diapers.
4. Spending money on diapers vs. Buying new jeans.
5. Getting baby fat vs. Beach ripped and tan

Ok this list could go on and on.

Make wise calls, parenthood isn't easy. If you can't handle being a parent back up from sex.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Being a Dad

Wow! It has been over a year since I last blogged. A lot has changed in the past year. I am now a dad to the coolest 10 week old baby boy in the world. Malachi Creed has changed my life and my family's life forever. God created the perfect child for us and brought him into our lives on April 7th. Being a dad is a lot of fun and it is a lot of hard work. Tonight we are watching the NBA finals together. I say together...he watched the first quarter before falling to sleep. His bedtime is 9 so he caught Kobe warming up. He picked the Lakers because of the gold uniforms. He wasn't feeling the green. As I am watching the game I don't understand why all of Hollywood shows up at the finals wearing sunglasses inside the Staples Center. Do they think if they wear sunglasses it may hide their identity. I mean really.....OK....The pair that Terrell Owens has on would cover most faces up. They actually look like something Paris Hilton might wear. Do you think the glasses impacted his 2009 football season? On to a better note, tomorrow is Friday and it is the last workday of the week before I can spend the weekend with my family. Somewhat sad because I leave next week for BigStuf in Florida. Super excited about BigStuf but bummed out that I am going to be away from the family for so long. Ok it is half time and Kai is out.......I am on night duty so I need to sleep when he sleeps. Until next time.