Why I Married a Nurse

Coupon Fun

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 18:20:00 +0000

My wife and I have recently started using coupons with our grocery shopping. I'm definitely more into it than she is. It was originally her idea, but I think I'm the one that has taken off with it. We are using the Sunday paper in conjunction with online coupons. Since we have started, a typical grocery bill see at least 30% savings off of the total bill. That 30% is a combination of coupons and sale items. My favorite thing is when we get an item for free. Today I got a free pack of Orbit gum from Walgreen's after the coupons.

We haven't had as much luck with restaurants. I'm convinced some restaurants just plain don't do coupons. For the big chains, this is just sad. They get loads of business and should do some things to give back to their customers. Oh well.

For anyone looking for a good place to start finding online coupons, check on http://www.couponmom.com. They have plenty of links to printable coupons as well as other tips to help save money.

- Ben

A great break

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 17:44:00 +0000

Well, I haven't blogged much the last month or so. Mostly because of Christmas. Things get way to busy in December. Being the first Christmas Michelle and I have spent together, we have discovered just how strenuous this time of year can get. Well, the break is over. Michelle and I drove to Texas and back to visit my sister. This was the first time she spent a major holiday away from family. She was very happy to have us there.

Michelle started a new job at the Children's Hospital last week and I started back to work this week. On one hand, it's nice to be back to work, on the other, I wish we were still on break. Oh well. As for now, when there's work to be done, there's work to be done.

- Ben

Tis the Season

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 13:11:00 +0000

It's Christmastime, and one of my favorite times of year! This is the first year I get to spend it married. I'm very excited about all that is to come before it's all over. One thing I have noticed is that with two families there is twice as much to do. So far I think Michelle and I have been able to keep things fairly balanced. We just got to visit my grandparents this past weekend. Tonight, we are going to Epcot for the Candlelight processional. This weekend, we have Michelle's nursing pinning ceremony, my school's staff party, my parent's Christmas party, playing at church on Sunday morning, and Christmas with the Boston/Barror Family. It will be busy but we will definitely be able to do it all.

Throughout this time, I think is important for everyone to take time out and appreciate their families. I know its easy to say things like this when Michelle and I are newlyweds that absolutely adore each other, and we get along with each others families. I know there are families out there that struggle to live with each other and rarely take time out to truly appreciate each others individual personalities. I hope and pray that this year will be a wonderful time of family and friends for everyone.

Merry Christmas!

- Ben

Ohio fun

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 16:08:00 +0000

Today, we leave Ohio to go back home. I have experienced the joys of having cousins for the first time in my life. I have no first cousins in my family! Michelle has 6 on her dad's side. I got to meet all of them and I think I have them matched with the appropriate aunt. Actually, I probably don't. I got to see the cousins kids as well. They are all 3 under 2. The best part is, there are three more on the way. Michelle and I are not expecting at this time.

While we were here, we got to see snow! It was the first snow in Ohio this year. Here is a picture for all to see. The snow didn't stick for long, but for somebody from Florida, it is snow none the less. It'll make for great stories when we get back to Florida.

- Ben

Off to Ohio

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:39:00 +0000

From what I understand, both from hearing about and now experiencing it, holidays are tricky for newlyweds. There is always an issue of which parents to go and visit. Michelle and I are being rebellious this Thanksgiving and flying to Ohio! We are missing both sets of parents. :( Actually, there's more to it than that, and we aren't truly being rebellious. There is a whole load of Michelle's family that I have yet to meet and they all live in Ohio. Michelle's dad is out of the country and we are going to spend Sunday with my parents, so it all works out.

Anyways, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

- Ben

Sick of Sick

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 18:49:00 +0000

Being sick is never fun. Being sick is even less fun when you live with someone else. It's even worse when you and the person you are married to are both sick. This is the story of our marriage. In two weeks, we'll be celebrating three months of marriage. In three months, there has probably only been one week where neither one of us have been sick. Michelle says maybe two weeks. Either way, it's pretty sad. We all know that married couples pass germs back and forth, but this is ridiculous. It's usually me that catches the bug, and Michelle that gets it later, but I think it's safe to say it has gone the other way as well.

