Big Winter

It's been a big winter. Big snow - big stuff going on. We've been doing our best keeping busy by visiting with friends, frequenting the YMCA, roller-skating, ice-skating, children museums, sledding, water parks, skiing, ice-fishing, playing Wii, and much more. All this, and we still got the winter blues. Annie has Argentina to look forward to, while Dad and the boys dream about more snow & the possibility of spring.

Skiing at Wilmont





Glenview Children's Museum



Ice-Fishing in Wisconsin



Playing in the Snow

Pilot Retirement Age

The U.S. congress & senate unanimously voted to raise the pilot retirement age from 60 to 65 earlier last week, and President Bush just signed it into law.

Here's the Chicago Tribune article:
Pilot Retirement Age - Raised to 65

The last 6 years has been rather difficult - 30% pay cut, negative growth, and now my Captain upgrade has been extended another 5 years. I feel like complaining about all this, but it won't do any good. My career has been OK. Grandpa had it great after upgrading in 1 year, and flying in the glory days of aviation. Dad had it not so good (although he loved it)... he had multiple furloughs & worked for a bunch of different airlines.

I've been mulling over the idea of changing airplanes to the B-777. It's been almost 13 years on the MD-80, and a change would be good. Annie likes the idea, so 2008 might be the year for it - we'll see.

Sledding Adventure

We had 6 inches of snow over the weekend! Highlights included buying a new snowblower at Home Depot (finally!), getting our Christmas tree, and SLEDDING at Paulus Park in Lake Zurich.

Here's a 3 minute video...

Controversy at Willow Creek?

Willow Creek is a "mega-church" that we've been attending for about 7 years. They just came out with a book called "Reveal". It sums up the results of a study that involved a survey of more than 70,000 churchgoers from over 300 churches around the world. The controversy...

U.S.News & World Report
Crosswalk Blog

Our senior pastor (Bill Hybels), and executive pastor (Greg Hawkins) both spoke about this at the service last weekend. According to them, the results aren't quite as shocking. They use business techniques such as surveys, leadership conferences, and mission statements to help run the church. Some people have a problem with a church who's organizational chart looks more like a business than a traditional church. I don't. Mostly because their mission statement goes something like this... help non-religious people transform into fully devoted followers of Jesus. I think that's cool, and I'm happy they are evaluating the techniques they use to help people with this.

My goal as a Christian is to grow spiritually - not just with knowledge, but to grow from the inside out. I'd like to get to the point where I'm not always asking God to help me with my agenda in life, but what I can do to further his agenda. I'm not there yet. Will I ever be? Probably not, but it's a goal worth pursuing because if I set my heart towards working for God, then everything else will likely fall into place.

This all begs the question: What is the role of church in terms of the spiritual growth of an individual?

For me church is a place to get motivated and challenged. And it's also a place to be entertained. Yeah, you got it - entertained. And why not? What's wrong with 20 minutes of entertainment over the course of a 90 minute service? Church is also a place where serving opportunities exist, and for organizing people into groups for study & fun. Maybe that's not your idea of church, but that's what it is for me.

How do I achieve spiritual growth? Going to church on the weekends is surely part of it. So is my personal study and quiet time in prayer & reflection. And the couples group that Annie and I attend twice a month. Serving others, like shoveling their driveway, helping financially, or maybe going on a mission trip (which I have not done). It's all about LOVE - loving God & loving others. And losing the attitude that this life is all about me. It's a struggle. My bad side (sinful nature) seems to prevail a lot, but I really do find peace and guidance and direction when I ask Jesus for help. And that's way cool. Thanks God.

Flying with Popper

This video was taken in September. It features Erik & Popper at the controls, but Mom & Peter logged some right seat time as well. Kurt & Dad were back-seaters.

College Costs

Annie and I met with a financial planner yesterday, and we were astounded by the forecast cost of college. College costs have been rising at 12% a year for the last 3 years. Yikes!

The nitty gritty... It'll cost us about $160,000 per kid for 4 years of in-state college. That's $480,000. Yikes again!

Here is a free college planning tool: www.collegechoiceplan.com

There are other things to consider such as junior college, part-time jobs, scholarships, student loans, grants, etc. But it's good to have some numbers to help with the planning & budgeting.

Google Maps

I discovered something pretty cool about Google Maps while working on a mapping solution for a new vacation rental website. Embedding google maps is now as easy as copying and pasting the code generated from a normal Google Maps Search.

This is brand new stuff, and it's going to be totally awesome for bloggers & small business owners. Until now, anything to do with embedded maps required a special API key, and a lot of technical know-how. Now any old hack (like me) can do it.

Here's a map of our neighborhood...


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