Apples at the Chapel

Friday, January 16, 2009

What is your integrity worth?

At work we have a online bulliten board in which you can sell stuff. I logged on today and saw something interesting for only $75 (this would be slightly under priced). Well I call the guy and buy it and arrange to pick it up tomorrow.

Wait thirty minutes when the guy emails me that he has since had another offer in which he was offered $100. "Sorry" for the inconvienence, but would I like to bid.

No thank you, and you just sold the only thing you had that was worth anything in this world for $25.

Fire Follow Up

Here are some great shots my cousin Eric took this morning:

Of course, if you spray that much water when it is minus 50°F out, you get a lot of ice as well.

A few of the adjacent business just spent a lot of money refurbishing their buildings last summer - all for not between the smoke and water damage. I guess the upstairs portion of the buildings was an unused Opera house (from the turn of the century), thus it was a large open space that allowed the fire to spread quickly)

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Two Terrific Teen Titles**

I have the opportunity to listen to recorded books while I work sometimes, and I was able to get through two short books by the same author.

SPEAK
by Laurie Halse Anderson

I first heard about this book on the blog Feminist Mormon Housewives as people were raving about it. The plot sounded interesting - a freshman girl is raped, and shunned by her friends, and eventually shuts off from the world (not speaking among other traits), until she finally confronts her own life. Very powerful stuff that captured my interest much like The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold).

The second book was

TWISTED

This features a young teen who must figure out what it means to be a man when his life goes to crap and nobody is there to show him. Both of these books were fantastic, captured a lot of the pressure of high school, and teach very meaningful lessons that all teens should think about. I am going to have my oldest read them this summer and would recommend them to all teenagers.

I am also through 75% of Quicksilver, my big book I started two weeks ago; and part one of the trilogy.

**I am nerdy enough to think that the alliteration in the title was not only clever, but a little cool.

I So Know What You're Thinking

Actual conversation with the wife

Lisa (Who is thinking of following our Area Church leader's advice to be prepared by having a sum of cash in small bills in the home): After work tomorrow can you stop by the bank and pick up $200 in ones.

Me: A forty year old male, picking up $200, in one dollar bills, on a Friday, after work? I so know what that bank teller, and thus the rest of the bank, and probably town will be thinking.

That's right

The Strip Club!

How Cold Is It??

Here in Minnesota we have the occasional snow day, but today and tomorrow school has been canceled for COLD Days. That happens when the straight temperature is below 22°F and the windchill is below 45°F.

Reasons for Winter Accidents

So how cold is it?

At least this cold snap is supposed to lift tomorrow afternoon; we are getting up to a balmy 5°F - that means it is time to break out the shorts and t-shirts.

Sometimes Exciting Things Happen

It has been so cold here we haven't been doing much, at least not much blog worthy. But then on the way home from work I see most of the downtown area is burning down - and I had my camera on me.