Ava escapes from her crib.

Well, this is the end of an era.

The last book I read in 2012, hard to put down

This book is currently available for sale on Kindle, iBooks, Nook, etc. for $3.99, great deal.

11/22/63 by Stephen King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I don't normally read Stephen King. I've only ever read one other book of his, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. I read that one in one sitting, it was that compelling. This book is the same way, except that if you read it in one sitting you're going to need a catheter, because this book is a long. With that said, I knocked it out in three obsessive days of reading. If you want to read a book that is very difficult to put down, this is it.

I'm a huge fan of anything to do with time travel. I don't know why, I just think it's a cool concept. Mr. King tackles time travel in this story and the "rules" he creates for time travel are very interesting and lend themselves to a great story. This book was thoroughly enjoyable, even though it is somewhat predictable. Highly recommend it. It's not technical, It has decent characters. It raises some interesting questions, and you'll be fully invested in the ultimate outcome of the book when the plot reveals the final choices the character must make. It would make a fantastic cable TV series!!!!



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Book Review, Jesus, My Father, The CIA and Me... great title, better book.

Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me: A Memoir...of Sorts by Ian Morgan Cron
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Loved this book! If you're looking for a book that is troubling, inspiring, challenging and hilarious all at the same time, this book is for you. Mr. Cron tells the tale of his life growing up with an alcoholic who worked for the CIA. It's the story of his families survival in the midst of their father's spiral into the depths of his disease. It is also the story of the author's own journey to faith through a combination of the sacred, the terrible and the mundane. He recounts this journey with a surprising amount of humor that makes the book incredibly hard to put down. I highly recommend this book!

Here are just a few quotes I liked from the book, there were many more but I don't want to spoil it for you:


Humans are the only creatures that require pageantry and ceremony in their social diet. (Ever met a squirrel that wanted a wedding?)

Cron, Ian Morgan (2011-06-07). Jesus, My Father, The CIA, and Me: A Memoir. . . of Sorts (Kindle Locations 591-592). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.



Frederick Buechner once wrote, “The grace of God means something like: Here is your life. You might never have been, but you are because the party wouldn’t have been complete without you.”

Cron, Ian Morgan (2011-06-07). Jesus, My Father, The CIA, and Me: A Memoir. . . of Sorts (Kindle Locations 768-769). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

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Another Bonesteel adventure....

Last night we had another Bonesteel adventure. If you're not familiar with this phrase, please read here. It has been very warm in Houston (in case you live elsewhere) but winter arrived quite abruptly on Monday. It dropped from 81 degrees on Sunday afternoon, to 26 this morning (Tuesday) when I woke up.  Conveniently our heater stopped working at 10pm last night.  Jessica googled a local services company that did emergency visits for no extra cost, because we were a little concerned with how cold the house would get between 10pm and this morning.

Thankfully, they sent a guy out at 10pm last night. He diagnosed the problem, a broken blower motor (or whatever it's called) and went to his truck to see if he had one that would work. He did!  So he got it out, went into the attic (all while the girls slept) and proceeded to replace the motor.  However, once he started it up, (this was approximately 11:45pm) it didn't work.  He was frustrated and realized the motor was faulty.  We were cold, and getting colder.  He said there was nothing he could do tonight, so he left. We bundled everyone up, and put Ava in our bed with us.  She didn't sleep so we put her back in her room and went to bed.  Got up this morning and it was really cold in our house. 

Thankfully, as I was typing this the guy got the new motor installed and we have heat.  The thermometer reads 62 degrees in the house, but that's after we had the oven on for about an hour this morning to heat the place up.  I imagine it was closer to 52 in our master bathroom when I showered.

So that's how we spent last night and got about 4.5 hours of sleep. Fun times with the Bonesteels.

