Happy Leap Day!

How does it feel getting an extra day this year?

Macy and I had an interesting conversation yesterday about Leap Year and Leap Day. She was very concerned for those people who may be born on February 29. Her conclusion, it's just not fair so why even have a Leap Day. I tried to explain the reason they needed to add an extra day every four years. But I don't think it helped her overcome the concern for people who might be born today and not really have a birthday every year.

Here's what Wiki says about Leap Year: February 29 is a date that occurs only every four years, and is called leap day. This day is added to the calendar in leap years as a corrective measure, because the earth does not orbit around the sun in precisely 365.000 days. Leap year is a year containing one or more extra days in order to keep the calendar year synchronised with the astronomical or seasonal year.

So what to do about those Birthday celebration for those born on February 29? Here's an article from yesterday's The Arizona Republic that addresses many of Macy's concerns about Leap day births. I would love to find someone who was born on February 29 - do you know anyone?

Happy Leap Day!

We Put Another Man on the Moon!

My friend Thom does local TV commercial here in Southwest Florida. And in this one he's doing his part to help turn around the construction industry in SW Florida. Thanks Thom!

What Did Mark Do Today?

It started early this morning. Actually it started last night...for some reason, I could not go to sleep. Spent all night blowing my nose, watching 6 episodes of How It's Made in HD, catching up on reading blogs, looking over my lesson and trying to go to sleep.

6:00am...Got an early start at church, going over a few things and getting ready for the morning.
8:00am...Taught this week's session of our New Member Class. My part is the Spiritual Maturity part - and I love teaching this material.
9:30am... I was the host pastor for the 9:30am Worship in the Hall service today.
11:00am...Taught my Bible Study class.
12:30pm...After class our church had a big party/picnic out in our Fellowship Park area. Ate Sonny's Barbeque and hung out with friends. Good time but wish it could have been a little cooler.
2:30pm...Got home, took a shower and got ready to relax. And for me, the best way to relax is to make a cappuccino. After drinking our cappuccinos, it was time for our nap. Remember, no sleep last night!
5:00pm...Started watching NASCAR, Auto Club 500. It took forever to get the race started with the rain delay. I'm watching now as I type this post. Watching NASCAR is a great finish to a great day.
9:15pm...Will this race ever finish?! Now it's raining again! And I'm starting to get real sleepy...

4 Weeks = 4 Months

I'm not sure this is entirely true, but it sure feels like it when it comes to running. I took off exactly 4 weeks to let my foot heal from an injury. Today I completed my first full week running again. Wow. It almost feels like I'm starting over.

My mile time is anywhere between 45 seconds to 1:15 slower than before the injury. Also, building back my stamina is a slower process than I thought it would be. I ran 2 3/4 miles today, almost making my 3 mile run. Before the injury I was running 3 to 4 miles a day 4 times a week.

Quick observation: We never stay the same. We are either growing and going forward or we are declining and moving backward. And I would say that's true for all of life, especially our walk/run with God. Are you moving forward or backwards today?

Update to MacBook Air vs Lenovo X300

Lots of interest in both of these computers based on the comments from my last post. If you would like a little more info on the X300 click here.

Apple Air vs Lenovo X300

Lots of hype over the last few weeks about Apple's new ultra-portable MacBook Air. Well, Lenovo has introduced some stiff competition of its own in the ThinkPad X300. Take a look at the comparison below.

Blogging in Word 2007

Did you know that you can use Microsoft Word 2007 for writing your blog post? I finally got around to giving this feature a test run this past weekend. It's pretty cool. And it's very easy to set up, if you use one of the major blog hosting sites like Blogger or WordPress.

Click on "new" under the Office button. Instead of starting a "blank document" click on "new blog post." You will then be prompted to set up with your existing blog account. And then your ready to start typing your next post. And you'll have all of Word's formatting tools at your disposal. Give it a try.

Finally Running Again!

It's been exactly 4 weeks since I was able to run. But today, for the first time since I injured my foot, I ran. And it felt really good.

This morning I took my usual 3 mile course. I ran the first mile. Didn't know how far I would be able to run, but was hoping to get a mile in. The foot felt really good. I walked the second mile. And then decided to run the third mile. The foot still felt good. Yeah!

It's feels real good being able to run again!