Random Thoughts 10/18/13

• I hate being away from blogging for more than a day a two; a week and a half is unacceptable.  But throw in a funeral, some extra counseling, a good book, a migraine or two and other miscellaneous good and/or bad busyness and voila… a week is gone!  But becoming a better writer requires both good reading and practice, practice, practice.
• November 1 and 2 is the men's retreat at Mission Lake Christian Camp.  Be there!
• Our national debt jumped over $300 billion in one day and now tops a record $17 trillion.  We are hopelessly addicted to giving ourselves stuff, promising that our grandchildren will pay the bill.  The old quote goes, "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy."
• It started the last few years with stores opening late on Thanksgiving evening, to beat the stores that opened at midnight, which were trying to beat the stores that opened at 5am, which were trying to beat normal stores that opened at decent hour.  Now Walmart, Target, JCPenney's, and Macy's, among others, will all be open in the evening on Turkey Day.  Soon enough, Thanksgiving "family get-togethers" will consist of a quick brunch so the dads can watch football alone, the moms can go spend money the family doesn't have, and the teenagers can work their minimum wage retail jobs alone on a holiday.  I guess that's how most of us live most of the year anyway.  Seems we might be doing it wrong.
• I think my fantasy football team is fairly solid and probably deeper than average.  Drafting and trading for good players isn't too difficult, as closely as I follow the game.  Thus I feel like I ought to be doing better than I am, sitting here at a very mediocre 3-3.  But some years are like that, luck runs against you or you realize too late that your strategies are not going to pan out.
• KU is ranked #6 in the USA Today Coaches Poll.  Oklahoma State is at #12 and Wichita State is at #16.  Baylor, K-State, and Iowa St. also received votes but didn't make the top-25.
• In the next month or so, I'll no longer be under contract with DirecTV.  I've been a mostly happy customer with DirecTV for almost 14 years in four different homes but it'll save us a little money to bundle our TV and internet together with Google Fiber.  Doing my research in advance I'm finding a few small issues with Google Fiber TV like equipment issues, missing channels, etc.  Have any of you Google Fiber TV customers experienced any issues?