Month: December 2006

  • The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (aka Metro) is proposing a substantial and potentially confusing change to fare prices.  I’m not too sure how popular or effective this is going to be.  Metro is supposed to be a mass transit system like the ones in New York, Boston or Hong Kong (I’ve actually ridden these).  Our Metro system maybe cleaner and not littered with ads but that’s about it.  Metro is considerably slower in terms of the time between two trains servicing a station, inefficient if something breaks down and much more costly.  If Metro continues to raise prices at this rate, the masses will not be able to afford taking it.  If I were to park at the metro and take a round trip during rush hours (i.e. going to work and back home) it currently would cost $12.  With this rate increase it’ll at least be $15 a day if they don’t increase the parking charge (which I’m sure they will but they haven’t announced it yet).  That’s $300 a month on Metro costs which how many people could afford to spend that much on transportation?  I know I’ve been blessed and right now it’s not a major concern but for those who barely get by (ok it’s a bad example but still the average DC metropolitan person makes about $45-55k a year) what will their alternatives be?  Will this force more people onto the roads as it’ll be more cost effective to drive to their destination?  I know Metro is trying to solve their budget issues (and I’ll include I’m ignorant of any budget issues the other three cities may have with their transit system) but I really think they need to look at their long and short term plans to improve their in house cost efficiency.  Something does not make sense if they need to raise rates for what the third time in three years?

  • Two different interest articles about Christians in America.  The first about Billy Graham’s family and the second about whether we should consider America as a Christian nation or not.

  • What does the Green Lantern and the Pillsbury Doughboy have in common?  Their creator, Martin Nodell died today at the age of 91.  I wouldn’t say that the ‘Green Lantern got me to read‘ or ‘Green Lantern got me to do something in my life,’ but he was one of favorite super heroes growing up.  The Hal Jordan as the Green Lantern not these other guys: Guy Gardner, Kyle Rayner or John Stewart.

  • Interesting that Best Buys corporate offices are going 100% Flextime.  Sounds like a nice idea and they do have the stats to back up the decision.  Though I wonder how well this model would work in most of corporate America let alone an IT department.  (They don’t let us do 5-4-9 or telecommuting. )

  • What’s the use of a single LEGO piece? 

    LEGO’s are meant to be stacked and joined
    with other LEGO pieces to form a community of LEGO pieces.  Having just gotten back from Vegas, I
    overslept and missed going down to CCC today and went to Seneca Creek Community
    Church     instead.  The Pastor was talking
    about Belonging: the idea that we humans desire to belong to a community just
    like a LEGO piece. 

    There are four types
    of belonging: Public, Social, Personal and Intimate.  A Public belonging is a Redskin’s fan at FedEx field.  That person probably knows nothing about the
    people around them.  What they do, how
    old they are but all they know is there is a love for the Redskin’s and that’s
    the bond that brings them all together. 
    Social belonging takes it one more step of knowledge such as knowing
    people’s names and bits of information about them.  The level of information increases as well as the number of
    people in each setting decreases. 
    Personal Belonging is that group of people you associate with such as a
    Bible study group, your group of collage or high school buddies, etc.  You know each other well and enjoy the
    company of each other.  The last level
    is the Intimate group of Belonging and may include your spouse or your best
    friend.  You know them extremely well
    and yet there are a few of them in this particular circle. 

    People desire to belong to one or many of
    these circles and yet have such a hard time doing so.  Why is that? 

    They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every
    day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke
    bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts,     praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. Acts 2:42-47

    So in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.  Romans 12:5

    Would you
    consider your church as a place to Belong? 
    How does our time management, value of belonging, fear of belonging
    or ignorance of belonging affect our ability to belong or help others belong?

  • Ugh, an unspecified medical condition?   Poor lady.

  • Viva Las Vegas!

    Living large visiting Vegas for a conference.  The real question is which conference am I attending?

    Yep, I’m a closet rodeo fan.    YEE HAW! 

    Ok I’m really here for Storage Decisions and staying at the Venetian hotel.  This is the nicest hotel I’ve ever stayed at.  The Venetian beats out the New Orleans W Hotel that I stayed at a few years ago.  Both are great places to stay at, especially if you don’t have to pay for it. 

  • I see Ted hooked Ovechkin with his own web page.  I wonder if anything interesting will ever come out of it.