Currently Michelle has a strange form of pneumonia that takes over a month to cure. Hopefully she'll be in the clear by the end of next week. She's been on antibiotics for over a month. Antibiotics are nice until they start to mess with your system. Spicy foods are not Michelle's friend right now.

All in all, I'm glad Michelle is a nurse when I'm sick. You can tell that it's her profession. On the other hand, I can only dream of having a comparable bedside manner. I can't even compare. I like to think I try, but there is no way my bedside manner comes even close to Michelle's. The sad thing is that Michelle will even take care of me when she is sick. I have a tough time doing anything when I'm sick.

- Ben

Building on Trust

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:02:00 +0000

My wife and I started a good habit of doing a devotion together every night before bed. The devotions we are doing this week center around the idea of trust in the marriage. It makes for an interesting bit of discussion especially since we are still newlyweds. It's been awkward with several of the topics geared more toward couple that have been married for longer periods of time. For us, I think this is the most awkward. On one hand, it feels to us like trust is not a big issue in our marriage. On the other hand, we haven't been married long enough to test our trust in each other.

It's interesting reading the illustrations about other couple that have been tested over and over. We read their stories, and then talk about situations our own parents went through while we were growing up. At this point it is easy to say it will never happen to us, but then again, we have never truly been tested in this area. I can honestly say I love my wife and completely trust her. I can also say that I trust in God to guide my wife and keep her safe. I know that my wife feels the same way about me.

I pray that we never experience a situation where we lose trust in each other. I also pray that if it ever happens, God will help our marriage to overcome the trials.

- Ben

Shots in the Back

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 13:55:00 +0000

So Thursday at work I got an H1N1 shot. I chatted with my doctor a bit before actually getting it, and he highly recommended it as I'm constantly in contact with children. One of the perks of being an elementary school teacher. My doctor said that it is made basically the same way as the regular seasonal flu vaccine. My school was also giving the vaccine to about 200 students.

So during my last class they made an announcement that all the students were finished with their vaccines. I was in the middle of my class. I had about 22 second graders and 8 ESE students with an Instructional Assistant. She told me to go ahead and get my shot and should would monitor the kids. This was about 10 minutes into my 40 minute class. When I got my shot, the 10 minute post observation period ended up lasting about 45 minutes. I totally got queasy from the shot. They told me I looked a little pale. My response was, "So what's new?". Fortunately I am just fine.

So then comes Friday....

During my first class of the day, I was standing and teaching a class of fifth graders. My back decided to spasm or something to the point where it was extremely painful. I couldn't sit or stand without pain. It just plain hurt. It was a long day, but I eventually got through it.

Friday night, I went with my wife to here parents house for the evening. The offered me a muscle relaxer. After taking it, I have learned that muscle relaxers are very effective on me. The feeling was similar to being buzzed from alcohol, but slightly different. If they had a video camera, they could have made a great YouTube video. Oh wait, they did get about 30 seconds on a flip video camera.

Needless to say, it was an interesting weekend.

- Ben

New title

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:10:00 +0000

So I decided to change the title of my blog. It's been quite a while since I actually posted anything. I am hoping this will give me incentive to blog more. I'll start with a little background. I am recently married to a beautiful woman named Michelle. Our wedding was on September 5, 2009. She is a nurse by trade. The idea to change the title comes from this. I figured there would be many many stories that would come just from being married to Michelle. The new title is a bit of an experiment by me to see if I will actually blog more. As of now, my goal is to blog at least twice a week for now. We'll see where that goes, but for now, I'll chat later.

