now that’s great church stewardship… not!

This news story on the heels of me pondering my church and stewardship.

HASLETT, Mich. – Divine intervention? Or just plain luck? No matter what the circumstances, a Michigan church is $70,000 richer courtesy of the Michigan Lottery. The Covenant Life Worship Center and its 25 members in Haslett, Mich. had one of the second-prize tickets in the Lucky 7s raffle held May 4.

The $10 ticket was purchased at a convenience store in Haslett, five miles northeast of downtown Lansing. The lottery Web site says the odds of a single ticket winning $70,000 in Lucky 7s are one in 55,556. Michigan Lottery officials say the church will receive the full amount of the prize because it is a tax-exempt group.

Pastor Marilyn Parmelee tells the Lansing State Journal that the prize money will go toward the church building fund, setting up a missionary fund and supporting local community service projects.

I was concerned about my church not taking “free” government money for a geothermal heat system. Here’s a church that takes its money and buys lottery tickets. Wow. That’s great stewardship. I just can’t quite put words together to describe my feelings. I guess I can’t wrap my head around their thought process.

pay taxes like i say, not like i do

From Yahoo News:

Treasury Secretary-designate Timothy Geithner said Wednesday he was careless in failing to pay $34,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes earlier this decade but declared “I have paid what I owed” and apologized to Congress.

It just makes me think, are you sorry you made the mistake, or are you sorry you got caught? Looks like a great guy to head the IRS… somebody who can’t even pay his own taxes.

a lazy “environmentally friendly backyard”

I spent a little time inside catching up on some old HGTV programs. One show I tape every weekend and eventually watch is Landscape Smart. They often have some good stuff and give me some ideas for my yard.

One episode I watched was Environmentally Friendly Backyard. Most of it was good. But… the homeowner said something close to the following (I forget the exact words) as they were ripping out the existing contents of their yard:

We have an electric dryer, the clothes-lines can go.

The “environmentally friendly” aspect of their back yard centered around filtering rainwater. They obviously didn’t recognize the hypocrisy of saying they’re trying to be “environmentally friendly” but not being willing to take a few minutes to hang up their clothes outside, huh? Which is “harder” on the environment? Unfiltered rainfall or the electric used to dry clothes? I honestly don’t know the answer. But, I’d say that if you want to portray yourself to the public as “environmentally friendly” you might at least not put down line-drying clothes.

Boo to HGTV. You should have just edited that part out of the show. Leaving it in there was just silly.

And, yes… I hang out our clothes except when it gets below 45 degrees. In fairness, now that my wife works at home caring for our son, we share that task roughly 50-50, but I’ve been the primary laundry-hanger person for 6 years. It’s really not that hard, people.

do you want a dictionary too?

While running an errand today, I spotted this bumper sticker. I had to read it three times to make sure I was reading it correctly. Along with a picture of Barack Obama, it said:

I don’t want coins
I wan’t change

I don’t know if this is an official Obama sticker or not. It was very close to a local Obama campaign headquarters. Did anyone proofread the thing? Wan’t?!?

can’t even formulate a response…

This was posted today on two freecycle groups in our area. I just can’t even formulate a response to the lunacy:

WANTED: NUTRISYSTEM FOOD
WANTED: NUTRISYSTEM FOOD

he’s still at it

The Washington D.C. administrative law judge that tried to sue a small dry cleaner into oblivion and failed is still at it. Apparently he still doesn’t get it. He still wants his $54,000,000 for a missing pair of pants. Don’t you wish you could just smack this guy upside the head?

wanted: gun cabinet?!?!?

I just saw this today on the local Freecycle group:

WANTED: gun cabinet
I am looking for a gun cabinet that has a lock on it.

So… you bought/obtained a gun, but don’t have anything to lock it up in? [begin sarcasm]Brilliant. That’s really wise and safe for your family.[end sarcasm]

I love blasting the crazy/lazy/excessive freecycle postings. But, this one–sarcasm aside–is just frustrating to me. Why would someone get a gun and not have a plan for locking it up. This is one of those “excessive” requests, for sure–like everybody has a locking gun cabinet lying around their garage. But, geesh, not really smart.

i think i gotta get some of these…

I’m sure this isn’t really new. But, I lead a rather sheltered life. So, it’s new to me.

This web site sells stickers you can leave on cars that are parked, well… cars that appear to have been parked by “idiots.” Now, I’m not sure about these being stickers that could potentially damage someone’s car. I wouldn’t want to do that (okay, part of me wants to, but I know that would be wrong). They’re stated to be “low tac” but, still could be a problem. Maybe just printing out pages with the web site logo would be enough to leave on a car–but I guess that would be breaking copyright laws.

Anyone else get bothered by “idiots” that feel they have to take up two parking spots to protect their precious cars?

remember this before your next trip to Goodwill

I took a box of stuff (clothes, books, shoes) to Goodwill just last night. As I grabbed the overflowing box of stuff, I quickly looked in the box to make sure there wasn’t anything in there that shouldn’t be there (no, I don’t mean that my wife snuck anything extra in there…) and to make sure that all the shoes were in there (that one didn’t fall out into the car).

So, today there’s a story on Yahoo news. A thrift store worker found $7,000 in a jacket and money belt at a thrift store. I didn’t look for money in the clothes I dropped off at Goodwill… doh!

ooooops

In the most recent election, a voter in Broward County in Florida mailed in an absentee ballot. Sounds good, since we know that voters there have a little trouble figuring out how to read the ballots on election day.

What is interesting about the ballot is that the person used a very rare stamp to mail the ballot–rare enough to be worth somewhere in the $500,000 range. Yeah–oops.

But, ready for the ironic part? The person didn’t follow the instructions and the ballot was disqualified. So… there goes $500,000 for nothing. What’s with folks in Florida? Can’t vote correctly at the polls, can’t vote correctly by mail.