The Best

I was married on March 27th ten years ago today.
     

People talk about their wedding day being THE greatest day of their life.

  

That’s not true for me. I have a bunch of greatest days.

  

When I first realized that I was in love with Annie, that was a greatest day.
   
When she smiles in my direction, that’s a greatest day.
  
When she giggles uncontrollably, that’s the greatest day.
  
When she holds my hand, prays with me and talks about our future…that’s the greatest day.
 
Every day for the past ten years is the greatest day of my life.

Survival of the fittest

If I knew how to put in those fancy countdowns you'd be staring at one that pointed to 9:30PM on April 6th.
 
ABC saved all of us from the thought of a Sags sitcom being shot, but never seen when the CW decided to drop it.
  
WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE CW!?!?  With your fancy logo and designer suits?  The Gossip Girl is good enough for you, but the greatest American, nay International actor of ours or any other lifetime isn't?!?!
 
Don't you see how sad this is CW?
 
You had a chance to bring the great one back into our lives, but instead opted for 90210.

A pox on you CW - and we all are thankful that ABC once again stood up for all that is right in this world.
We owe you a debt of gratitude American Broadcasing Corporation.

S.B.S.P.

This is how I imagine the pitch meeting went.

  

OK, we need a new cartoon character.  Someone that the kids can relate to...what do you have people?

  

Um, we could go with an adorable woodland creature...maybe a squirrel or an owl?

  

Nope, it's been done.  People are over the talking animals.  It just isn't as relatable as it was pre-Bambi.  What else do you have people?!

   
Well, what if we had a talking sponge.  He's kind of a living creature...but kind of a household cleaning aid.
 

I'm listening...

 

And we gave him pants.

  

Talk to me...

  

And we gave him a relatable name...Mark...no....Bob!  What if we called him Bob the sponge?!

  

I like it, but I don't love it.
  
How about Sponge Bob?
  
I'm starting to love it...
  
Sponge Bob Square Pants!  The kids will go nuts for a talking sponge with pants that are not in the normal shape!!!
  
And thus began another tv immortal.

An American Hero

I was talking to a group of people once and I asked this question, "Do you have anyone in your life that's genuinely humble and is always looking for an opportunity to serve?" or something like that.  One guy raised his hand and said, "Yeah, Neail Armstrong"
   
Me:  Right...but is there anyone in your life that you peronally know that lives like that?
   
Him again:  Um..yeah...Neil Armstrong.
 
Me:  No, I mean someone that you know.  Someone that you've talked with and shared a meal with.  That's really more of what I'm talking about.  Do you know anyone like that?
 
Him still:  Yeah...Neil Armstrong.
  
Turns out his family was friends with Neil Armstrong.  Who knew?
   
Griffin gave one of his first speeches yesterday.  He was a bit nervous going in, but apparently he knocked it out of the park.  His class actually had 10 kids pick Neil Armstrong as the person they wanted to talk about.
   
I asked Griffin if there was a list to pick from.  Nope.  Out of the billions of people these kids could pick from, ten of them said Neil.
   
That's weird, right?
  
I asked my friend if every time Neil came over he welcomed into the house ingwhile say, "That's one small step into our house, but one giant step for mankind"?

He doesn't.

thinking big

I've decided that I'd like to put together an Employee of the Month prize.  I just have a couple of hurdles that I have to leap over first.

1.  I don't have any employees.

2.  Well, to be honest...that first one is really the sticky point.

So I'm open to suggestions.

Paying attention

Annie and I are taking a Dave Ramsey 13 week class with some friends and it's really been interesting.  We're on week 10 and have sat through roughly 9 hours of Dave lectures.  He's a pretty interesting guy to listen to, but I'm not really sure that I've learned more than 2 or 3 things.
  

Having said that, we've eliminated roughly $2,000 a yearly expenses.  This has happened mostly because we're just taking a little time to pay attention to where our money is going.  It wasn't any magical formula, it's just the difference between sort of drifting through our financial life and focusing down somewhat.  We figured out where our money was going and made some decisions about where we'd like it to go in the future.
  

We made some calls and negotiated our phone/interweb & insurance costs, while also eliminating a few things that we weren't really using...and the next thing you know we have an extra $170 a month to spend on our corn husk doll collection.

  
A friend of mind used to say, "no one drifts into a deeper walk with Jesus".  His point was that we don't just wake up and know Him better...there isn't necessarily a magic pill...there is the effort of paying attention to the relationship.  My friend Micah was talking about this the other day - the more we know someone's stories, the more we know them.  We know a bit about their past and what they've gone through in life...we keep up with what's happening in their life now...and we know them.
   
The same is true with God (in my prideful opinion).  So if this is on your radar, why not reacquaint yourself with some of the stories of God?  A bunch of local churches here in Cincinnati are trying this out with the book of Luke...not a bad place to start.

marketing genius

I'm a big fan of this fella.  I'm not in the marketing biz, nor do I ever, ever want to be.  My dad was, and he was really good at it.

A few times I put pen to paper and wrote some commercial scripts for him.  He'd typically read them and then say something like, "Do you know how much it would cost to fly Bob Saget in and have him punch Earl Bruce in the ear?"  to which I would respond, "Do you hate art?"

Needless to say, most of my ideas were filed away in the "Way ahead of his time" cabinet.

So I read Seth's stuff and for a while I just wasn't sure why.  He has the world's best marketing blog, but that's not my thing.  Turns out I just really like the way he thinks.  I don't always agree with him, but he makes me think...and that's a rare thing in today's economy.

So today I'd like to give back to Seth and all the marketeers out there.

What if you made a television commercial and mentioned your product as some sort of stimulus package!?!?!

I know - totally original - totally topical - nobody is doing it...um....

Hello sarcasm, this is Sean...I think we need to start spending less time together.  It seems that people think we've grown a little too close.  Yeah, I'll still see you around....it's just that I feel like we're becoming the same person.  Maybe I'll just spend some time with sardonic guy and his sidekick punboy.

top 10

Buzz Feed put together a list of the top ten books that people claim to have read, but haven't.

1.   1984 by George Orwell (42%)

2.   War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
3.   Ulysses by James Joyce
4.   The Bible by God
5.   Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
6.   A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
7.   Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
8.   In Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust 
9.   Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama 
10. The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins
 
Maybe this tells you a little about my reading habits lately, but I haven't even heard of two of these.  Does this mean I'm too dumb to lie about how smart I am?

Letter To Coroticus

If you were captured by foreigners and then taken back to their country as their slave, that's got to be a lousy first impression...right?

Imagine being held captive for half a decade or so and then finally escaping.
    
How long until you return?
    
Would you?
   
Patrick did.  He had a vision and felt called to "walk among them"

He could have gone on the lecture circuit, written a blog or graphic novel...but he walked among them.

Jesus called us to love our enemies...to die to ourselves....and Pat did just that.  He did what many of us talk/write about.  He stepped up.  He followed - He led.

it's madness I tell you

Apparently the National Collegiate Athletic Association is having a basketball tournament and they've put together a bracket announcing the invitees.
   

Quick side note - the great state of Ohio has more teams participating than any other state...even North Dakota.
      

So I'm putting together a little tournament that cost exactly the same amount the future winner will receive...which is to say it's free.

   
If you'd like to join the fun, click here.  Click on "Join a group"  If you don't have a yahoo account, they'll ask you to create one...takes 1 minute.

   
The group name is Saget

The group I.D. # is 111398

The password is Saget