- Ben

Start Here

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 13:02:00 +0000

I have been enjoying a book entitled 'Start Here: Kingdom Essentials for Christians' by Don Williams. I absolutely love this book. I am only three chapters in, but I feel this book is a great read for any Christian, no matter where they are in their walk. The third chapter is called "Here I am to Worship". Just in case, you couldn't figure it out, it is on worship. Being a worship leader myself, this chapter has a special place for me. In the chapter Don goes through what worship is, making connections with how a commoner would enter a king's court and the behavior that would be shown. He parallels this with us, the Christian, as the commoner and God as the king. He goes into the definition of worship and then how in a worship service, we should sing praises, and then enter into worship before making requests to God and then finally waiting for God's answer and singing praises when we get the answer. He makes a point to say that hymns are excellent for use in church services. Most importantly, they teach good theology. The shortfall to hymns is that they are songs sung about God, and not to God. In a worship service where we are truly worshiping God, it is important that we sing songs to God. It is important to remember that the entire congregation is to be singing, even though it may be hard for us to listen to. What we think is not the point, its what God thinks. If we approach God with a good heart, he will find it pleasing. In a Sunday morning service the entire church has an audience of one. It should never be a band of a few people entertaining the congregation. If churches allow this to happen, they are missing a very important aspect of what true worship is.

A True Tablet PC

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:22:00 +0000

I just came across and article about the Touch Book. This seems to be the first attempt at a truly useful tablet, not the somewhat lame attempts that the current tablet pcs have made. I currently use and love my ipod touch and would like to have something similar, just a bit larger, and I think the Touch Book may just be the device I have imagined. It's light, gets decent battery life, and is not ridiculously priced. It uses an ARM processor just like many cell phones and PDAs, so it should be able to run Android just fine. The manufacturer will ship it using its own version of Linux. I think it may just be the right thing. It's only $300. I'll probably wait til it ships and then read reviews before I run out and get one. The user experience on my iPod touch is too good for me to switch to a mediocre device with no support. Cross your fingers.

Toby Mac at Winter Jam!

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 17:57:00 +0000

I went to a Winter Jam at the USF sundome last night. All I can say is that it was an awesome show. It ranks up in the top 5 for all concerts I've ever been to. Toby Mac was the main event, and they saved him until the end. This guy has so much talent its just not human. I think it was awesome to see the muscians from the Diversecity band playing like they did. It's a rare thing to see musicians truly truly having fun with their craft. I was sitting behind the stage, but you could still see how much the musicians were enjoying playing with each other. The other big thing that stuck out was the diversity in their style. For years I've heard talk about multicultural music, specifically in worship. Last night, I witnessed the closest thing to that. Toby Mac is one of the only musicians that actually incorporates different cultural styles into his music. Even though its not worship, I think someone looking for multicultural worship music should start with Toby Mac since he has been one of the few to actually pull it off. Now if only he would release a worship album......

Direction in Ministry

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 19:32:00 +0000

Can any ministry survive without a direction? If we look at the bible, the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years because they disobeyed God's direction. Years later, David built a kingdom that was well respected in the world because he listened to God's direction. Later Jonah became a snack for a whale because he did not follow God's direction. In the New Testament, Paul, once a murderer of Christians, became a well-known leader of Christians because he followed God's direction. In the church today, what does this mean?

When a businessman builds a business, they must bring in new customers. Likewise, in order for a church to grow, it must bring in new people. In both cases, if there is nobody new, it will eventually dissolve itself. So how do we avoid this? We bring new people to our church. And how is this done? By doing outreach. It could be something as simple as inviting friends. Yes, that's outreach. It could also be putting up a sign on the street corner, or putting an ad in the newspaper. Those are both outreach. Outreach doesn't necessarily have to be handing out sodas, or scrubbing someone’s toilet. It can be simply inviting people to your church. We always hear about investing in people’s lives. Well, asking them to go somewhere with you is the very first step.

Ministers and Money??

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 01:30:00 +0000

I thought of a deep theological question the other day. I'm honestly not sure the answer, but I still thought it was quite interesting. Is it ok for people in ministry to make insanely huge salaries? I'm not talking about average middle class incomes, I'm talking about an income that would put somebody in a life of luxury. In other words, hundreds of thousands of dollars a years or more. I could only think of two New Testament examples that could even come close to addressing this issue. The first is when Paul wrote that he strived to become like all people so that he could reach all people. The other example I thought of was the church in Acts where all the believers would bring their possessions to one place and the apostles would then distribute it where it was needed. So in light of those two things, what do you think?

