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Pilot Points Wins State Championship 2009

December 13th, 2009


The news is good for Pilot Point who has waited for a state championship since 1981. Now it’s here. I thought this morning … what a memory they have made … something to look back on for years. Lot’s of stories of how it happened and all the circumstances that surrounded it all. Congratulations to players, coaches and parents for the hard work and support that brought you this wonderful victory.

They won this 2A Division 1 title which came in a victory against Kirbyville on Saturday, December 12, 2009. This all amidst the tragedy and homegoing of Henry Davis, the father of Jarman and Willie Davis, the running back and defensive back for Pilot Point. Henry so wanted this to happen … and it did. It brings it all so close to home to our little town. We did a special shirt for Henry earlier in the season with both of his sons names and numbers on it. You just never know.

As the Morning News reports here,

As the clock ran out, the state title and a 15-0 record was officially theirs, the Bearcat players dashed onto the field, embracing each other in the cool night’s mist.

“Once we came out 35-18,” senior wide receiver Tyler McNairy said, “we knew we had it.”

This was the plan for McNairy and the seniors since they were in seventh grade. They knew they had talent, and McNairy said that after last year’s state semifinal loss they had a businesslike desire.

All that showed throughout the playoffs. Before Saturday, Pilot Point had defeated three previously undefeated opponents, one of them by a last-second field goal in the regional championship.

“It’s been one of those storybook seasons,” coach Blake Feldt said.

Yep, storybook season. Lifetime memories.

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Retailers Using Twitter to show you how

December 4th, 2009


The New York Times says this is America’s first Twitter Christmas. Retailers are using the social media to guide customers parking to special sales to instant tech support. What a world we live in.

After buying a new navigation system at 6 a.m. on the most frenzied shopping day of the year, Laura S. Kern of Los Angeles could not figure out why it was not giving her traffic updates. She sent a message to Best Buy’s Twitter account and within five minutes not one, but two Best Buy employees responded with fix-it advice.

In Bloomington, Minn., Mall of America used its Twitter page to tell consumers two of its parking areas were at capacity and that their best bet was to park near Ikea.

“It’s one of the greatest emerging communication channels out there,” said Greg Ahearn, senior vice president of marketing and e-commerce for Toys “R” Us. “This is a way people can stay connected with the brand in a way they’ve never been able to before.”

As shoppers jammed the aisles on Friday at a Best Buy store in Arlington Heights, Ill., an employee, Jerry DeFrancisco, went up to a computer kiosk and used his Twitter account to tell customers about Best Buy’s home theater deals. Then he resumed his in-store duties, helping a customer decipher a sales circular.

Of course, sometimes retailers simply use their Twitter posts to capture the spirit of the season. At 3:30 Thursday morning, an employee posted seven words on the Macy’s Twitter page, about a marching band that was practicing hours before the chain’s Thanksgiving day parade.

It said: “Is he really running with a tuba?”

Source: The New York Times

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Boomers are not through parenting

December 4th, 2009


This report hits home with me. Growing up in a multigenerational situation (my grandparents raised me), I know the challenges that face today’s youth dealing with grandparents as their main caregivers. There are some positives, but sometimes there are very weighty issues that grandparents just do not deal with.

This surprising tread shows that the nuclear family is losing ground to multigenerational living. More people are choosing to move themselves and their children in with Mom and Dad, often to cut costs. This article found at advergirl.com is based on a survey reported here. Advergirl writes:

These households are fundamentally different than those of the care-giving Oreo Generation. In 62% of these multigenerational cases it’s the adult children who are moving back with their parents, who are the grandparents. Three-fifths of these grandparents are providing some sort of financial assistance to their fully-grown children.

Three larger trends are making this an increasingly popular choice:

* Grandparents are doing better than most financially. That’s because 55% of grandparents do not carry a mortgage, and grandparents control more than half of the country’s wealth. So while grandparents have certainly taken a hit in this economy along with everyone else, they are, in many cases, more solvent than their young married children with young children.

