Tis the season to be budgeting...

Fa la la la la la la la cha-ching!

Rachel and I just started attending a class at our church on Monday nights called Financial Peace University. It's a series of teachings on finances by Dave Ramsey, a Christian author and radio personality. I had bought his book, The Total Money Makeover, a couple of years ago and really liked the principles in it. But, much like a diet, good principles are simple to understand but difficult to apply to daily life. Otherwise, everyone would be thin and rich! Rachel and I have found ourselves in some pretty tight financial times during the last 18 months, and we’re determined to bring ourselves back to financial health.

Our first step is to start living on a budget that works. We’ve never consistently been on a budget, and December seems like the worst month to start!! But, I was strangely comforted by Dave Ramsey’s words, reassuring us that our budget definitely wouldn’t work the first month, and probably not the second month either! The main idea for the budget is to create a “zero balance” budget, where you spend all of your money on paper at the beginning of the month, telling each dollar where to go. He says “If you don’t tell your money where to go, you’ll always be wondering where it went” (my paraphrase). I can’t tell you how many times we’ve asked the question “where did all our money go?”. We intend to answer that question every month, starting this month.

In other news, I just finished participating in my first Math Trade on BoardGameGeek, with pretty good results. This is a process where a bunch of people list board games that they want to trade. Everybody can view the list and add to it until the deadline. Then, you create a want list for the games on the list that you’d like to have in exchange for your game. Then, the trade organizer runs all of that information through a computer program that uses mathematical algorithms to create trade loops. Like this:

Person A sends their game to Person B
Person B send their game to Person C
Person C sends their game to Person A

Except that, for this math trade, some of those loops contained upwards of 200 people! I decided to trade my copy of Arkham Horror, a game that is pretty cool and very high quality, but just hasn’t been particularly fun for me to play. I’ll be sending that to a guy in Pennsylvania, while another guy in California sends me the board game Metro, along with the card game Set. I’ll definitely be participating in one of these again. It’s a great way to further my gaming hobby without spending much money (just a few bucks for shipping). And these days, counting the pennies will be of utmost importance!

Capitalism's yearly romp

Yesterday, I got to participate in that grand holiday tradition known as "getting up at stupid o'clock to stand in line in the freezing cold to try and get a good deal on some poorly made electronic doodad". Also known as Black Friday!

This year, I saw a deal on some Moto Razr cell phones at Best Buy. Rachel and I were both in need of new cell phones, especially since the antenna broke off of mine a couple of months ago. Usually, these phones cost ~$50-75 each for an upgrade. Best Buy was offering them for free with the typical 2-year contract. So, I found myself in line at the local Best Buy at 4am, shivering in the windy, 25 degree weather. There were no fewer than 5 tents pitched in front of the store, and one group of hearty adventurers had a complete tailgating setup, complete with gas grill and condiment table. There were probably 100-200 people in front of me in line, some of whom had been there since 9 o'clock the previous morning. That's just nuts. Anyway, the doors opened at 5am, and we all filed, cattle-like, into the store. By the time I got in the door some of the folks ahead of me were already at the cash register. I was able to make my way to the cell phone counter, and thankfully they still had 2 of the phones I was looking for. I was able to make it out by 5:45am, which I consider an unqualified success. I went to Michael's and Target for a little more shopping before returning home and getting a few hours of sleep.

Overall, a pretty successful trip, and the phones are really cool. The rest of this weekend will be spent putting up Christmas decorations and relaxing with my family. Gotta get myself geared up for those last 5 weeks at Covance! :-)

Thanksgiving - more than a tryptophan-induced coma...

So, as Thanksgiving approaches, I thought I’d go ahead and make a list of things that I’m thankful for. Cliché, I know, but important nonetheless. But, rather than focusing on how I’m thankful for Jesus’ death and resurrection, which is of course paramount to any other blessing I’ve received, I thought I’d take a cue from James Dobson and “focus on the family”:

1) Rachel - There has been no single greater blessing to me in the past 6 years than her. She is my best friend, my companion, my great help, and my great joy. She makes me better and loves me when I’m worse. Sometimes, especially on a day when the kids have been especially “active”, we feel like we’re on a roller coaster, with ups and downs and stomach-wrenching turns. But I feel like it’s going to be ok because at least we’re strapped into the same car! A few years ago, I was having a particularly bad day at work, and Rachel sent me a flower from a local florist. Attached was a note that read “To love a person is to learn the song that is in their heart, and to sing it to them when they have forgotten”. Thanks for always singing my song, Rachel.

