Happy Father’s Day!

Today is Father’s Day. I am not a father, but I know one day I will be. Either because my wife and I will have kids of our own, or because we’ll adopt. I have very strong feelings towards adoption–I feel like there is not enough emphasis on it in the Christian world.  I believe that it is the duty of every christian to adopt, and that if everyone did, we would have no orphans in the world.

On that subject, while visiting a blog I frequent, I came across a really great article by Jason Locy, the co-author of  Veneer: Living Deeply in a Surface Society, a book which I have yet to read(though it’s on my list!) but that I’ve heard a lot of great things about. The article is entitled My Take: On Adoption, Christians should put up for shut up. Check it out and let me know what you think!

Colors of my life

A rainbow woke me up this morning. Red blood rushing through my body. Orange flowers blossoming in the morning. Yellow sun rising over our bodies. Green grass grabbing our feet as we dance. Blue sky over our shoulders, bringing us closer to heaven. Indigo and violet dreams sweeping us into each other’s arms. You make every color brighter, every smell and taste sweeter and more intense. Your aura infiltrates into my soul. You are my beautiful inspiration. You are my rainbow.

I’ve got gas!

After I got home from work today, I spent some time connecting the gas line to our new stainless steel oven. After tightening lines up, the darn thing just wouldn’t work! I spent a good two hours disconnecting it, reconnecting it, turning it back on and again, nothing. Nothing but the smell of gas.

Where is the leak?!?! I kept yelling to my cat.  She didn’t know either–she sat on top of the oven watching my misery.

Finally I found it–and it turns out it wasn’t a leak at all. The nob on the gas oven was turned on, so gas was escaping through the pilot hole, on ALL FOUR BURNERS! Sigh. It’s almost stupid how simple some problems are to fix. I won’t even go into how I didn’t know burner covers even existed(til  i found them THREE hours later) so after everything was reconnected the oven STILL wouldn’t light until I put those bad boys back on.

But it’s fixed now. All is well in the Clark household. And I didn’t even need to call anyone for help. Now THATS a feeling of accomplishment. You see, I am totally not a handy person. I never have been. In highschool when all the guys were building things in shop, or learning how to put a car engine together, I was the guy mastering Mortal Kombat and trying to find the hidden warp zones in Mario Bros(which I’m happy to report that I found, and have since moved on to unlocking all the characters in Castle Crashers on the Xbox 360)

For years I put off learning how to do simple weekend home improvement projects, citing I was helping to destroy America’s economy by not hiring someone to do the work for me. Alas, those days are over.

Now that I’m a homeowner(and for months before we actually bought a place) I became fixated on the DIY channel. I’d search the internet for hours learning everything I could about home improvement(skipping anything that had to do with more than basic level electrical work as it gave me flashback to 11th grade electronics class)

And I’ve learned alot. WAY more than I ever thought I would. And with that knowledge comes something else–a sense of accomplishment and pride every time I get to put that knowledge to use. Like tonight, whenever I walk into my kitchen and see light reflected off the newly installed gas oven.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to google “dishwasher installation”…

One more milestone…

March 31st is about a week away. One week from now, I will be the owner of a 2 bedroom, 1(HUGE!) bathroom condo. My wife and I have been going through the home buying process now for about two months. It hasn’t been has bad as I thought it’d be.

What’s more scary is that in one week I’ll live across the street from LA Fitness–the gym I’ve been a member of now for over and a year and have only gone a handful of times. 1 week from now, I’ll have no more excuses as I why I can’t go to the gym. I need to update my ipod with some fresh gym music. Maybe something like “Tik Tok” by Kesha.

Anyone have any suggestions?

My Gym workout mix

Ok, so I’ve started going to the gym twice a day, and realized fairly quickly I needed to create a great mix of songs to keep me going strong. This is still a work in progress, but listed below is what I’ve got so far.

And please, no comments on how the first 5 songs are like an 80s/90s rock band 2 throw back.

Things start to slow down a bit starting with song 16, and of course I have to include #22 in every mix I have. Well, that and “Grief and Sorrow” by Toshiro Masuda.

