Yesterday, after I watched the Nascar race(I can’t believe I just said that) in which my team did pretty well, the news was on. I normally don’t watch the news or even read about it. I don’t know why exactly. Maybe it is because I don’t like to hear all the bad news that is going on in the world in which we live. Maybe it is so I can be in denial about it or maybe it is because it seems boring to me. Regardless, I found myself watching the news and I watched a very interesting story.

Netflix, established in 1998, is the largest online DVD rental service, offering flat rate rental-by-mail to customers in the United States. Headquartered in Los Gatos, California, it has amassed a collection of 70,000 titles and has about six million subscribers. Currently, Netflix spends about $300 million a year on postage to ship 1.4 million DVDs a day. It is the largest purely online DVD rental company, and its success has inspired a number of other companies to enter the market.(the previous statement was taken directly from Wikipedia) This past weekend they delivered their 1 billionth DVD to someone is Helotes Texas. You did hear that correctly by the way, 1 billion DVD’s delivered. It only took them 7.5 years to do it.

I currently am one of those 6 million subscribers and Saturday I received a DVD from them. The DVD was The Greatest American Hero, season 2. In honor of the 1 billion served, Netflix is awarding the customer from Texas a lifetime subscription to it. I think that is pretty awesome and it makes me wonder, what number was I on the list this weekend? I mean we received our DVD on Saturday. I bet I was pretty close. I wonder if I was like 10 or less away from being that person. That would have been awesome.

Instead, I’m just one of 6 million subscribers who will continue to pay for the likes of the A Team and Knight Rider. No worries. It’s well worth it. I just had a thought. Maybe I was the 1 billion and 1 customer. That would have been a sincere bummer. Now that we know that Netflix has passed the 1 billion mark in deliveries, I think as a courtesy to their customers, they should tell you in your que what number you are. I would like to know if I have a shot at being the 2 billionth delivery. If they showed the numbers, then I could order accordingly. It’s just a thought, but I think it would be very beneficial.

In fact, I bet if you started numbering the deliveries in people’s que’s, you would get even more customers because they would treat like a game. Let’s me see how close I can get to being the blank customer. Point of clarification. That blank is a fill in the blank and not an expletive blank. It is amazing to me that many thought that this idea of sending DVD’s through mail would be a stupid one. Oops, I guess they were wrong. Apparently, it’s pretty popular. If you desire to read the article concerning this story, click here

Today’s top ten is of the most popular pet names. The name of our dog did not make it. I personally think that Ellie is a way better name than Smokey, but that is just my totally biased opinion.

Most Popular Pet Names

1. Max

2. Sam

3. Lady

4. Bear

5. Smokey

6. Shadow

7. Kitty

8. Molly

9. Buddy

10. Brandy

Do you ever feel like the picture above. I currently do right now. I’m not sure why, but the past few days I have felt sluggish and lazy and even unmotivated. This is not a good time to be feeling that way considering that a lot is going on in the life of J Crew. From the adoption process kicking off to Greek, things are pretty busy and yet, I find myself just wanting to nap all the time.

I don’t even feel motivated to write a post and am currently having some bloggers block. What do I write about? I can’t think of anything. How about what is going on? Nah. How about something funny? I can’t think of being funny? How about school? I’d rather not. It’s just one of those times I guess. I just wonder why I feel this way.

Maybe it’s because I have had two three day weekends in a row. Maybe it is because I haven’t been going to bed at a decent hour. Maybe it is because of studying or homework or maybe I am just being plain lazy. There have been times this week at work where I have been so unmotivated that I start walking somewhere and forget exactly what I was going to do or where I was going. It seems my mind is wandering or something.

The problem lies in the fact that this not normally like me. On top of that, I need to be dilligent to get things done. I’m hoping that this post will kind of jump start that. I know that everybody goes through times like this. In fact, just over a week ago Ando posted about this very thing. At that time, I wasn’t feeling that way and now I am. That is why I am writing this.

Maybe I need to read kludge’s post to the uncaffeinated again. It could just be that I need a little 6 pack of Dew to cure me right up. What I probably need to do is ask God for strength and end this post and start working my tail off. I think I’ll try that and some Dew.

This game has now become common place here at The Storekeeper. The rules are the same as they have been. Enjoy and take luck!!

When dreaming I’m guided to another world
Time and time again
At sunrise I fight to stay asleep
Cause I don’t want to leave the comfort of this place

In each of these instances money has to be spent in order for you to workout and feel great. Very rarely will you get paid to workout unless you are a professional athlete or something. I think I have figured out what the something is. That something is the Storekeeper. If you are a Storekeeper or if you do physical labor for your job, then you in essence should be grateful because you get two for the price of one. You get paid to do a job which feeds your family and you in essence get a paid gym membership.

