Election Day

I'm glad that by the end of today, we can all stop arguing over our political differences and we can get back to concentrating on the important things in life like how bad traffic is and how overpriced Starbucks is.

Best Inventions of 2008

TIME Magazine just came out with their list of Best Inventions of 2008. Here are a couple of my favorites.

1. Hulu.com - As if we (meaning me) needed any more internet distractions, this website has high quality full episodes of your favorite tv shows and movies. For free. Check it out.

2. The Global Seed Vault - Located above the Arctic Circle on a remote Norwegian island, this is a Fort Knox for food.  Nations from around the world are contributing native seeds in an attempt to store and maintain every known type of seed in existence. With plant species disappearing at an incredible rate due to climate change, war, and deforestation among other things, scientists have developed a plan to collect and protect one of the world's most valuable natural resources.

3. The Invisibility Cloak - Scientists at UC Berkley have engineered two new materials (one using a fishnet of metal layers and the other made of tiny silver wires) that neither absorb nor reflect light. These materials work on the principle of refraction and could make Harry Potter's invisibility cloak a reality. 

4. The Seven New Deadly Sins - Yep. That's right. The Vatican is keeping up with the times. In case you're interested - bioethical sins, morally dubious experiments that harm human embryos, drug abuse, polluting, social injustice, accumulating excessive wealth, and creating poverty are all big no-noes now. 

5. Sound Enhanced Food - A British chef has been experimenting with how sound affects the taste of food. He found that listening to a recording of breaking ocean waves while you eat an oyster makes it taste 30% saltier than if you listen to a recording of barnyard animals. 

Some of my favorite inventions that didn't make the list...

• Heated Automotive Seats
• Coke Zero
• The Magic Eraser
• The Pilot G2 Pen

What are your favorite creature comforts?

Science Friday - Halloween Edition

Happy Friday and Happy Halloween! Here is the next installment of Guess the Body Part. These two pictures are of the same thing. The top one is a cross section of the structure that has been stained with haematoxylin and eosin.  The bottom picture was taken using a scanning electron microscope. Ok, send me your guesses (and remember, this is the Halloween Edition - hint, hint).

Disclaimer - I didn't take either one of these pictures. 

Kickin' It Old School

My friend sent me a link to this video and I feel the need to share it. Sorry I couldn't post it here on my blog (I tried). Click on this link and watch it. You will laugh. I promise. 

Baby Crack

I'm just going to come right out and say it. Baby Einstein = Baby Crack. Now while we all know crack is wack bad, I am not suggesting that Baby Einstein is bad. I'm just asserting that it is equally addictive. Here's a clip of Harper in a Baby Einstein induced trance. 

                                          

Here's a video of Harper's new favorite game. I like to call it "Set 'Em Up and Knock 'Em Down".                     

                                          

And for all of you skeptics out there that think the Ghostbusters song is a fluke, here is evidence of a recent application. 

 

                                          

Big Dreams = Big God

My friend Tim is a smart man. He has a gift for saying things that stick with me. Today, as I drove into work, I started thinking about some things Tim said a few months ago about dreams - life aspirations, goals. Here are some ideas that spoke to me.

• What dreams do you have for your life that require God's intervention in order to come true?
  
• The type of dreams we have are evident in the prayers that we pray. For instance, do your prayers mainly consist of things like "Lord, help me find my keys."? While there is nothing wrong with these types of prayers, if this is the only type of thing that we are asking for, we may need to dream bigger. 
  
• Are you praying for the big things that God has put in you to dream about?
  
• Are you praying for big things that honor God's bigness?
  
• The bigness of your dreams communicates the bigness of God to your children. 

In order to purposely dream big and consciously ask God to deliver on our big dreams, Tim suggested making a list of 100 dreams/goals/aspirations you would like to accomplish in your life. To help get the creative juices flowing, he listed off different categories that your dreams could fall into.

1. Physical

2. Emotional

3. Intellectual

4. Spiritual

5. Psychological

6. Material

7. Professional

8. Financial

9. Creative

10. Adventure

11. Legacy

12. Character

Here are a few from my list. I want to go on a mission trip with my husband and my kid(s). I want to be completely debt free in 5 years. I want to publish a paper in the scientific journal Nature. I want Rob and I to design our family's house together. I want to take a cycling tour of Ireland. You get the picture. 

The idea is not to make this list of dreams and put it away in a drawer and never look at it again. The point is to make this list and look at it every day and pray for the things on the list every day. Dare God to bless you with the dreams that He wove into your DNA. 

The reason I am writing this post today is two fold. First, I think this is important information and I want to share it with you. Secondly, I have done a really bad job of walking this out. I started my dream list (but haven't gotten close to coming up with 100 goals) and have pretty much forgotten about it until today. So, I'm asking you for accountability. Help me remember my list. Make your own list. Let's experience the big God of the universe together. 

 

The Shopping List

We all know that men and women are wired differently. But just in case you needed a little extra convincing, let me tell you about the shopping list. Last Friday, our refrigerator was completely empty (save a bottle of hot sauce) so Rob volunteered to go to the grocery store. I agreed but said that I wanted to make him a list (to ensure that he came home with more than just cookies and beer). So, I made him a list and he went to the store and brought home everything I asked for and even a couple things I forgot that we needed. By all accounts it was a successful shopping trip. 

Later on that evening, I found this. This is the list that I made. At first glance there doesn't seem to be anything unusual about this list. However upon further inspection, I realized that what I thought were pen marks were actually slits cut into the paper. 

You may be asking yourself (as I was), "How did these slits get there?", "What do they mean?", "Is Rob trying to tell me something?". It took me a minute to piece it all together, but this is what happened (as confirmed by Rob the next morning). 

When Rob got to the store that night, he wanted to make sure that he got everything on the list. To do that, he decided that he better cross items off the list as he got them. Not having a pen on him, he did what any man would do and used his knife to cross things off. 

I can only imagine what the other shoppers must have been thinking. To his credit, he did get everything on the list. So, while his method may be unconventional (and possibly illegal), it got the job done.