1. Eye of the Tiger by Journey
2. Carry on My Wayward Son by Kansas
3. Wanted Dead or Alive by Bon Jovi
4. Hungry like the Wolf by Duran Duran
5. White Wedding (part 1) by Billy Idol
6. Switch by Will Smith
7. Feel Good Inc. by The Gorillaz
8. Somebody Told Me by The Killers
9. Beat It by Fall Out Boy (and John Mayer)
10. Keeps Getting better by Christina Aguilera
11. Just Dance by Lady Gaga
12. Untouched by The Veronicas
13. Numb/Encore by Linkin Park/ Jay Z
14. What the World Needs by Casting Crowns
15. What Life Would Be Like by Big Daddy Weave
16. Red Light by David Nail
17. The Motions by Matthew West
18. East to West by Casting Crowns
19. Slow Fade by Casting Crowns
20. Mighty to Save by Hillsong United
21. Then by Brad Paisley
22. Come What May by Moulin Rouge

Any comments? Any songs you feel I should add/take away? i’m all ears…

Kids can be so annoying

So I’m at work the other day, and this kid comes up to the counter and wants to pay for 2 $5 items. Heres how the conversation went:

Me: Your total is $10.60
Kid:(blank confused stare)
Me: Is everything ok?
Kid: I only have $10.
Me: I’m sorry.
Kid:(another blank stare)
Me: Which one did you want to put back?
Kid: (another blank stare) I only have $10
(At this point I’m trying to figure out if the kid is retarded, or hoping i’ll let him slide on the sixty cents. He;s old enough to know about tax, but just doesn’t seem to care)
Random guy 4 people behind the kid: Here, I’ve got an extra dollar you can use.
(the kid give me the extra dollar and I ring it up and give him the change. The kid prompty grabs his bag and leaves, not even stopping to offer the random guy his change)

This may be very mean of me to say, but I abhor both parties in this situation. One, the kid needs to learn if they’re going to buy something, they need to consider the fact that the government taxes things, and buy appropriately. Two, people who think they’re being ‘nice’ by offering kids the extra money to cover tax are NOT being nice. They’re teaching kids early on that if they don’t have enough money for stuff, people will just give it to them. No working hard, no learning the value of money. Nope. Just stand in line and make people wait long enough, and since you’re just a kid, someone will eventually get tired of waiting and front any amount of money you need.

You may think I’m being melo-dramatic, but this is just the most recent example of this I’ve seen. In the past I’ve seen people give kids as much as $18!! What the crap? People will give $18 to some stupid little kid but cuss out and hang up on the the fire/police/charity organization when they call asking for some help?

Whats become of this world?!?!?!

Caramel Covered Cheetos

My future mother-in-law told me about this recipe that she found online, and even though I have yet to make it, I knew I had to find and post it for you all. Apparently the recipe sounds really gross but everyone who has ever tried it has fallen in love with it. Has anyone made these/tried them? What do you think?

Caramel Covered Cheetos

2 cups light brown sugar
1 cup margarine – yes, for this one you must use margarine
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 – 21 oz. pkg. Cheetos® – crunchy kind

Mix sugar, margarine and corn syrup in pan. Bring to a boil. Boil 5 minutes, stirring often. Remove from heat and add soda. Stir until light in color and foamy. Spray a roasting pan (deep 10 x 14) with Pam. Put Cheetos® in pan. Pour the mixture over Cheetos® and stir, coating each piece. Place in oven at 250 degrees. Bake for 1 hour stirring every 15 minutes. Immediately, pour onto wax paper, or cookie sheets, sprayed with Pam. (This is the hard part.) VERY QUICKLY spread out as thin as possible. If not quick and spread out as thin as possible, you will get a big hard glob. After about 5 minutes, pull/break these apart even more and loosen them from the wax paper. If you don’t, you’ll have wax paper stuck to them when you go to eat them.

You will regret it if you don’t double the batch as guests are going to demand MORE! You can bake batches together and add an extra 20 minutes to bake time. I do them separately because of having to work so quickly to keep them apart at the end. The one batch can almost get too hard while working with the other batch.