Category Archives: Life
Life Update
A life update: About two months ago my job ended at Smart. I had been working from home out of Des Moines ever since we moved here back in August, but the company hit some tough times financially and pretty much went under in May.
So a few weeks ago I got a job at Webspec [...]
A Celebration of Excellence: Two Rivers Church
In August of 2003, some friends and I came to Des Moines for a Lifehouse concert. We decided to go down a few hours early to visit Willowbrook Bible Camp, since Christy’s dad was directing the high school camp that week and a few of our younger siblings were among the campers. We ate dinner [...]
Slow until February
I’m going to take the next 4 weeks off of writing. The next Tuesday post will be February 9. After doing it every week for a solid year, my reserves are drying up a bit, so I need time to better develop my ideas.
I’ve added a “Subscribe by Email” link to the top navigation as [...]
One Year
As of today it’s been one year since I decided to start posting every week. I entered this commitment with maybe five or ten ideas for things I could write about, and I fully expected that I would run dry sometime during the summer. But seasoned writers will tell you it is of capital importance [...]
Economic Counter-Protesting
I came across this yesterday and it’s been running through my mind ever since. It seems that the idea of “economic counter-protests” has been catching on as a good way to fight against Westboro Baptist Church.
The way it works is this: If Westboro decides to picket an event or place with their inflammatory signs, [...]
Volunteering at Hope Ministries
This past Saturday I had the opportunity to volunteer at Hope Ministries here in Des Moines. Hope is a parachurch organization that brings the gospel to the homeless and poverty-stricken in practical ways. They have a number of different ministries, including a homeless shelter for men, a year-long recovery program for alcoholics and drug addicts, [...]
Three Excerpts from 2nd Grade Writing Assignments
When we got our house, Mom took the opportunity to bring me the boxes where she had been storing my school assignments since preschool. Amanda and I had a great time going through them tonight. Here are the highlights from my 2nd grade, presented without any context because it’s funnier that way…
“When bears play or [...]
New Design
As you can see, I changed things around a bit! The old design was too dark, and I wanted the challenge of building a theme myself. It’s not perfect yet, but I’ll be cleaning up and adding new pages during the next month.
Despite the huge layout overhaul, the biggest change is going to be [...]
Clifford’s Principle, pt. 1
For the last two years, my church has co-sponsored Grab a Brew, Share Your View along with UNIFI, the freethinkers group at the University of Northern Iowa. GABSYV an open-mic event that we hold on the second Tuesday of every month. We choose a topic for the night, generally related to faith or philosophy, and [...]
Mission Statement
I had convinced myself a few months ago that, you know what? I don’t care HOW big this blogging phenomenon gets, I am never going to jump on the bandwagon. All it is is a community of a bunch of people who are deluded in thinking that other people care about their every waking moment:
i [...]


