The gathering is planned, the costumes are ready, and the pumpkins have been carved.  I think we are just about ready for a candy binge.

The mud flinging has been going on for so long now that my tv looks like a blur of poop.  It is one smear campaign after another.  I am very tired of ads that tell me absolutely nothing.  The one thing that it does teach me is that nobody in their right mind will ever run for office anywhere because they would be signing up to be dragged through the mud.  It doesn’t stop with the Presidential Campaign either.  In fact, I think that many of the local races are much dirtier than the big dogs.  I figure that it will not be long before ads will start attacking the candidates mothers. 

Last night, the Obama campaign paid for 30 minutes of prime time tv time for one long campaign-mercial.  I watched some of it out of curiosity and for the fact that it was on every station at 8 PM.  I realized that he must have coughed up some serious dough to pay for that tv time.  Actually it was almost $1 Million to each station that ran the ad.  He spent millions of dollars to waste a half hour of my life.  If the World Series wasn’t on right after that, I probably never would have turned it on.

This large cost for his TV spot got me to thinking about how much the candidates spend campaigning.  So I did some research and found that the candidates have to report their spending each month during the campaign.  I found a nice chart including all candidates and there spending at http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/index.php  through Oct 27, 2008.  McCain has raised $360 Million and spent $293 Million.  Obama has raised $639 Million and spent $573 Million.  Together they have raised about $1 Billion to waste my time every time I turn on the tv, the radio, the Internet, or walk out my front door.  The US is in an economic dip, people cannot afford healthcare, and there are people living on the streets in every city in America.  And we are spending a billion dollars to paste some faces all over the place trying to convince me who to vote for.  There is something very wrong with this picture.  Maybe if we spent a billion dollars promoting how good the Bengals are and how bad everyone else is, they would start winning.  I don’t think that would change anything at all.  But if you spent that money on the team to fix some of the problems, they would get better. 

Of course $1 Billion is a drop in the bucket compared to the national deficit.  But maybe if they would do something to solve the problem with that money instead of promoting and smearing themselves all over the country, I would have a little bit more respect for them.

Thank you for reading through my rant of the day.  I am very ready for this election to be over so that I don’t have to listen to this stuff anymore.  Please do your part and vote next Tuesday.

Here is a quick recap of my weekend.  Is it me, or do weekends seem to get shorter as Christmas gets closer.  It probably has more to do with the fact that I have a lot more to do in preparation for Christmas.  Yes, I am talking about Christmas and it is still October.  If you have a problem with that, then leave a comment.

Friday

• Small Group @ The Bohalls – Discussion on trusting God.

Saturday

• Shaw’s Pumpkin Farm
• Dinner with friends.
• Church and Volunteering at Student Union

Sunday

• A little Christmas shopping
• New shoes and clothes for the kids
• 2 hot breakfasts
• Some hang time at Mom and Dad’s
• Working on Halloween Costumes – Pictures to come.

I have officially made Volunteer Status with Student Ministries at VCC.

We made our annual visit to the pumpkin farm and we were so excited that Victoria was able to go with us this year.

Had a good time hangin with my small group tonight.  I have been having some success experimenting with a blog that I setup for the group to use.  I have been able to generate conversation on the blog amongst the group members with planning and and organizing group events.  You can check out a recap from tonght and other things that we are trying to accomplish over at http://smallgroup.churchpunk.com.   Check it out and let me know if you think that a blog is a useful tool for church small groups.

I am preparing to lead our small group this Friday and I want to use Joe’s talk from this past weekend at church as a springboard to talk more about what it means to trust God.  I am also curious to see if my friends in small group have figured out how to get to this blog from our small group blog.

I admit that I struggle with trusting God in some areas of my life.  There is a big part of me that likes to have control over things or at least be prepared for what life brings me.  I don’t believe that trusting God means that I don’t have to work at my job or try hard at anything because magically God will put food on the table and a roof over my head.  I don’t think that God wants me to be ignorant.  What would life be like if everything was handed to me?  I think it would be pretty boring after a while.  I tend to find myself at the other extreme where in my mind I feel that I am responsible for taking care of the finances, making my yard look spectacular, and working hard at my job so that I have finances to handle.  I admit that sometimes I forget to let God help me when I struggle as if I can tackle this project or create something wonderful all on my own.  It is rewarding when I feel like something is all me and I enjoy the glory moments when I do something good.  But I also know that it’s not about me, it isn’t my money, I didn’t create my gifts, and my yard would die if it never rained.  But I fall into the same pattern and God reminds me that the Glory is all His and I am lucky to serve Him.

How do I break out of that pattern and learn to trust God more than I do now?  How do I give Him those areas and struggles in my life where I leave God out of the picture?

I like this article giving tips about commenting on other blogs.  I have the tendency to have long commentary when I do comment on blogs.  This list is very helpful to make your comments more useful instead of just fluffy nothingness just wasting my time.

Be a Comment Rockstar: 10 Terrific Tips! – Stepcase Lifehack

I have used both Bloglines and Google Reader at times, but have been using Bloglines as my primary RSS reader since they released the Beta Version with the 3 Pane View some time ago.  Recently, Bloglines has been having updating problems.  Several feeds will not update for days at a time or even for an entire week.  Then suddenly, everything will update.  I like Google Reader, but mainly switched for the 3 pane view option offered in Bloglines Beta.

But with all of the recent problems in Bloglines, I have decided to do a little comparison experiment this week.  It is a no hold barred, cage death match between Bloglines and Google Reader.  I am going to start with a week and use both of them.  I want to see who updates faster and which reader is more consistent.

It should be an interesting match.  Who do you think will win?

Faith has updated her blogs!!!!!!

Click here to read her blog.

Click here to read the kids’ blog.