Secret City Half Marthon

I ran the Secret City Half Marathon in Oak Ridge, TN this weekend, and I beat my best time by almost 5 minutes. I finished with the time of 1:36:35 which was an average pace of 7:22 minutes/mile and Finishing 37th overall of abot 600 runners. I was 6th place in my age bracket of males from 30-35. I am particularly proud of this because when I did my two half marathon last year I had been training for both of them for longer.

2010 Tacoma City Marathon - 5/2/2010 - 1:41:08
2010 Seattle Rock N Roll - 6/26/2010 - 1:41:49
2011 Secret City Half Marathon - 11/20/2011 - 1:36:35

I also beat both of my brothers:
Mikey - 1:45:03
Stephano - 2:01:32

Full results here.

Herman Cain on abortion

Who says Herman Cain is an outsider? I've never seen a politician pull off all sides in less than a minute. This video was from Stoseel on Fox.

From LewRockwell.com

The Whitest Kids U' Know - Pledge of Allegiance

Two books

I have recently read Crazy Love and The Christian Atheist that gave me quite a bit to thing about regarding how I live my life. Both books talk quite a what living as a Christian should be. Crazy love talked quite about about being lukewarm in the eyes of God.

Revelation 3:15-18

15 I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! 16 So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth. 17 You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in the fire, so you can become rich; and white clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness; and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see.


My pastor recently made the comment that showing up to church on a Sunday doesn't make you a Christian like standing in a garage doesn't make you a car.

Why would anyone have an account with Bank of America, Chase, or Wells Fargo?

I saw an article today about new fees and the end of free checking and the rise of fees and red tape at these big banks.

Why on earth would anyone want to bank with these people?

Why would anyone have a checking account that isn't free?

Dave Ramsey call

We were able to get on the Dave Ramsey show today - 3/11/2011. I posted the call, as a YouTube video:

By the way, I thought I had prepared for the questions he usually asks, but he didn't ask me the ones I thought about the most.

What would America be like without the federal government?

Thomas Woods discussed Rollback on podcast, and he describes what America would be like without them.

Stupid economics

Sadly, most people have come to believe FDR saved the country from the great depression with all of his programs, and that Hoover sat idly by while the government did nothing to stop economic calamity.

I recently read George W Bush's Decision Point, and one line stood out to me.
"If we're really looking at another Great Depression", I said, "you can be damn sure I'm going to be Roosevelt not Hoover."

In books like Meltdown by Thomas E Woods, he goes into detail that its the intervention by Hoover that made the problems worse, and Roosevelt actually extended the Great Depression with his programs.

The sad thing is that President Bush made the problem worse in 2008. Failing companies should fail. If they believe they will be bailed out, then the have no reason to not engage in risky/bad behavior because there is no downside. People respond to incentives, and if incentives are that a big risk can have a high payoff with the government as a backstop then why not?

Bush even mentions being concerned about moral hazard, but decided to proceed with TARP. He cites jobs and other economic impacts as reasons he did it. Stupid.

Debt Free

We started our Total Money Makeover in October 2006 shortly after getting married. 52 months later we have paid off about $85,000 in debt using the debt snowball. During this time we moved from San Diego to Olympia, WA, we had job changes, job loss, and a baby.

Hopefully we can get on the air with Dave this Friday.

The Judge takes on US Presidents

This episode aired on President's Day, and the intro called out Lincoln and took a look at a few of our most famous presidents. I don't think I have ever heard a negative word about President Lincoln on TV.

Roku Add USB playback channel

Last night I found that Roku has launched their USB channel.

Using handbrake with the iPad preset appears to be great for ripping DVDs and then watching them on the Roku. The iPhone/touch preset preset quality isn't very good on a big screen.


If the rumored Amazon OnDemand service for Prime cstomers is true, Roku is becoming a very good product. They still need to add ESPN3 and MLS MatchDay Live.

The Ballad of Carl Drega

A couple of years ago my Dad introduced me to Vin Suprynowicz whot is a writer in his local paper the Las Vegas Review Journal. A number of his articles have been featured on LewRockwell.com

My favorite post was about a 'police shooting'

I recently picked up his book The Ballad of Carl Drega after it was recommended on Free Talk Live. I'm only about 100 pages into it, and I want to vomit. This is a catalog of offenses by The State and how they do whatever they want to people. His experience with the IRS is frightening, and I know how bad this can be due to experiences of people close to me.

It's about 12:15am and I think I need to do a better job of picking bedtime reading material that will help me sleep.

Pasta Fazool

A while back my Dad taught Isabella to say Pasta Fazool as a goodbye. This came from the Dean Martin song That's Amore.

She loves this video, and has started to learn the song.



We caught some of this on camera: