lollipops and a new year’s extravaganza

Double Red Rose is a grocery store in town, with which Christie and I are currently having some difficulties.  Every time we take Baylor there, the girls behind the counter give her candy while we’re not looking.  On this one day I decided to let Baylor keep the sucker in her mouth because she was so happy.  After all, it had the wrapper still on it — it’s not like she’s really able to eat the candy…

It was NOT easy to take away this candy.  And there are major problems now every time we see a sucker.

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My sister is coming to visit in a few weeks and, as all good visitors to missionaries in East Africa, will be bringing a few things that are hard to come by here.  You know, the usual… Velveeta, cheese goldfish, and freezer paper.  In fact, we sent her and my mom a short list of items to purchase.  At the end of said list, my wife added this one imaginary product:

• 1 magical box to lose all baby / christmas cookie weight

Christie and I have had the good pleasure this week of entertaining a virus who brought with him much vomiting and diarrhea.  When we mentioned this to my mom and sister, my mother responded:

sounds like you’ve found your own magic box to lose weight

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Baylor hasn’t gotten sick yet, and we hope that she won’t.  Her recent good fortune in health probably has to do with her extremely superstitious nature.  Earlier today it got a little too quiet and, so, I went in search of our wonderful daughter.  I found her dumping into the floor all the salt from the salt shaker.  I didn’t actually see her tossing any of it over her shoulder, but she probably did.

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For the new year, the Geita mission team was blessed to have as our guests the entire Mwanza mission team.  We called it the Geita New Year’s Extravaganza.  Here are some pictures that sum up the event:

the balloon toss in our backyard

a good old-fashioned dogpile in our living room

target shooting competition

brett’s morning blend (16nov10)

Cones & Holes

The Pharisees built fences around the Torah.  They then required others to acknowledge and live by their fences.  Shaun Groves describes all this with cones and holes, and it makes for a great illustration.

Lose 27 Pounds Eating Twinkies

I’m no nutrition expert, and I don’t pretend to be.  But having finished a few triathlons in my life — and not being overweight at 33 with a kid — I occasionally get questions about exercise and losing weight.  The simple formula I use is a common sense one.  If you’re steady at one weight now, exercise more or eat less — or both.  Be concerned with your total energy in (you don’t have to actually count the calories) and your total energy out.  If you burn more calories than you eat, you lose weight.  And that same common sense approach says, if you want to feel good, don’t get the bulk of your calories from chocolate-covered french fries.  I don’t worry a great deal about what I eat, but if I’m trying to drop weight for a race I eat slightly smaller portions.  I don’t worry about when I eat foods — none of this “no food after 6pm” stuff for me.  [And remember weight itself isn't what you really care about; nope, that's size.  Muscle weighs more, but looks a whole lot better.]

We like to make things so complicated.  This guy lost 27 pounds eating only foods from a convenience store.  I love that.

My Brother’s Graduation Fall

There are three guys from Harding staying with Christie and I right now, and we’re also holding one of their professors for ransom.  As usually happens, I mention to people from Harding that my brother graduated from there.  They ask his name; I say Brian Harrison.  They want to know which one.  And I say the really crazy one.  This is the day my brother graduated:

Cam Newton on ESPN — by Chad Gibbs

For those of you who enjoy football and don’t read Chad Gibbs, you should head over to his blog for a look see.  He’s got a book that I’ve not read (apparently it’s not for sale in Africa) — God and Football: Faith and Fanaticism in the SEC.

brett’s morning blend (21sep10)

Sex Isn’t Selling

Pornography revenues are down 80% over the last 3 years… which sounds like great news.  And may very well be.  But it’s likely this decline has little to do with morality — and is more due to our culture’s refusal to pay for sex and porn these days;  there’s just so much out there for free.  So we’re seeing a lower morality actually drop porn consumption.  Ironic.  Tim Challies writes all about it in this essay on why sex just isn’t selling these days.

Who’s Going to Hell

It’s incredibly unlikely, I suppose, that any one individual or group understands correctly who exactly is going to heaven and who is indeed going to hell.  Yet we constantly attempt to draw these lines.  Richard Beck looks at Type I and Type II errors in reading trends in data sets, and suggests he finds in them a major difference between “conservative” and “liberal” churches.

The Facts About Calories

An info-graphic about just what the title would suggest.  Recommended intake, calories consumed, calories burned, etc, etc.

Dollars Spent = Wins in a Season

This just in.  Those NCAA schools which spend the most money on their football programs win the most games.  That’s why Ole Miss shouldn’t complain quite so much about their record this season.  They come in at #63 in spending.  And I’ll bet you can guess who the other low-spenders in the SEC are.  That’s right:  Mississippi State, Vanderbilt, and Kentucky join the Rebels to round out the bottom four.

The Quotable Les Miles?

