DanLog the ramblings of Daniel Pettit

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Today was my Alpha Course day away here. 9Am-7:30PM

My Alpha Group.

As I’m driving over to RockHarbor it occurs to me how nice it is to be able to arrive on time or even late and to not have to worry about getting a seat. Anyway the whole gang were there including a new comer Melissa who’d been in a previous group with a few other people. No competition this time, just an endearing video “Lump” by Nooma

I’d like to be a father like the one in the video. After watching the video we were informed that they were going to merge tables tonight. We got up and went into the “Library” ( I say “Library” because I have more phone books in my office then RH has books in its library) where we’d have room to gather as a group. Our intimate group of 8 just turned into 17, and just when I’d learned everyone’s name. To break the ice we had everyone introduce themselves and share what their favorite cartoon character was. It was surprising how just a few years age difference made the choices unknowable. Oh that was well said let me try again. For all but the timeless cartoons there were always at least a few people that had no idea who the cartoon character was. I was thinking of Bugs Bunny but someone else said him. I was then trying to think of something more contemporary, but settled on the Road Runner. The Road Runner wasn’t my favorite character per se, but I was always thrilled when they’d play a RR cartoon. Come my turn I said I was going to pick Ned Flanders but I’ll go with the Road Runner. Shane thought that was hilarious, as long as someone in the room gets it I’m happy. Then Shane went and coughed CARTMAN, several people didn’t catch it so he repeated it. Some people again said who? You know South Park, to which one girl said well I don’t watch that I’m a Christian. Brought to mind my wife’s guilty pleasure of watching South Park, I think see loves it more than I do. Certainly Mr. Hankey, I’ve never seen her laugh so hard, man I miss her cackles.

We discussed the video a while and then drifted off script on to what is appropriate and safe to bring up in group. Our original group had already discussed this in a prior week. As a whole we’d hope that it will be a safe environment for getting support and counsel, but it’s going up to how we each feel at the time and place.

Speaking of place back when we were just eight people, the thought had occurred to me that I could accommodate that many in my house when we have to venture off the RH campus. I also wondered what Lauren would think if she found out that I was hosting LifeGroup/bible studies in the house, something she had hoped on doing some day.

Well our new and improved group seemed to get off well enough. Well enough to get scolded twice for being too loud. Hey it wasn’t our idea to meet in a “Library”, we had the last laugh as Monica got to admonish the other group in the room when we were trying to wrap up the evening in prayer and the other group was too loud.

So it occurred to me, don’t tell my niece, that I’ve never seen Tim Burton’s The Nightmare before Christmas, so I added it to my Netflix queue. When you add a movie it gives you a confirmation page with other movie recommendations based on your pick. At least that is how it usually works. Now given that I have not seen most of the movies in question I still find it quite curious that these would be appropriate matches. Kind of like renting Texas Chainsaw Massacre and then getting Disney’s Bambi recommended - they both have killing right? Perfect match no doubt. Anyway I found it musing.

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My Netflix recommendations for The Nightmare before Christmas.

I had a few hours to relax after work today before heading off to church. My head is still in a bit of a fog but I didn’t have any coughing fits this afternoon. I pray that I make it through the night without any coughing or snot incidences. I got there pretty early but not early enough to get a front row seat, so I settle in on the end of the second row in my usual area. After a while the people in front of me went off to join another group so I got to move up to the front row. I didn’t see anyone I knew except I thought I spotted a girl from my LifeGroup but I wasn’t sure as she was on the other side of the room. I finally realized it was Christine who happens to also live on my street, though we’ve never seen each other. I quickly ran over just to say hi. She invited me to join her friends, I declined as I had my quarantine seat all setup, not to mention I wasn’t down for sitting on the floor. Been there done that.

