Jesus Calms a Storm

I've been meditating on Mark 4:35-41 this week in preparation for a speaking engagement. The passage is about Jesus being woken from sleep on a boat by his disciples during the midst of a windstorm. It's an interesting story that seems to have a short and sweet application; if you trust God then you can experience peace throughout various "storms" in life.

Although that may indeed be the moral of the story, the more I think about it the more questions I raise for myself. Here are two of them. Do the requests I ask of our Father assume He is not paying attention, as if He were asleep? If so, what does it say about my faith?

Pet Peeving Update

For all of those who use an RSS reader there are two things about Pet Peeving that you may not be aware of.

1. There is a poll I would like you to participate in.
   
2. There is a new look. It's temporary. Probably.

Busy Signals

Can you remember the last time you called a friend on the phone and heard a busy signal? Yeah...for most people it's been awhile. However, my wife had the experience just the other night. She was trying to call her parents at their little lake cabin on the land line. Cell phones don't work there because the cabin sits deep in a Tennessee holler. My wife was stuck. The phone line was busy.

We then reminisced about the days when you always had to call back over and over again, until the beep-beep-beep-beep beeped no more. Waiting for a line to free up seemed like hours. As a kid, all I wanted to do is ask a friend what our homework assignment was, but I knew his sister would stay on the phone all night and I would never know if I was suppose to do the odd or even math problems. Argh!

Maybe you had some of those fancy phone features growing up, but most people I knew didn't. Now, it comes pretty standard on cell phones, and the only time we use a land-line at home is for 911. It made me think about something else. I wonder how long it will take my 2 year old son to hear his first busy tone. With technology moving the way it is today, is it possible that he will never hear it?

What happened to phone booths?

Around 10 years ago when cell phones started to become increasingly popular, phone booths started disappearing. I think it is interesting that we use to love our privacy so much that when we were on the phone we felt the need to enclose ourselves inside a stuffy little box.

So, here we are today. All of us carrying cell phones and privacy is the least of our concern. Whether we are in a restaurant, walking down the hall, or sitting on the toilet of a public restroom, there seems to be no boundary for where we'll talk or text on a phone. Even though we don't use pay phones, wouldn't a phone booth still be handy to have?

So, what happen to all of the phone booths? Where did they go? Did we all just get too fat to squeeze inside of them? One day our kids will say, "What's a phone booth? Do you mean Superman's dressing room?"

The Power of Nice

This weekend I wrapped up a short little book by Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval, entitled The Power of Nice. It boasts being a national bestseller with the foreword written by television host Jay Leno. The authors run a huge advertising agency out of New York called The Kaplan Thaler Group. They are responsible for things like the Toys 'R Us Jingle and the Aflac duck.

I don't know about you, but I could always use some help being nicer. The basis of this book is the idea that "nice guys" don't finish last. It argues the exact opposite and gives several good tips and reminders on how being nice to others can take you a lot further in your career.

I enjoyed the book a lot up until I approached the end. You see Chapter 5 of the book is all about why you should "Help Your Enemies". Well, then I get to Chapter 8, "Shut Up and Listen". The first story is how these ladies took a CEO of a competitor out to lunch...just to talk. Their point was, if you'll be nice and take interest in others they will divulge a lot of information that you can use to better yourself. So, what did they learn from this CEO? They learned about some leads that they were not aware of and went after them. This CEO and his company were already making plans to pitch ideas when these ladies swooped in and took it away from them. Do you see the problem I have now?

Was that nice? Was that helping your enemies? It sounded more like manipulation to me. I don't know, this other CEO could have been a jerk and had it coming, but what if he wasn't such a bad guy. Didn't they just break their own rules on being nice? Anyway, I feel bad that my review is not "nicer" because most of the book is good. I just need clarification on that story. That's all.

I'd still add it to your list since it is so short.

A Husband's Gun Prank

This had me in tears. It is a video of a husband getting revenge on his wife. Hilarious. You can watch it on You Tube since the poster disabled the embed feature for the clip.