Yep, a website completely devoted to Les Miles’ ridiculous and nonsensical quotes.  If you’re not an LSU fan, you’ll love this site.  If you are, you’ll hang your head in shame.  Just a quick sampling:

• “Louisiana has a heritage of great players that play their high school football within the boundaries of Louisiana.”
• “I can only tell you that the only fit to me for those players on this campus is extremely good.”
• “That advantage when you’re a team that provides great opportunities and also an opportunity to play for a national championship is, in this state, a tremendous advantage for us.”
• “There’s still a lot of football to play for and a lot of football left.”
• “As soon as we know exactly who we are playing and what date we will be playing on, the schedule will become more finite.”
• “This year it was a nice pass that was underneath the coverage that Brandon LaFell interpreted to be a touchdown.”

The Best Bathroom Sign Ever

Apparently, there’s some instruction needed these days on how NOT to use a public restroom.  This sign’ll do just the job.

down with beliefnet

I’m unhappy with beliefnet.com.  As you may know, beliefnet is a website seeking to promote spirituality — or make money off of it.  Their catchline is “Inspiration. Spirituality. Faith.”  Below is beliefnet‘s mission statement:

Our mission is to help people like you find, and walk, a spiritual path that will bring comfort, hope, clarity, strength, and happiness.

There are several blogs hosted on beliefnet’s website, and they vary a great deal as to their subject matter, intended purpose, and religious affiliation.  My favorite two blogs on their site (the only two I read, or probably would ever read) are Scot McKnight’s Jesus Creed and Jason Boyett’s O Me of Little Faith.  I have at one time subscribed to both of these Christian blogs, and enjoy reading the authors’ thoughts on faith and Christianity.  But I’ve got a beef.

My disapproval of, and irritation with, beliefnet does not lie in that they house information, articles, and blogs with subjects ranging from Christianity to horoscopes and astrology to self-help to Hinduism and Islam.  While I’m not at all a fan, my grievances are also not related to the fact that beliefnet houses pages for celebrity quotes, a blog called “Idol Chatter,” and a quiz that tells you what archangel you are.  And if you answer just 20 quick questions, the “Belief-O-Matic,” offers what religion you should practice, in case you’re not already practicing one.  As ridiculous as some of this is, these are not my problems with the website.

I have two bones to pick with beliefnet:

1.  One of my favorite bloggers, Jason Boyett, just moved over to beliefnet — a move which I don’t like, but is Boyett’s prerogative.  He wants to build his readership and increase his presence on the web.  I read blogs through a feed reader for three reasons — 1) it consolidates, and puts in one easy-to-reach location, all the blogs I want to read, 2) it saves me a lot of time because, rather than visiting each individual blog to see if there are new posts, my feed reader automatically loads them as they’re published, and 3) because of the way my internet works in Tanzania, not having to download each of those sites, with all of their pictures and advertisements, saves me a great deal of money.

Beliefnet will not allow Jason Boyett’s blog posts to enter my feed reader in their entirety.  I can only read the first 3 or 4 lines.  They want me to click over and read the rest at their site — so I can see their various ads.  Several of us asked Jason whether he could do anything about the partial feeds.  Below is his response:

Hey, everyone. Thanks so much for stopping by. To those of you who are less-than-thrilled about the RSS partial feed situation, I share your less-than-thrilledness. I’ve voiced my displeasure about this issue to the team at Beliefnet, but it’s out of my control. They prefer that you read the post here at the site so your eyeballs will see the lovely ads.

I know. A big change and not one I’m happy with. But at this point I’m not sure there’s much I can do about it other than apologize and beg you to click on through.

If you can’t, I understand, and I get it. Thanks for reading up to this point.

Now, beliefnet has every right to do this.  But I don’t like it, and I won’t do it.  I’m also frustrated that they allow Scot McKnight’s feed to show entire posts — while asking me to read Jason’s O Me of Little Faith on their website.  Why the double standard?  As much as I have enjoyed it, I’m not reading Jason’s blog anymore.  I have a feed reader for a reason.

2.  I know beliefnet is a site trying to make money, and that they are a multi-faith site.  So I expect there to be some ads in which I may have absolutely no interest.  But a few of these advertisements, the assumptions on which they’re based, and the photos which they include, seem to be contrary to most (if not all) faiths represented at beliefnet.

Right now, the advertisements on O Me of Little Faith show a couple of overweight women in underwear and two other sexy, attractive women in skimpy bikinis (I will not post the pictures on my site for you to see — I was somewhat hesitant to even call attention to them).  The promoted company offers “2 Tips to a Flat, Sexy Stomach” and promises you can lose 47 pounds of stomach fat in 1 month by following one simple rule.  The photos are said to be “before” and “after.”*

This from a company whose mission is to help you find “a spiritual path that will bring comfort, hope, clarity, strength, and happiness.”  Can we be honest, beliefnet, and explain that our mission is to make money off the millions searching for spiritual direction and answers?  And that we don’t mind also taking cash from women unhappy with their physical appearance — even though most any spiritual path would suggest this is not where we find true beauty or real happiness?

Down with beliefnet.

* I noticed Scot McKnight’s blog doesn’t contain pictures of scantily clad women.  I didn’t look to see if women were baring their bodies on the Muslim pages and blogs.  But I think Mr. Boyett got a bum deal, and I hope beliefnet will one day change their policy (which is only in place for some) so that I can read his blog again.