* Grandparents are investing in their grandchildren. According to our recent national study, The Grandparent Economy, grandparents are spending about $32 billion on their grandchildren’s education, $11 billion on clothes for the kids, $6 billion on toys, and nearly $700 million on diapers.

* Decision-making is increasingly multi-generational. Whether it’s what first car to buy, where to go to college, or who to choose for insurance, grandparent’s are increasingly part of the decision making, both with their children and their grandchildren.

This trend not only provides more financial stability for the children and grandchildren, it appears to have rewards for the grandparents as well. Many grandparents say not only that they love having their family back under their roof; they also love being needed again. They say it brings purpose to their days, and meaning to their lives. The physical demand of keeping up with the kids makes them feel younger; outdoor play burns off both calories and tension; and helping with homework provides mental stimulation.

Sources: The new influencers: Grandparents weigh in and Multigenerational Households on Rise

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Amplify Design’s Names of God Banners

December 1st, 2009


NOG-page-headerHave you seen those banners that have the names of God on them like … Jehovah Shalom, The Lord our Peace or Jehovah Nissi, The Lord our Banner?  I remember the first time I sat in church and saw some of those hand made banners … honestly I had never even studied “the names of God” until I was acquainted with the banners … and I was a bible student! It really made me dig and study all of the names of God … for myself. It was a lasting study and helpful in my personal prayer life. Well, the folks at Amplify Designs have the whole set of “the names of God” in a great package. Not only that … but they have a bunch of other cool banners pre made for your church or ministry signage needs.

They have a special running right now … mix and match any 5 banners and get the 6th banner FREE. That’s a cool deal. I know these folks at Amplify and they are the real deal. Not only to they produce great work, being in the sign business for 3 generations … but they have a heart for missions. A quick trip to their website would yield a glimpse of their heart for Africa. I don’t know very many business owners who would take off a month for a short term mission trip. I took off a week and thought the business would collapse.

Amplify Designs has a ton of other series and seasonal banners … for Easter, Mother’s Day, Christmas … you name it. If you have waited until the last minute … don’t sweat it. These banner files are pre made and ready to print. The Amplify folks will bust it to get them to you.

To help you with your display needs they have a lot of product like stands, rizors, roll up, sandwich signs, and pop up displays. Some might say, Wayne … don’t you guys do banners. Yep, we do … but these folks have some very quick picks for pre made banners and it’s all they do. You need to check them out.

Tell them you saw this post at waynegooden.com

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How many men vs. women use social network sites

November 30th, 2009


socialnetworkgraphArticle from Derek Baird via Barking Robot on Males vs. females on social networking sites. He reports:

To determine the ratio between male and female users on these sites we used site demographics data for the United States gathered from Google’s Ad Planner service.

Before we move on to the chart, here are a few quick observations based on the results we got.

* 84% (16 out of 19) of the sites have more female than male users.
* The social news sites Digg, Reddit and Slashdot have significantly more male users than female. The standout here is Slashdot which takes male geekdom to new heights with 82% male users. :)
* If we hadn’t included the three social news sites, all of the sites would have had more females than males.
* Twitter and Facebook have almost the same male-female ratio; Twitter with 59% female users and Facebook with 57%.
* The most female-dominated site? Bebo (66% female users), closely followed by MySpace and Classmates.com (64%).
* The average ratio of all 19 sites was 47% male, 53% female.

And here’s a chart with the male/female ratio for all the sites, for your viewing pleasure:

from this source at royal.pingdom.com

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Insecure Infants grow up to be Insecure adolescents

November 30th, 2009


Interesting article brought to us by Jim Liebel at Youth Culture Watch.

Researchers from the Université de Montréal, Sainte-Justine University Hospital Center and McGill University have discovered that insecure adolescents experience more intense pain in the form of frequent headaches, abdominal pain and joint pain. These teens are also more likely to be depressed than peers with secure attachments.

and this is an interesting statement:

“Although previous studies in adults found that an individual’s security level was influenced by painful experiences, it was not clear why relationship security should be related to pain,” says Dr. Tremblay. “We found that adolescents with insecure relationships tend to be more ‘alarmist’ about their pain symptoms; they have a tendency to amplify the degree of threat or severity of their pain. This amplification leads to more intense pain and more severe depressive symptoms.”

