Giving to those in need this Christmas?

One of my favourite missions organizations, Gospel for Asia, has an excellent Christmas catalogued, for giving to those in need in Asia. You can give an animal, which as Alton Brown says is like giving someone a small business. People can sell eggs from chickens, milk from goats, etc. Also you can give blankets, fishing nets, even a well.

One thing that I love about Gospel for Asia is that they promise to send 100% of your donation to the missions field. So if you worry about middle men pocketing money this is a good organization for you to give to. Everything that you give to GFA goes directly to people working in one of the areas that is most untouched by the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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Book Review: Tribes

Tribes by Seth Godin is a quick read on leadership. I read this book because it was listed on "Books every leader needs to read" or some such similarly named list. There are some good bits to glean out of this short book. I'll try to condense them here: Managers are not by nature leaders. Managers allocate resources to accomplish a defined outcome. Leaders change things by setting a vision and building a tribe around that vision. Tribes are everywhere big and small. Mega-tribes, sub-tribes, etc. Leadership is inherent risky. But far less risky than our minds tend to think. This is evidenced by the many failures of several highly successful leaders. (Think Elon Musk and the Tesla Truck presentation ). Find people who are doing exceptionally better than average and amplify their influence on everyone else. Leadership is about challenging the status quo. It is s...

Bike disaster leads to awesome discovery about my neighborhood.

While replacing the tire on my front wheel last week my quick release just completely fell apart. Being a bicycle maintenance noob I said to myself "No! Now I need to go buy a whole new wheel!" (and quick because this is my commuter bike ) I quickly hopped in the car and drove down town to the local bike shop downtown, which was closed. Apparently the owner is "biking and eating in Italy." I have only ever known of this one bike shop in The Dalles. In desperation I did a search for bike shops near The Dalles and low and behold a location popped up just blocks from my house. T & Nae's Cycles is a little appointment only bike shop a couple operates out of their house. I didn't know it was appointment only at the time so I just hoofed it up there to see if they could help me fix my bike. Luckily somebody was home and willing to help me out. Once I explained to him my problem he got me the part I needed (for free! ...

Writing Goals

Recently I came to the conclusion that I should write more often. That is, I believe, I should start to consider myself a "writer." That's the main reason there's been a bit of an increase in publishing to this blog (going from zero over the past few years to a couple times a month is a pretty huge jump). I, like most humans, have thoughts and opinions which are a product of the times and places in which I live. I figure I can do my part for future historians and write a few of them down. I also just might have enough creative juice to pump out a story or two. This blog I'd like to post to this blog at least once a week from now on, or at a minimum once a month. Really, anything at all would be better than what I've been doing. I'll mainly write about my life, family, interests, and opinions about, current events and local and state politics (I'll try to steer clear of national issues for my own sanity). Pretty...

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