Think of it as the Worlds Strongest Man, but for average Joes. For instance, when I “workout” at work, I’m not lifting 40lb barbells or benchpressing with weights. When I work out at work, I am moving 40lb boxes of paper from one side of the building to the next. Generally, when that season of work rolls around for me, I move 3 pallets a day until it is finished. We generally order 9-12 pallets a year and each pallet has 40 boxes of paper on it. So 3 pallets is 120 boxes at 40lb’s a piece. That is not a bad workout.

Secondly, each day I have the opportunity to carry large Arrowhead water bottles to various spots around the office. I generally move 3-5 bottles a day every day. This also is a great workout. It is because of this lifting that one can say to someone else. “Did you get your tickets?” “to what?” “To the gunshow.” There is also the opportunity to lift up pieces of modular furniture every time you adjust someone’s workstation or build an office.

Now this is just what the Storekeeper does during his paid workout. Others get a much more intense workout then that. They might be hammering all day or lifting large pieces of plywood around. Others might be delivering large bottles of water to various places. Still other might be shoveling or digging post holes all day. As you can see, one of the perks to these jobs is that you essentially kill two birds with one stone(I don’t do that literally by the way). You get paid to do a job and it in turn gives you a workout.

So if you are in a job like this or if there are times that you are getting paid to do some hard labor, remember that you are getting a paid workout. I bet you never thought of it that way. I didn’t either until I started working at my job as The Storekeeper.

I know that I have said this many times before, but I really enjoy sports. I love playing them. I love watching them and I especially enjoy playing fantasy sports. My 3 favorite happen to be baseball, football, and basketball and as such those are the three fantasy sports that I play. I enjoy playing fantasy baseball the best even though it is by far the most involved.

Recently though, Christine and I went over to our friends, the Writebols’ to watch a Nascar race. In all honesty, the race is and was pretty boring except for the start, finish and if there are any crashes. The Writebols’ play in a fantasy league for Nascar with Stephanie’s Father and they encouraged Christine and I to join. I didn’t want to because I am not a big fan of auto racing, mostly because I don’t know anything about cars. I wasn’t going to play until my wife decided that she wanted to. My wife is a pretty big fan of sports, but has been anti-fantasy sports for some time. I don’t exactly know what made her do Nascar, but any chance I can get to play and beat her, I’m in.

Which brings us to yesterday. Yesterday was the Super Bowl of Nascar, the Daytona 500. It is the first race of the Nascar season and it is the most prestigious by far. Everyone wants to win Daytona. It is like winning the Masters in golf or Wimbledon in tennis. Again, the wife and I went over to the Writebols’ to watch Daytona, this time with a vested interest. The league that we are in is with the Writebols’, Steph’s Dad, Christine’s Dad, and myself. The fantasy aspect works this way. Each person has 100 points to use on 5 drivers. If you spend more than that, you can’t play. This means that feasibly we all could have the same driver. Each driver earns points for you depending on what place they finish in the race.

My 5 drivers were Denny Hamlin, Jeff Burton, Ricky Rudd, Casey Mears, and Kyle Busch. I know nothing about Nascar so I had no idea if these picks were solid or not. I did some research, but I am a fantasy novice when it comes to this. As the race began, I was quite nervous and I was actually excited only because I want to beat my wife and Father in law at Fantasy Nascar. Daytona is a 500 mile race, which is 200 laps around the track at Daytona International Speedway. It actually was a pretty cool race with a lot of crashes. In the end, I had 3 guys finish and 2 were knocked out as a result of wrecks. As far as the points go, I am currently in second place, about 20 points behind SJ’s father.

I have to tell you that Fantasy sports makes you care about sports that you don’t even particularly like. I mean if there was fantasy chess, I would probably play it. There is just something about feeling like you have some ownership in something even when you don’t. I’m not sure what the Nascar season holds, but I know one thing, I hope to win in this Fantasy sport and I hope to win with the help of my partner Brad Carlson in Fantasy baseball for the 4th time in 7 years(but that’s for another post).

Today’s list is of the top ten most visited National Parks annually. I am sad to have to say that I have never been to Yosemite, but from what everyone tells, it is a must. I hope that I get the opportunity to be able to visit it sometime in the near future. Also, I thought that considering the fact that I am taking Biblical Greek, it would only be fitting to have the blog tile be in Greek. Pretty cool huh!