From this article: @ ScienceDaily

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61 year old kicks for Austin College

November 28th, 2009


Well, he did it. 61 year old Tom Thompson got into the last game of the season for Austin College and kicked an extra point. Way to go Tom! Never let your dream die. Tom was a back up kicker in High School and even though old enough to be a grand father … went to practice, did the drills, got the respect of team mates and his coaches. The game for Austin College was a blow out … but they did let him in and let him kick. Sure he made it! I know that is what you were wondering. Despite a messy snap … he made it happen. Tom did it for the thrill and a book he is writing on aging and fitness. Just so you know … there are lots of old guys out here that don’t want our age to slow us down and think about playing another game of football. It could happen.

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Youth ministry, an anxious tribe

November 26th, 2009


Adam Mclane from adamclane.com has an interesting post that I have pondered and re-pondered. His “Anxiety in Youth Ministry” is well founded in my heart, as I too have been anxious for a couple of years as to … what will happen to church as we know it … or have known it. Adam quotes Campolo …

“Church, as we know it today, will collapse with the economy. And we will shake ourselves off and ask, ‘what do we do now?”

I know many will read this and just let it settle on deaf ears as some fatalistic statement from a kook. But, is it really? If I were an employed minister on a church staff at this point in history … I would be anxious too. Oh, I am anxious enough with the economy and owning my own business. Truth be told, when I first began to feel anxious about the future of the church as a whole … I felt that I needed to do something about not depending on the “organizational” church for my income. Another story, and I digress.

Adam makes this observation next in his post.

A year later we have to step back and acknowledge that in many ways Tony was right.

    * A down economy has forced tens of thousands of churches to re-evaluate how they spend money. Not a bad thing, but has caused stress at all levels of church staffing.
    * A shifting culture, and the owning of the reality that traditional youth ministry programs are fading in their effectiveness… more stress for youth workers.
    * Time to think, causes that stress to bubble to the surface.
    * The length of time things have been stressful (for some, 2-3 years now) causes this stress to manifest itself.

Adam calls it … tribal anxiety. And the big question is … what do we do with it? The link to his article.

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The Growing Backlash Against Overparenting

November 26th, 2009

Great article by Nancy Gibbs at Time magazine.

a_whelicopter_1130

The insanity crept up on us slowly; we just wanted what was best for our kids. We bought macrobiotic cupcakes and hypoallergenic socks, hired tutors to correct a 5-year-old’s “pencil-holding deficiency,” hooked up broadband connections in the treehouse but took down the swing set after the second skinned knee. We hovered over every school, playground and practice field — “helicopter parents,” teachers christened us, a phenomenon that spread to parents of all ages, races and regions. Stores began marketing stove-knob covers and “Kinderkords” (also known as leashes; they allow “three full feet of freedom for both you and your child”) and Baby Kneepads (as if babies don’t come prepadded). The mayor of a Connecticut town agreed to chop down three hickory trees on one block after a woman worried that a stray nut might drop into her new swimming pool, where her nut-allergic grandson occasionally swam. A Texas school required parents wanting to help with the second-grade holiday party to have a background check first. Schools auctioned off the right to cut the carpool line and drop a child directly in front of the building — a spot that in other settings is known as handicapped parking.

and this ~

The insurgency goes by many names — slow parenting, simplicity parenting, free-range parenting — but the message is the same: Less is more; hovering is dangerous; failure is fruitful. You really want your children to succeed? Learn when to leave them alone. When you lighten up, they’ll fly higher. We’re often the ones who hold them down.

Read the rest of the article here.

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LA Times says muppets do queen better than Lambert

November 25th, 2009


I agree!!! Here’s the link to LA Times story.

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