Letters to a Young Life Leader

Letters to a Young Life Leader by Bob Mitchell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

No one knows Young Life better than Bob Mitchell. Literally he was a kid when YL basically started in his house. He grew up in and with Young Life. Served in every capacity possible, including as the President of the ministry. Bob Mitchell was a part of Young Life from it's infancy, through it's adolescence and now far into his own old age. In this book he boils down the basics of what makes Young Life unique, attractive, successful and timeless. Everyone who leads or cares about Young Life should read this book, because you will love it!

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You can purchase the hardcover version of this book immediately here.

The Kindle version is available at Amazon here.

Young Life Banquet 2012 Video

Our friend Peter von Kahle made this great video for our banquet this year.  He's a pro, hire him.

Collide - The Story of Young Life in Katy, Texas from Peter Philip Von Kahle on Vimeo.

Christians are Hate-Filled Hypocrites..... Book Recommendation

Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites... and Other Lies You've Been Told by Bradley R.E. Wright
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I loved this book! As a generally skeptical person I often read statistics about Christians, church, America and think "that statistic does not mirror my experience whatsoever". The author of this book felt the same way, so he went out and analyzed tons of statistics and the studies that produced them. What he discovered was both surprising and encouraging in many ways. Read this book!

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Book Review: Manhunt the 12 Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer

Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer by James L. Swanson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Everyone knows that Abraham Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth, and most people know that Booth was killed before being brought to trial. I am like most people. I would guess that most people don't know much about the conspiracy to kill the Secretary of State and Vice President as well, nor do they know the tale of how Booth escaped, and how he was ultimately captured. This book does an excellent job of piecing together many historical accounts of that time, and telling the story in a way that feels fresh for the reader. If this interests you at all, you'll enjoy the book.

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How I got early upgrades for the iPhone

Ok, so since yesterday, a bunch of people have been asking me how I managed to upgrade my phone early. It goes back several years.

We have 2 phones on our account, and they don't come up for renewal at the same time. One was always ahead of the other one.  So 2 years ago when the iPhone 4 came out I looked at our plan and low and behold Jessica's phone was eligilbe for the upgrade discount. So I went out and bought her the iPhone 4.  I had the 3GS at the time. A few months went by and I was insanely jealous of how amazing the iPhone 4 retina screen looked, so I went to our local AT&T store and asked about upgrading my phone. I wasn't eligible for the discount, and I didn't want to spend an extra $250 to upgrade without the discount.  Now, at the same time I was seriously interested in switching our home internet/cable provider from Comcast to AT&T Uverse. Mostly because I just really liked the features and interface that Uverse offered. So I said to the guy at the AT&T store, "What if I decide to switch to Uverse?"  At this point he went and got another guy, who clearly had the authority to swing deals, and we were talking!  After a few minutes of negotiating, I switched our home internet/cable provider to Uverse (which I wanted to do anyway), and I got a 32gb iPhone 4 for the fully discounted price.

So that's how I got the iPhone 4.  Then the iPhone 4s came out 10 months later.  So I checked our upgrade availalbility online again. By now, Jessica was eligible for the upgrade, again, but I wasn't. So I bought a 4S for Jessica and then had AT&T switch out the SIM cards so that I got the 4S and Jessica still had the iPhone 4.  She isn't as tech obsessed as I am (understatement).

A year after that (last week), the iPhone 5 comes out, and now my line is eligible for the discounted upgrade, so bam I get myself a iPhone 5.

All the while, I'm selling the old iPhones to friends or on ebay, and basically making back most of the cost of dicounted iPhones.

So, a year from now, Jessica's line will be eligible, and we can do it all again.

Hands Free Blog Post

This entire post is going to be done with no hands. I'm writing this post with my voice via my iPhone five minutes voice recognition software. It's pretty amazing how accurate this is in fact I want even it edited it all just post like this and see how good it looks. What do you think? I'm sure there'll be some inaccuracies and I don't how to make a paragraph break however this technology has certainly come along way the last 10 years. The picture you see above is me sitting in my chair writing this blog post without a keyboard without using my hands and I'll get the screener once a while.