I'm sure that Dave will love to hear this one.

PNC has been calculating the cost of the items mentioned in the song, 12 Days of Christmas.  This is essentially a means to determine the cost of living here in America.

According to the site, the purchase price has moved up 3% to $19,507.  Apparently, much of this year's price increase results from an increase in wage for the "maids a milking", as well as increased gold and food prices.

I sure am thankful I don't have to buy my amazing wife five golden rings as she is gorgeous as it is. 

A lady surviving a lighting strike is amazing.  Then again so is this news footage:

glumbert - The Most Perfect Technical Glitch

Jesus is my homeboy.  Well, maybe not really.  But this car sticker Heather and I found at Target may just be the ticket to heaven - after all, isn't one's faith determined by the types of stickers attached to our cars and the Christian T-shirts we wear?

My Winter Haiku per JacksWords request...

Where is winter’s curse
Of frosty chill and pure snow –
Has it left for good?

Our church's partnership with United Blood Services continues to sprout.  In the past month, we had a blood drive at a local Wal-Mart, hoping to get more community involvement and awareness about saving lives through donation.

In today's RGJ, I read about our old friend Mr. Ugly previously mentioned by JacksWords not too long ago. Mr. Ugly became the first Nevadan to give 600 blood platelet donations. According to the article, Mr. Ugly has been giving blood since the late 60's.

His story inspires and encourages us to continue donating blood and platelets to save people's lives.

This is my first post from Windows Live Writer- a desktop blog posting tool.  Microsoft recently released a suite of products under the Windows Live brand to simplify users' experiences on the web.  Many of the tools mirror those of Google- a mail program, a blog site, an online word processor.  But the only tool I found worth downloading was Windows Live Writer.

Live Writer allows users to quickly publish content to a blog without using an online interface.  The program looks similar to most desktop publishing programs such as Word.  Writer also gives options such as inserting tabs, tables, video, formatting, etc.  Since I use the Blogger service, some of these tools are a little tricky to add in the normal Blogger posting interface.

Writer is a great tool for those that may not be 'web savvy'.  I know quite a bit HTML, but for those who don't, this tool could prove to be quite useful.  The program is very eye-appealing and easy to use.

Whew.  I can't believe I'm actually endorsing a Microsoft product- who knew?

I've always been a big fan of Ecclesiastes. The book, although written thousands of years ago, continues to speak relevancy to me in 2007. The book deals with a number of issues related to the vanity of life- the idea that everything under the sun without God is essentially pointless.

In my brief morning studies of this book, I've been continually convicted about my own selfish desires towards pleasure, money, and toys. It's so easy to let the things of this world get in the way of the only things that ought to matter in my life:

1. God
2. My beautiful wife
3. Serving and loving those around me
4. Following Christ's commandments

Simple formula. Difficult to maintain.