2) Ethan – my happy, thoughtful, wonderful boy, always full of questions and always full of imagination. I love having conversations with him, just to hear his observations and perspective on life as a 4-year-old. Whether we’re snuggled up in bed reading a picture book or telling each other valiant stories about superheroes performing heroic rescues during a game of Heroscape, I see in him a tiny spark of the great man that he’s going to be. And I’m so blessed to get to be his daddy. I look forward to taking him to his first Colts game, his first Gen Con, and being there for all of the many school and extracurricular events that are sure to follow. Whatever he decides to do, I’ll be there in the front row to cheer him on. There’s something special about a firstborn son, and Ethan is my special gift in that regard.

3) Erin – my wild girl, my daring explorer, my sweet bundle of endless energy. She is an absolute joy to be around, because you can’t help but smile at the vigor with which she attacks every task. She is the perfect embodiment of “work hard, play hard”. Yet at the core of this little hummingbird is a sweet, compassionate girl who loves to make people smile and can’t help but make me thankful. I love it when we are about to leave a store or a restaurant and Erin reaches up her hand, looks at me and says “Daddy…hand!”, and we walk across the parking lot together, both of us with big grins on our faces. She is a remarkable gift.

4) Mom – I am so thankful for my mother. We try to have lunch every other week or so, and I always love those times. We talk about life, family, church, God, and politics – sometimes all at the same time! We’ve laughed together, cried together, fought about important things, and fought about dumb things. But, through it all, she has remained a great spiritual mentor, sounding board, and friend. I am thankful that she’s been so close geographically for the past 6 years, and I’m especially glad that we’ve remained close emotionally as well.

So, that’s the short list, although there are many many more. Thank you God for family, for health, for friends, and for your Son. You have truly given me an adundant, John 10:10 life!!

L.D. Bell Band - BOA Grand National Champions!!!

Congratulations to the L.D. Bell High School marching band, winners of the 2007 Bands of America Grand National Championships!! The Grand Nationals are held in Indianapolis every year, and unfortunately I didn't attend this year (mainly because I just forgot which weekend it was). I guess I'm spoiled now that I live in Indianapolis. But, this was the year that my alma mater pulled out the big victory. It's really strange to see the high school marching band that was such an important part of my life in the national spotlight like this. When I was in the Bell band back in 1991-1994, we were a pretty decent band, but pretty much finished in the middle of the pack in the regional competition. But, since I graduated in 1994, the Bell band has become a two-time Texas State Marching Champion, and has become one of the premier high school band programs in the entire country. Hopefully I wasn't the one holding them back!

Ironically the #2 band in this year's Grand Nationals was from Avon High School, which is only about 2 miles from where I live now. I guess I just attract marching band excellence. :-)

Everything is going to change...

I know that it must seem like an eternity since there has been any activity on this blog. In reality, it’s been a little over a year. Sad, I know. But, it’s a new day for The Science, and it’s time to get back on the blogging trail. I can’t promise that I’ll post every day, but I’m going to make a much more concerted effort to keep this thing up to date. I’ve always sucked at paper journals – I must have 3 or 4 that have the first 5 pages filled out and then nothing but blank space. But, I do understand the value of putting things down in writing. It helps to organize one’s thoughts and it can be quite entertaining to read years later. Now, the one thing about a blog that differs from a paper journal is that with a blog you have very little control over who’s “looking over your shoulder” and reading what you’ve written. So, I can’t say that I’ll be filling this screen with all of my deepest emotions about things. But, as a means of chronicling my life’s activities and offering some basic insights on things, it should do nicely. So, without any further ado, here we go:

I just found out this week that I’ve been offered a position at Eli Lilly as an “Assistant Senior Pharmacologist” in their Drug Disposition group. I’ve been interested in working for Lilly for years, and the opportunity has finally presented itself. I’m so excited about this – an opportunity like this doesn’t come by every day, so I feel extremely blessed. My last day at Covance will be January 4th, 2008, starting at Lilly on January 7th. Kind of a long time to wait, so I’ll be fighting to stay focused and motivated at Covance, but it gives me something to look forward to after Christmas

Rachel and I are in the process of helping to launch a new church plant in Lebanon, Indiana called Freedom Church. Our first service will be January 13, 2008. We’re going to have our services in a movie theatre, which should be quite an adventure. In addition to helping to run the soundboard, I’m also working on developing a curriculum for a new believers’ class, which will help folks who are new to the church to learn about God, the Bible, and our church. It’s been a really exciting process to watch our launch team form, and I can’t wait to see what God’s going to do in Boone County.

I guess that’s enough for now (especially since it’s 1:30am). Stay tuned!!