Pod Brewers Not Worth It Based on Price Alone

I've been thinking about a new coffee maker lately. I'm getting married soon and one of the guilty pleasures on the registry is a new coffee maker for me. For those of you who know me well, I'm a bit of a coffee drinker. With all that in mind my friend Brandon got a new Single Cup Brewer for his wedding and he raves about it. Now #1 I'm a slow - medium transitioner which means I'm do usually go to the newest and latest thing as soon as its out but rather towards the end of the movement or somewhere around there. I get skeptical. I like the way I've been doing things... #2 I do my research on significant purchases. Check the consumer reports. Scour the internet for reviews and blogs. Thats just how I do things. So with the new coffee pot hopefully on the way I decided to do my research;

#1. I'm not blown away by the variety of coffees available. I know that there are tons of different "pods" out there but I just don't see any brands that are grabbing my attention. This tells me that I shouldn't buy into the hype, or just simply buy the hype. To me that's part of the whole coffee experience is getting the kind of coffee you want, flavor, acidity, texture...

#2. The single cups brewers are much cleaner. No spilled coffee grounds. Pretty simple and very nice feature

and

#3. The prices. My math... and i'm only 90% sure I'm doing it right ;-) says that an average brand of the single cup brewer pods cost $8.35/pound. While an average brand (Maxwell House) of ground coffee beans for drip costs $4.69/pound. That's nearly half! I found that the price goes up depending on brand, obviously more for dunkin donuts or starbucks brands... but you get the gist. Also there's the coupon thing... I have never seen coupons for the pods, but that could be because I haven't been looking. But I've seen them for ground beans. Even the buy 1 get 1 free deals we have down here in Chattanooga. That brings the ground beans down to $2.35/pound sometimes.

So I just can't justify the pod style coffee brewing yet. I don't know if the price will come down on them over time or not. And who knows, maybe one day I'll be rich enough to buy myself a pod brewer to have the convenience but right now I can't.

One man's trash...

I'm currently teaching softball to high school girls. Where I'm working there is this shed that houses the "sports equipment" When I was preparing to each I had to do a lot of sorting of the equipment that was in there. I had different sizes of softballs, bats, and two piles of gloves. The ones that were in one piece enough to be used and then the one's that were child sized or I could see the stiching was broken. The other day I found this string on the sidewalk that probably came out of a hoodie or a jacket when I walking down to class and just like my grandfather I picked it up knowing I would have a use for that string (immediately knowing that I would use it to repair one of the gloves) So today I take my string down to the sports shed and I just grab the first glove I see that isn't child sized and needs some stich repair and head out with the intention of repairing it. Well it only took 2 seconds for me to realize that I had just grabbed a Nokona baseball glove. For those of you who don't know the signifigance of that, Nokona is an american baseball equipment company known for their baseball gloves that are made out of premium leather, sometimes buffalo hide and other exotic hides as well. They are worn by major leaguers like David Ortiz, Vladamir Guerraro , and Miguel Tejada. Some of their gloves retail for $300, most around $175-$225. I'm going to look into getting it repaired. Despite being in a shed for who knows how long and not being used at all, the leather is relatively soft and the glove still has good shape. Anyway, you know what they say about one man's trash.... sometimes it ends up actaully being a treasure and maybe you were a tad bit mistaken about what you thought was worthless and you were donating away for free.

Where have all the fathers gone?

Recently at work I've been really struck by the lack of fathers in the lives of the youth of today. I work with teenage boys, providing a safe home environment for them. All of the boys I work with do not have their fathers apart of their lives. Some rarely see him some never see him. It is amazing to me that so many men have made the decision to not be apart of their child's life. How can it be that so many men are just dropping the ball? Failure to make the right choices, live with your decisions, and raise your son to be a honorable, honest, committed man. I don't understand how we got to this point. There once was a carpenter who risked severe ridicule and banishment to be the most important father in humanity, and now there are million of fathers incarcerated and incapable of being a role model. What happened?

