Things That Are Already Gone (Or Soon Will Be)

Here are just a few of the things that were common place when I was growing up:

Ties
8-Tracks
Cartoons on Saturday morning only
College Football games on Saturday afternoon only
Movies only viewed in Theaters (No VHS, Digital Copies, Cable TV, etc.) If you wanted to see a movie you had one shot, until . . .
Video rental stores - Which are also no longer around except for that one Blockbuster store in Oregon . . .
Socks - To be very specific, Tube Socks
Hitchhiking
Going outside without sunscreen
Brutal Playground Equipment (I really miss this . . . )
Zero crowds at the Beach - well, at least after Jaws came out in 1975

Surgery, Vacation Days and Super Mario Brothers

One of my best weeks I've ever had was a week spent playing video games with my brother. At the time he was stuck at home recovering from surgery during the same week that I took off for a vacation. At this time in our lives we were next-door-neighbors and he had just purchased a Nintendo NES game console. After spending a few hours playing the "Baseball" game, I suggested playing the game that he had received with the console, "Super Mario Brothers." (Plus, I was getting killed in the game of Baseball . . . )

Super Mario World was a side-scrolling platform game in which two players could work together to navigate the Seven Worlds in order to free the princess and fight Browser at the climax of the game. The team play in addition to the awesome amount of game play hooked us from the start. We decided that before the week was out, we would defeat Browser and win the game. The challenge was on.

The Hiring Dance

Raise your hand if you enjoy the experience of interviewing for a new job. Anyone? It's been my experience that even the most confident among us can be reduced to puddle of uncertainty when undergoing an interview that can influence your career trajectory.

In a previous life, I worked in retail management for over 20 years. In that time I probably hired hundreds of people and after awhile I found myself asking a variation of these same four questions:

Do you think you possess the skills, expertise and experience to perform this job?

What do you think you would bring to our team that other candidates don't possess?

Why do you think you are a good fit for our team, our culture and our company?

In what ways will you help our company make more money?

The Wonder of Romans

It would be very difficult to choose my favorite book of the Bible. There is the poetic description of creation in Genesis, the miracles in Exodus, the rise and fall of rulers in the book of Judges, the prophecy of Isaiah, the lyrical prose of Psalms and we haven't even got to the four gospels or Revelation. But if I had to pick one book as my favorite, it would have to be Romans. Paul, the author of this book, in my opinion offers the best balance between explaining the theology of the gospel of Jesus Christ and then showing us how to live out this gospel in real life applications.

Since I'm more of a bottom-line kind of person I used to skim over the first part of the book of Romans to get to the what I thought was the meat of the book, the "How To" portion. I have come to realize that without a knowledge of true theology, it is impossible to understand the task at hand. Yet since I am most familiar with the second half of Romans that's what we are going to take a quick look at today.