RSS Owl

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 02:43:00 +0000

I just downloaded and tried out RSS Owl. It's a nice reader for rss feeds. Basically any news site that someone is interested in can be read through this application. I remember when I first started using google reader a few months ago. It's nice not having to go through all the bookmarks to get my daily news. For somebody who only has one computer they read their new on, rss owl is great, however, for me, I use more than one, so I need a way for my feed readers to sync on more than one machine. There's no obvious way to do this with rss owl. That doesn't mean it can't be done, but I haven't found a way just yet. I'll be looking because I do like the idea of having all my feeds stored offline in a way similar to how imap based email works. Google reader with gears is nice, but I would prefer a standalone client. I'll play some more and then decide what I like better.

Interesting Middle of the Week

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 03:32:00 +0000

It's been an interesting middle of the week at school. I had on student come up to me with trouble breathing, and another that cussed at me! Wow. How exciting. Oh well, it's still a great job. It doesn't feel like we just got back either. It feels like we've been going to school all along. In this case it's a good thing. It means that the last two days went extremely smooth. We'll just have to wait and see what tomorrow brings.

I've been doing more playing and exploring with what's available as free tools online for use with websites. Today I added a wiki to our church website. I've opted not to add one to my personal site just because I think a simple website is plenty. For the church, a wiki can be a wonderful thing. I was just talking to a friend from church about posting some essays of his to the church blog. I think what he was going for would be much better suited for a church wiki. I'm excited with the possibilities. I even added a "Tim's made-up words" section. It should be lots of fun.

Back to Work

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 23:02:00 +0000

I started back at school today. Things were slow, but that's a good thing. As always, it was the calm before the storm. Today was just a work day. Tomorrow, the kids come back. It should be fun. I've had my stuff ready to go for the kids since before the break. I basically spent today doing day-to-day things like making copies and sharpening pencils. Nothing too complicated, but at least there was enough to do. Well, tomorrow should be fun.

Weebly

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 16:33:00 +0000

I've been playing with a web app called weebly (www.weebly.com). It's a nice and extremely capable website creator. So far I've created 3 different sites with it. A personal site, www.ifoxxy.net, a church site, currently vcftampa.weebly.com, and a worship team site, worship.vcftampa.com. It offers all kinds of blocks based site construction and the use of templates. The templates aren't terrible, but they aren't stellar either. I would say they are about average, but, when you consider that it is a free template based site creator, that's pretty good. The two most useful widgets in my opinion are the columns and html. With columns you can do exactly what it says, create columns. I just wish you could change it to three columns instead of two, but there are workarounds. The other nice widget is the one for raw html. With this one, you can add customized html code. On my pages, I used this to link to picasaweb albums and videos from youtube and google. Even though weebly includes the ability to add google and youtube video natively, I like the results much better when they are added with raw html. All this is a free service. If you want a custom domain, you can buy one through weebly. If you already have a custom domain, you have two incredible options. You can change your dns settings to point to weebly and use it as your host, or if you already have a host, you can download your site once its built and then upload it to your own host. The second option not only allows you to use your own host, but you can make the base site, download it, and then edit it in your favorite website software to further customize it. The only drawback I have found to weebly is that there is no way to create a secure area on your site. Other than that, weebly is a great tool that I look forward to using quite frequently in the future.

Blogging and Word 2007

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 14:06:00 +0000

I just discovered the blog feature that is part of Word 2007. Wow! Every time I find a new feature in Office 2007 I am amazed. It's strange how Microsoft can do such a great job with Office, but then they turn around and release something as terrible as Vista. What's even more strange about the situation is how the two were released at basically the same time. Oh well, at they released something that can be considered useful. I guess I can uninstall the blogger for word add-in that never really worked. Now I know why.

blog.gears

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 14:17:00 +0000

Trying out blog.gears, a service from google that uses google gears and blogger so you can blog in your web browser when you don't have internet. So far it seems to work quite well. Right now I'm typing with my internet disabled. We'll see what happens once it goes back online. Enjoy!