They started off the worship this time by having us speak the words aloud to the first two songs as a prayer. That was kind of cool, I knew the songs so it was a tiny bit of an effort to just speak the words. We then went to a normal worship. It was a challenge with my scratchy throat and ever present cough just waiting to overwhelm me. Thank the Lord for Jolly Ranchers, my “cough drop” of choice. (I switched to JRs some years ago after figuring out that 99% of my coughs are triggered by a scratchy throat so the medicated cough drops are overkill as they don’t work any better and load me up with unnecessary chemicals). There were some close calls and I had to take it easy but I made it through the first worship session.

We broke into small groups to pray. There were five of us in my group, they didn’t have us number ourselves or anything just jump in as the spirit moved us the general topic tonight was finances.

They then had us stand individually and face the general direction of another church that we are familiar with and pray for their finances. Fortunately I do have another church I’m connected to, so it was kind of cool to be able to pray for Robinwood and Pastor Hous.

We then formed small groups again but Pastor Todd wanted us to get with different people. I joined a couple and it was just the three of us. Again no numbering just as we felt like jumping in, Popcorn prayers as Shelly from Robinwood calls it. After some silence I started went a decent amount of time and then silence and silence and silence. It got distracting after a while as I began to think how absurd it is that I’m the strongest prayor in the group, finally the man started to pray he got a few sentences out and Todd started to speak so he got “rescued” by the bell?. Todd then gave us another topic to pray. I figured I’d hang back for a while as the man had been cut off maybe he wanted to continue. He did start first but not right away and just said a couple brief but heartfelt things. Then the woman started to pray, well maybe she has to have the spirit move her to pray or the cat returned her tongue because she went on for several minutes of poignant and personal prayer until she was cut off.

Pastor Mike spoke for awhile about finances, and giving. How they had double the amount received last Sunday and more significant the fact that the number of givers was double the norm. They handed out blank index cards to everyone in attendance, He had us sit quietly and reflect on our sins, weaknesses, the things we are holding onto despite God - especially relating to money and to write down what that is or what God revealed to us during that time.

Afterwards Mike asked if anyone was will to come up front and read what they had written. About ten people went forward. One was a wheelchair bound young man, I’m assuming with Down Syndrome, he proclaimed a weakness for buying on Ebay and he was going to try to curtail his “habit” though he did admit to loosing an auction earlier today, which he hates to do. The second or third man spoke of his weekend in which his wife told him she wanted a divorce, this was devastating to him. So much so that he took a handful of sleeping pills and went into his garage and turned on the dryer. He said something about suffocating? carbon dioxide from the dryer running. (the dryer didn’t make sense to me, I first thought he meant he turned on the gas, but I’m pretty sure he would have blown up the house) Anyway to his surprise he woke up the next day. Apparently God has other plans for him, and he is wide awake and listening. On man started to cry as he felt the burden of his desperate financial straights.

The rest were a mix of confessionals and convictions from the Lord regarding money. As I was listening I began to think about how I’m fortunately to not be in a really bad place with money right now, mentally or spiritually, at least I think so. I actually was considering going up, not to read my card but more of a praise for how God has already helped me change in regards to money. How I’ve just been able to give control of finances over to him. That I’m not loosing sleep over loosing 75% of my retirement accounts (50% market drop 50% divorce settlement =75%) and 50% of my savings. I didn’t though as it just felt not so much off topic but of ftrack of what had been shared.

Mike had all those that shared come back up front as well as anyone else that wanted prayer and the rest of us laid hands and prayed for them. There was already a Prayer warrior praying for my man, as is usually the case at these gatherings, so I just reinforced his prayer.

After that we finished up with more worship. The rest of the evening I had no problem what so ever with singing or more specifically coughing, it’s not like Caleb called me up on stage. So that was a prayer answered. I pray tomorrow evening with my LifeGroup goes as well.

Well the market at least is breathing. The Dead Cat bounce that started Friday reared it’s head with a vengeance today with the DOW up 936 points. That brings us back to around last Tuesday levels. A quick survey of my holdings shows that every single stock was up today 35 for 35, even Downey Savings managed a gain. VIP was the leader with a 33% gain. Maybe this will set the stage for some retailer shorting in the near future.