Rank Name Location Visitors

1. Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tenn. 9,192,477

2. Grand Canyon National Park, Ariz. 4,401,522

3. Yosemite National Park, Calif. 3,304,144

4. Olympic National Park, Wash. 3,142,774

5. Yellowstone National Park, Wyo.-Mont.-Idaho 2,835,651

6. Rocky Mountain National Park, Colo. 2,798,368

7. Zion National Park, Utah 2,586,665

8. Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Ohio 2,533,827

9. Grand Teton National Park, Wyo. 2,463,442

10. Acadia National Park, Maine 2,051,484

I generally arrive around 11:30 am and my work day begins. At the end of the day, I usually go back to what is called the County Center to pick up the court files. It is here where it gets crazy. I notice that the gas gauge is extremely low, which is alarming because usually I don’t let it get that low. I mean the line was below empty. I am the kind of person that doesn’t like the line to get much below a quarter of a tank, let alone past the E line.

Anyway, I figured no problem and around 4:20 pm or so, I drove into the maintenance yard near the airport to fill up the van with gas. As is my custom, I placed the hose in the gas tank and then I waited in the car for it to fil upl. Usually when I hear the pop, it means that the tank is full and it’s time to head off into the sunset. As I’m getting out though, I noticed that the gauge showed that I just put in 25 gallons of gas. I remember thinking, “I didn’t think the van took that many gallons.” Let me tell you that I was right. It doesn’t take 25 gallons. The moment I stepped out I heard the sound of water running, except it wasn’t water. I looked under the van and noticed that all the gas was pouring out and there was a nice trail of it past the van about 50 feet or so.

At this point I am not pleased. It is the end of the day and I wanted to be at home to play with my nieces who were over as well as get some reading done. Not to mention that very morning I took a midterm in Greek that was very difficult. Thankfully though, there was a fair amount of maintenance workers still working, which is unusual because of most them get off between 4 and 4:30 pm. Between them and myself we quickly placed a bucket under the van to catch as much of the gas as possible and then we got these bags of powder to soak in the gas.

The fire department had to come out to see if we did what was right and they said that all was good. The gas came close to going down a drain, but it thankfully stopped just short. The next thing we had to do was move the van out of the way and the maintenance crew called the tow truck to come and take it to the county garage on Wednesday where they are currently fixing a fuel line that burst. One of the maintenance men drove me, my court files, and cart back to my work where I was dropped off at approximately the time that a lot of folks leave for home.

It was pretty funny seeing me and my stuff roll up to work in a maintenance truck. “What happened Josh? Oh, nothing, I just had a little car trouble.” At the time, I was just thinking about how bad the timing was, but yesterday I got to thinking. If that fuel line burst while I was driving, something terrible could have happened. It made me stop and thank God for His sovereignty over my life as well as His love and mercy toward me.

I thanked Him for preserving me and asked Him to use me for His purposes. It is amazing how God uses situations in our lives to help us focus on Him. I am so thankful that I can rest in the fact that He has a plan for me and that He loves me. I am thankful that He has shown great mercy and grace to me and I need to thank Him more for it. In the end, it was a crazy day, but God used it to make me think about how I need to rest in His sovereignty over my life and I should desire in all I do to be a witness for Him. It was a great reminder.

Sorry for the lateness, but with Greek and work on Wednesdays it is more difficult. Same rules apply and same game as last week. I’ll start.

You’ll say that we’ve got nothing in common
No common ground to start from and we’re falling apart.

Have you ever had one of those days or weekends where there is so much going on that your head feels like it is going to spin and fall off the rest of your body. I have had those kinds of days from time to time and this past weekend was one of them.

There was a few things that I had to do that took not only a lot of time, but also a lot of mental effort. My brain currently feels like mush. I did a lot of typing and thinking as well as studying. I had a Greek exam this morning and once again, it was challenging. I studied for that puppy all weekend. I went over the parsing of the words as well as the translation. I went over the vocabulary and some of the grammatical stuff. I stuffed my brain so full that I thought it might explode.

Then the test came today. I don’t know what it is, but everytime I receive the test in my hand, I immediately draw a blank and I begin to sweat. This is a common theme with me and tests and today was no exception. My brain felt fried from the weekend of studying and now it was time to put that studying into practice. It is at this point that the qestions begin to creep in. Did I study enough? Did I study the right material? Did I study too much? Did I take out the trash? These types of questions seem to go through my head the first few minutes.

After this period though, I tend to settle down and then feel better. Most of the time, I feel not very confident after I have completed an exam. Lately, I have been feeling this way and have been receiving good marks. Today, I felt pretty good after the exam and that kind of scares me. I hope the opposite doesn’t happen. That would be unbelievable.

As I write this post, I am thinking that all I want to do when I get home is watch a movie or play video games. The problem is that I can’t. I have some reading that needs to be done. Hopefully I can muster up the strength to get that done. During times like these when I am feeling overwhelmed it is always good to know first of all, that God is in control of my situations and that I was the one who decided to go to school. When I have that perspective, things seem to feel a little better. I still feel a little burnt out though. Maybe I’ll skip the reading and partake of some video games anyway. NCAA ’07 baby!!