- Ben

Testing Blogger for Word Toobar

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 02:49:00 +0000

I’m testing the blogger for word toolbar. If it works like I want it to, I think I will like it a bunch. I’m hoping to get one of the leaders in my church to post a weekly devotional to blogger. So far it is just an email, but I’d like to see it go up on a blog site. I think this addon for word will help make things easier for here to post. We’ll see.

Check it out for yourself here.

Green Computing

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 17:16:00 +0000

I've been doing alot of reading lately on how to be a greener consumer. About a month ago, I changed all the 60 watt light bulbs in the house for 14 watt compact fluorescent bulbs. I know they aren't "green" because of the mercury content, but they do use only a quarter of the electricity. I'll probably change out the rest of the bulbs in the apartment for fluorescents very soon. After the initial purchase of power saving bulbs, I started to look into cheaper computing. I've always been a fan of desktop computers because of their lower pricetag and higher performance., but after reading some more, I found that the total cost of ownership is the same or higher than laptops. A typical laptop only uses around 65 watts when the system is fully used give or take. Compare that to a desktop which uses easily twice that without even considering the monitor. A gaming machine can use quite a bit more. Then I read somewhere else that an LCD monitor uses only a quarter of the power of an old CRT the same size. WOW! Once you do the math, the total cost of ownership can be much less with a laptop. The exception: Apple! iMacs use less than 100 watts at full performance, and the mac mini uses about the same as a laptop. One more reason to switch to a mac.

If anyone actually reads my blog at this point, please leave more energy saving tips in the comments if you know of any. Thanks.

stupid green screen video

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 01:29:00 +0000

I found a really stupid green screen video. It's pretty ridiculous, but somewhat funny for anyone that works with video or green screens.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei9JQ6br-y0

2 Camera Shoot

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 00:09:00 +0000

I'm still working on exporting the Jamaica footage. It's a slow process. I got more tapes in the mail a couple days ago, so I can finish up what's left. I also got a 22" reflector, and shoe mount to mic clip adapter. I can finally use real mics with my camcorder effectively. Luckily, I got to shoot some video yesterday. The Central Florida Vineyards had a big rally in Lakeland, FL. There were easily a few hundred people there. We did a 2 camera shoot using a Canon GL1 and a Panasonic GS180. The video turned out pretty good, but the Canon wasn't properly white balanced. It had a red tint to everything. Fortunately it wasn't too bad. I added some blue midtones and highlights and it looks much better. Not perfect, but better. I might play with it some more later. I'm hoping to make a DVD of all the worhsip teams that played. If I get the go ahead, I may actually do something that requires Double Layer Discs. That's exciting. Hopefully I'll be able to find double layer lightscribe discs so I can add some decent art to the discs and not the tacky sharpie handwritten label.

Peace Out,
Ben

Exporting Video

noreply@blogger.com (Ben) — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 23:03:00 +0000

Don't ever use Sony Vegas to edit Video. It's really not that great. Final Cut or Premiere would be the better choice. I use Final Cut Pro at school in our TV studio, and Vegas Studio for personal use. Many of things Vegas does very much counter-intuitive. After using both, Final Cut is the champ; one more reason I can't wait to get a Mac.

Anyways, I'm only bringing it up because I'm exporting some video footage that was taken on the mission trip I went on with my church to Jamaica. We shot about 13 hrs of video. Importing was easy, but there is no tape backup because the entire 13 hours was shot using only 4 minidv tapes. It's been stored on a 200GB drive since last June, and now I need the drive for some coming up projects. So I've started exporting the original footage to tape. Some of it is not going very smoothly. I'm on the first tape now and already I'm seeing wierd stuff happen. I'm going to back the stuff up as mpeg2 files as well, just so I have it around. Not as good I know, but I need the space on the external drive. We'll see how it goes. Anyways, I'm going to try to post a picture from the Jamaica trip to make this post sound a bit more positive.

- Ben