So after Alpha I went home for an hour or so before heading off the Spaghetti Factory to refinish the second half of the main dining room floor. Given the prior planning and scheduling I really didn’t what to postpone as long as I was physically able to stand. Well I was far from being anywhere near that bad but I’d have much preferred to be in bed.

The prep went pretty quickly. I think my helpers were gone by 12AM. A funny note on my helpers I need two people to move all the furniture out of the dining room (with my recent back problems and decrepid age I’ve retired from furniture moving) and then one to run the wet-vac behind me as I cleaned and abraded the floor. Anyway the two guys that volunteered a busser and a kitchen guy have to be the smallest Mexicans that work here. I mention that they were Mexican because apparently the one that spoke English wasn’t as fluent as I thought, which I get to in just a second. My helpers had finished moving all the tables, I pointed out two small hutches that surround the host desk that they need to be moved a short distance to the lobby. They went to pickup the larger of the hutches.
This one but it lives behind the host desk now.

Well they do the lifting motion and this thing doesn’t budge a millimeter from the floor. I’m thinking okay I managed to get this out of my truck by myself, with out the top and marble inserts and all the menus but still how could it all be that heavy. They try again nothing. So being the retard that I am, I just have to give it a try myself. I did manage to carefully do it so that I PROBABLY wouldn’t strain my back and I couldn’t lift one end either @75%. So I admitted defeat and told them we’ll have to just drag it a few feet out of the refinishing area. Well one they kind of slide it off kilter the tiniest of Mexicans motions to the edge of the host desk. Turns out the my hutch fits perfectly under the lip of the host desk, so off course we couldn’t lift it. So once out in the open they gave it another try and got it a whole half inch off the floor at which point I said okay go ahead and drag it.

I left the area to go get some supplies and when I come back I see them carrying furniture from the lobby all the way to the back dining room. I never told them to move that furniture. Some how my put these in the lobby turned into take all the lobby furniture out. So I had them carry all that stuff back. At least they hadn’t gotten to the couches yet.

I was a bit jazzed as jazzed as one could be in my condition when the prep was finished by midnight or so. I was th9inking hey I just might get a decent amount of sleep tonight. That quickly faded as the floor dried and I say a bunch of areas that I had broken through the old finish and now need to be restained. So that added almost an hour to my night. Other than that it went smoothly and I didn’t loose my balance and faceplant into the fresh polyurethane.

I left the building around 3:15AM and was in bed by 4AM with my alarm set for 8AM. This will be the last supper late night with an early morning turnaround. We are going to start using a new product that only requires one coat so I’ll be able to do this in the early mornings only in the future. I didn’t use the new stuff this time as I had already stockpiled the old product before the switch was announced and at $50 a gallon you can’t in good conscience not use the old.

For a while it was looking like it would be just me and two group leaders tonight, in fact the table next to us just had a few people and proposed we merge if no one else showed up. Two more of my group arrived late and well as some for the other table so we went about our normal routine.

Pastor Hous was out of town today, so we had a guest speaker. The regional director of Alpha. Tonight’s subject was on how and why to read the Bible. I didn’t really glean much new information from the lesson. I already have implement some routines and given my anal nature it is not hard to keep up with that. At this point in my walk I just want to get familiar with the entire Bible. Once I’ve been through it a few times I’ll have to slow down and take a more inspective reflective pace or add such a time to do so during another part of the day.

During the small group session I can’t say that I picked up any new skills or insights. Not to say it wasn’t an enjoyable discussion and there is always some enlightenment when hearing others habits and struggles. I was also a bit out of it as my head was in a fog from my cold taking a firm seat in my head. In fact we closed the session with prayer and I was just a blank. By blank I mean I couldn’t come up with a topical prayer, I could have just launched into my personal prayer material but this wasn’t the place so I just passed.