Morning Devotions

I work for a non-denominational organization that provides safe Christian homes for children in need. During my time here I have had an opportunity to re-evaluate several things in my life and my career. I've also taken the opportunity to sit back at this job and look at how everything runs. I've noticed that worship here is something very different from my Seventh-day Adventist dominated experiences. Things here are very relaxed, heavily Southern Baptist (despite the non-denominational title), and more focused on the emotional. In my few months I've seen worship come and go, I've seen praise leaders drinking coffee mid-song during praise, and I've seen the past month and a half go by without a daily devotional thought. So I decided that I was going to have one.

I struggle with having daily devotions. Because of my own struggles I was nervous to start having morning devotions here at work for fear that I might let them down or they might not be interested. But we had one this morning. Two boys came and one said they wanted it every morning. I'm pretty excited about it and I hope that it grows into something great.

Trust Fall

I started a journey a few months ago. It wasn't wanted, but now with a little perspective (emphasis on the word little) maybe it was needed.

I used to be a teacher and dean and coach and a thousand hats at an Adventist boarding school in North America. The way these schools work is that every staff is hired on either a 10 month or 12 month contract. I was a 10 month employee. When spring starts to show its first signs, that's when all the staff start asking each other whether they got the letter that either asks them to return for the following year or says that the school will not be renewing your contract for the next year. In essence, letting you go. Personally I don't like this, I see and know all the benefits of this system, but I think its really ineffective. Being a 10 monther and it being early march I began to ask around and other staff began to ask me whether or not I'd received my "letter". After about a week of finding out who had received letters and who had not and waiting patiently for mine, I went to the principal to find out what my future was going to be. What I discovered was that I had not been communicated with because the board and budget committee hadn't decided on what they were going to do and my job was one in question. Even though I was being told to my face that there was a good chance that my job would be approved in the upcoming budget committee meeting and that I would have word in a week, it was in that conversation where I was informed that my job had been in limbo and that all other staff had received word on their job status BUT me because the principal just hadn't gotten to it yet, that I needed to start looking for a job.

The hundreds of cover letters, resume's, and references attached to hundreds of emails for jobs found after spending hundreds of hours searching the Internet commenced. It was just like the previous spring when I was graduating except back then I knew it was coming.

A week came and went, my phone call never happened so I made it happen again. Again undecided. Then my news was pushed back to a board meeting weeks away. All the words spoken to me said that I was going to be OK. But I knew that I was out of there.

The school year ended and I made the decision to move to Tennessee. This is where a lot of friends are. My sister is here. And my girlfriend. So I decided to jump to the south and see what happened.

I was able to get work for the summer, all the way through the first couple days of September. The whole time I was searching for work.

Just a couple weeks ago I was looking for jobs on craigslist and came across one that was right up my alley. I sent off an application that night and by the morning I was on the phone with their HR figuring out a time when I could come in to interview. The interview went great, as well as the following 2 interviews, and just a couple days ago i received a job offer.

I'm really excited about this new chapter in my life. I really feel like the Lord was leading. But this whole experience, 6 months long, reminds me of a trust fall. You know those things that you do at camp or work retreats where a person is up on a platform about 4-5 feet off the ground and they stand to the edge with their friends, or strangers, waiting with their arms out to catch the person who lies stiff as they fall backwards to the earth. It can be a little nerve racking.. I struggle to give up control of my life to God. I like to strangle it with my control. But I've had to walk backwards to the edge of the platform, cross my arms and fall backwards into the arms of God. Hitting my knees and giving up control to Him was really hard for me to do. There's nothing more I can say than that. Its just really really hard.

And just like when your back hits those arms waiting below and relief rushes through your body as you realize that you did not hit the ground and that you will be OK, I had the same moment when I knew I was going to be alright. I was leaving my interview and driving over the bridge. My mind was just running as it analyzed what had just happened and how I felt about this place and just trying to digest it all. I looked out to the left and there was this huge rainbow across the sky. I knew then that I was safe and that everything was going to be alright.

I've grown a lot spiritually these last 6 months. I think I've grown a lot as a man these last 6 months and those are one in the same. What I thought was a really bad deal turned out to be a great experience for me. I don't know what is ahead of me in my far future but I know that I am going to be alright with God at my side. I do know where I'll be for my immediate future and that has its own comfort but there is a deeper comfort in knowing that I'm following Gods will for my life.