Stuff That Matters in Life

Wouldn’t it be fun to have lots of money to give away like Buffet and Gates?

I would fund missionaries, BIOLA and small ministries that help people in the fringes, like Emmanus.

If all us little people each do our part in giving, we would together be like Buffet and Gates!

A friend told me his boss’ wife has a medical condition with little hope of recovery. She has tried to commit suicide. “She has lost hope”, the husband told my friend.

What hope do any of us have, if you think about it. When we have healthy bodies, we work and we hope for more money, hope to remodel the kitchen, hope to enjoy our retirement, hope our kids turn out well, etc., right? But in the end, we will all face the end of all that this world offers. Then where is our hope? Can anything in this world give us eternal hope?
We must have a greater future to hope for. Whether we are healthy or sick, rich or poor, single or married, anything we hope for that is of this world will come to an end. It may give temporary satisfaction but in the end that we all must face, we will be disappointed. There really is no difference between omeone with a terminal illness who has no hope and someone who is healthy who will face the same at the end of his life.

OUr hope cannot be based on what this world has to offer. Everything here is temporary. Do you have eternal hope? Do you have something to look forward to pass this life?  Do you know where you will spend eternity?

I want my house to look like IKEA!

The display for a 350 sqft studio apartment was amazing. There was not an inch of wasted space.
We walked out of IKEA without buying a thing, but that 2-hour tour of IKEA inspired Amy and I to clean the house and organize our lives. I think everyone should go to IKEA once a month – to catch a vision.

I was waiting for an important document to be emailed to me. I didn’t receive it.

“Please send it again.”

“I still didn’t get it.”

I call tech support: Elliot.

Elliot: “Did you check your spam folder?”

And there it is! Do you check your spam folder? I don’t, but from now on I will! I may have missed some important emails. But then again, I think it was all spam…other than that ONE thing I really needed.

Last Thursday marks a historical event.

It is not only that Amy finished her last day of elementary school, but there will never be anyone in our family going to elementary school ever again!

I’ve already written about my feelings of leaving Oswalt Elementary School. Now it is final.

We went to visit all the teachers that we’ve known over the years, and gave them a little present to remember us by.

Mrs. Hernandez – if you happen to read this, we missed you since we heard you had to leave school early. We’ll hold on to your present until we see you, maybe when the new school year starts.

It’s nice to have the feeling of familiarity at Oswalt Elementary. We know where everything is, we know the teachers. The office staff knows me so I don’t have to sign in when I go onto the campus.

I thought that Amy would have hesitations of going on to middle school next year. She surprised me by her enthusiasm for the next school year. “Yes, I am ready,” she said. “I am excited about it.”

Amy inspired me to embrace changes in life. Familiarity is good; new experiences are good too.

Walnut High School graduation commencement was held June 8, 2006. Even though Elliot already finished a year of college, he came back to walk with his class.

I finished high school early as Elliot did, but I did not bother to go back for the commencement. I do not regret it because I didn’t have many friends, nor any close friends those days.

The graduation at WHS was fun. Pom and Circumstance was played by the band, with Audrey in it playing the French horn. With over 600 students walking up to the podium to receive diplomas, it went surprisingly fast and smooth. I noticed the names were not read in alphabetically order. Elliot told me later that they lined up by height. Elliot’s friend Alex is over 6 feet. He was near the end.

There were fireworks at the end. I enjoyed seeing some of the students and parents that I knew.

Overall it was good that Elliot came back for this.

Did you know today is Donut Day?

My manager went to his usual donut shop to buy a dozen for the office, and they were completely sold out at 9am. He was told it was Donut Day.

Some say it’s National Donut Day. The first Friday of June is this designated day of the donut. Walk into any Krispy Kreme and they will give you a FREE donut of your choice.

Now is it “donut” or “doughnut”?

I am planning a VeggieTales movie night at church to show the new VeggieTales movie “Sheerluck Holmes”. It is a lesson in friendship, so well explained with a parody of…Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson of course.

The movie will be shown on Friday July 7th. Let me know if you want to come!

Weather.com registered the temperature as over 90F today in Walnut, California. It’s not even the first day of summer yet. The calendar says the official first day of summer is June 21st.

Elliot and Amy went swimming in the pool. Don’t you hate that initial shock of cold water? Six or seven years ago, a friend of Audrey’s in elementary school – Matt Kimura, in case he ever reads this – invited us to swim in their new pool. That was the first time ever in my life that I went into a pool without that cold water shock. In fact, it felt too hot, like bath water! Sharol Kimura,the mom, explained that they left the pool heater on all night. The water was 90 degrees! After a while, we had to get out of the water to cool off!
So while it always takes a little getting used to the water when you go swimming, it actually feels better than if you went swimming in warm water.