As usual, I was up early this morning. In our new house, all the bedrooms are upstairs and the kitchen is downstairs ... which means I get to putter around and not disturb anyone. I made my coffee, opened a Bible, and read the last chapter of Hosea. Here are the first three verses: 1 Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God, for your sins have brought you down. 2 Bring your confessions, and return to the Lord. Say to him, “Forgive all our sins and graciously receive us, so that we may offer you our praises. 3 Assyria cannot save us, nor can our warhorses. Never again will we say to the idols we have made, ‘You are our gods.’ No, in you alone do the orphans find mercy" (Hosea 14:1-3, NLT). A few things struck me about these words. First of all, the prophet reminds us that…
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We had our first taste of Colorado thunderstorms last night -- including a tornado warning. It rained pretty hard for about thirty minutes, during which time our satellite TV lost signal (which didn't make me too happy). Found out this morning that a tornado touched down about 15 miles south of here in a town called Castle Rock. The kids slept right through it. The cats? Not sure ...
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We made our required trip to the Colorado DMV yesterday to register our cars and get our new driver's licenses. Having experienced the California DMV, we anticipated a long wait. Not so! At the drivers's license office, we were the only two people there. It took about 15 minutes for both of us to finish. Getting our cars registered was a bit trickier because we had to get an emissions test (we passed) and prove our out-of-state insurance had high enough coverage (it did). Even so, the entire process ran smoothly and didn't take nearly as long as it would have in California. Now we'll have to wait a few weeks to see what our driver's license picture looks like.
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It's been a while since my last post but it's not due (completely) to laziness. Over the last 2 weeks we've held our final worship service at LifePoint, sent the kids to camp, packed most of our earthly belongings in a rolling tin can, and driven from San Diego to Highlands Ranch. We slept Saturday night in our old house and last night in our new house. Moving is a great time to purge. While the kids were at camp, Tonya and I made executive decisions about what to keep and what to give away. We gave stuff to the Salvation Army (if for no other reason than to help fund their incredible "Amazing Grace" video) -- but most of the stuff was given away on Craigslist. As much as possible, we believe in re-circulating stuff. It is interesting to see what people will take when it's free. We had…
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Tomorrow will be my last day at Blue Haven Pools and Spas. For the last two years I have worked there as the Ecommerce Manager for the retail division. You might think I only sell chlorine - and you would be partly correct. Besides pushing pool chemicals, I have overseen all aspects of the online retail operation. Web design and development, SEO, Google PPC, email marketing, pricing, promoting, social media, and even Twittering. During this time I've had the privilege of managing four different employees, two of whom I'll be leaving behind. If I believed in cloning, I'd replicate them. My boss for the last two years has been the president of our company. Fair, hard-working, and fun. I've noticed that I have begun incorporating some of his phrases into my own conversations ("fair enough"). I haven't incorporated them all. He wouldn't want me to steal all his thunder. I…
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