A bit of a small world note, as we were leaving tonight I was grumbling about having to go to work tonight. Shelly asked for and elaboration. I guess my “little” job at Spag hadn’t some up before. Upon hearing I worked there she said well I know several people there and rattled off some names of which meant nothing to me as working during the day I don’t get to know any of the front of house staff. Jessica, one of the names did ring a bell, I asked if she was about this tall as I motioned with my hand at waist height and Shelly immediately agreed she’s the one. Okay Jessica is not THAT short be she is a very petite young woman.

Woke up today with a really bad sore throat and the start of a stuffy head. Normally I’d stay home when I feel like this but I have to work tonight at the restaurant and have Alpha this evening so I might as well keep with my normal routine since its just a cold at this point.

I loaded up with some hard candy and was on my way. This morning two of the church elders gave a short semi-annual financial report on the church. They had a good last year, but the current giving trends are a cause of some concern. Mike spoke on money in general and giving as a form of worship, or was that Todd? Mike also shared his choice years ago of fulfillment over $$s in a career move and his struggles with giving to the church as he felt he had already given and handsomely by giving up a 6 figure job for a $15,000 pastoral position. He also spoke of a recent time when his family decided to make a sacrifice to give away one of their cars to a family in need. By making that gift they in turn were later blessed when one of their friends gave them a car they didn’t need.

I guess there is truth to the saying that money is the root of all evil. I’m certainly not willing to take that leap of faith and properly tithe at this time because there simply aren’t the funds available with out a major life adjustment. I’m not talking about me not wanting to give up my daily Starbucks or going to the movies, cutting back on my trips to the river, staying out of the mall I don’t do any of those things. I could get a roommate or stop my therapy but for this season I believe my transformation is better served by not doing either of those things. I have felt the want to give and have to the GO campaign, the Church and even the Alpha program at Robinwood. So for now I’m picking my battles on where and how much to give. For a start the Church is getting more than I spend on Pizza. I also do feel some conviction on some things I want to spend on in the future on the house specifically. But that is so far down the road at this point that by the time I get there I may not want those things anymore or they will have to wait until God gets his full share of my first fruits.

The one thing about Rock Harbor that I noticed right away is the lack of passing the plate. In fact asking for money is just a blurb in the announcement along with filling out a connection card. In my six months here they have passed a plate twice and those times were for fund raising for external causes for the GO campaign. Mike really doesn’t seem too comfortable asking for money. A definite change from say The Sanctuary where that seemed to be a large chunk of the message every week that I happened to be there.

I made it through the service with out sneezing coughing or phlegming on anyone. Worship was restrained by my sore-throat, wouldn’t be surprised if I have no voice by Monday.

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Okay so once the dust settled for the day the DOW wasn’t off another 600 points so it could take more time to reach zero. The markets turned out mixed, but it was a wild ride. The point swing on the DOW was 1018 points, a new record.

My milkman buddy told me that basically he dug a hole in his backyard and buried his cash. His wife didn’t understand until her bank IndyMac got seized and she was without money (they keep their finances separate) for a week or two. He had a funny observation when I was talking about my fertilizer stock, about how that they should be experiencing high demand for their product, you know with all the terrorists out there

So at this rate I figure we’ve got 16 days before the DOW hits Zero. GM’s total market value is where it was in 1929, the sum total of stock outstanding would cost you just a little over $2 billion this morning. By comparison Volcom is worth about $300 million. When I woke up and heard the market had been down 500+ points again, I was thinking Volcom is probably at some ungodly low and I should add to my position, but no it was actually up and up enough to bring my whole portfolio up for the day. They got an upgrade from some analyst. Actually I see quite a few of my holdings are up this morning. There seem to be numerous buy recommendations coming from the Street. We are either at a tremendous buying opportunity for some equities or the wheels are really going to fall off and we’ll be bartering at WalMart by next summer.

I did place an add on buy for NEEGX. I’m looking to start shorting retailers, like Nordstrom as soon as we get a bounce. I can’t see how this isn’t going to be the worst Christmas buying season in decades.

Spotted this bushy tailed fellow running around on the garage roofs across my alley.