Some facts

I had the day off of work today and I spent it hanging out with the homeless people at the library downtown. My intent wasn't to hang out with homeless people, but I think they had the right idea. If I ever become homeless I am surfing the internet at the library.

I went to the library today to do some research on downtown before I move there. Here are some of the interesting things I found:

• Downtown will see the population decline 6.3% by 2030.
• Downtown has the highest percentage in this region of it's population that are between the ages of 16-25 .
• There is a 194% gap between the 25th percentile of household incomes and the 75th percentile.
  
• 14.4% of the residents have a bachelors degree or higher.
  
• 19.1% of the housing in the city is unaffordable compared to the region's 13.2%.
• There are approximately 400 homeless people living downtown.

Just getting started on understanding this city a little more.....

Word of the day

I realize that this blog has become extremely less interesting this summer. For that I apologize. My life hasn't been very blog worthy lately.

Here's an e-mail conversation from my family that exemplifies the nerdiness of my family:

Mom:

http://dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/
Lets all subscribe to this and see who can use the day’s word first at the dinner table.
Who is in?

Dad:

I'm in, but when it is used it must relate to something that happened during day or something of interest that someone wants to talk/tell about.

Me:

My family is a bunch of nerds.

Mom:

Feeling intimidated, eh?

Nate:

BRING IT OOOOONNNNN!!!


*Sigh. My family is so nerdy. But I love them and their nerdiness is a bagatelle compared to their intelect.

I can leave if you want....

This past week in Huntsville I talked to an interesting engineer from Booz Allen Hamilton. We were all standing around at some reception and were supposed to be networking. Not that I, or any engineer knows how to do that, but that was the point of the reception.

So, being true to my extroverted personality, I started talking to this guy standing by himself. It soon became apparent why he was standing by himself without a wedding ring. Talking to a girl made him extremely uncomfortable. The more I talked the more his hand shook and the more he tried to hide behind the table. He could carry a conversation just fine but his body language screamed "please leave me alone!" After a couple awkward minutes I took the hints and mercifully stopped talking to the guy.

Poor guy. Maybe someday he'll get the hang of it all and become less engineerish. We can only hope.

Disclaimer: As someone who was raised by engineers, is dating an engineer and works almost entirely with engineers, I feel that I can, with some degree of validity, poke fun at engineers. Feel free to let the business jokes fly....

With a Starbuck's Coffee In Hand

This week I was in Huntsville, AL at a conference. It was pretty boring and I didn't meet anyone as interesting as Rocket Man from last year. I did meet an unsung hero from 9/11 but I'll post about him later.

On Thursday as I was walking to the convention center dressed in my business clothes, carrying my briefcase in one hand and a Starbuck's coffee in the other, I had an epiphany. I've become the typical middle-class American. And it scared me. I'm not sure I want to be the typical middle-class American.

I don't think I want to sell resin, manage projects and help develop "Tomorrow's technologies today". I know. I should have figured that out before I went to college, or accepted my job. I like my job but I feel like I am on hold. Just waiting to do something worth while.

I really want to work with an inner-city mission. I've been reading a book called A Heart for the City edited by John Fuder. It's a really good book about urban ministries and it's been getting me excited about actually moving downtown.

This quote stuck out to me: "Character development is crucial for those going into urban ministry. In all my years of urban ministry I have not seen a person disqualified from service because he could not or did not know how to DO urban ministry. Rather, most disqualified individuals had failed to BE the man or woman God required for urban ministry tasks. These people left ministry because of moral failures or because of their inability to get along with their peers. They disqualified themselves because of their failure to use good judgment in key situations. These urban ministers we trained how to DO urban ministry, but they failed to comprehend what it meant to BE an urban minister."

I think that is so true in any area of ministry. Scary and exciting all at the same time!

Does anyone want any cats?

Because seriously, I have 10.

I don't want 10 cats. I really only want 2 and my parents only want 3. But apparently if you don't spay or neuter your cats within a reasonable time frame.... well you get more cats. (Lesson learned.) So anyway, we have 5 cats that gots to go.

There are 5 adorable kittens that are looking for a good home.

These are the 2 kittens that are ready to go. The other 3 are only a couple days old and will be weaned in about 6 weeks.


How could you not take these cats? They are just too cute and free to a good home!

Slip-n-slide

This is from my company picnic and the 100 ft slip-n-slide. Doesn't Ben look bored?

Just a Thought

God has recently been showing me little examples of His holiness compared to our human baseness. And it's blowing me away.

We humans, not matter what we do, aren't even coming close to measuring up to God. I mean God's holiness is so pure we physically can't stand in it's presence. If I remember correctly, the Hebrew word for holy means something like "Not like us. Set apart." Isn't it cool that God is described as "Not like us"?

I've always believed that God is pure and holy and we are not, but I'm not sure I've always lived like it. I have to ask myself if I am treating God's holiness as "set apart" or do I strip the meaning off of the word and just treat it as another adjective used to describe God?

Then I said,
"Woe is me, for I am ruined!
Because I am a man of unclean lips,
And I live among a people of unclean lips;
For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts."
Isaiah 6:5

Jeremiah 9:23-24

Thus says the LORD,
"Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom,
and let not the mighty man boast of his might,
let not a rich man boast of his riches;
but let him who boasts boast of this,
that he understands and knows Me,
that I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness,
justice and righteousness on earth;
for I delight in these things,"
declares the LORD.