The reunion was great. I didn’t get a chance to talk to everyone as much as I would have liked to, but it was very good to at least see everyone again and hear a little about what’s going on now. I pretty much flaked on the slideshow that I was supposed to have going during the reunion, so I made it afterwards, and decided to share it here. Enjoy.
I’ve had the same car for almost 9 years now. It’s a green, 1994 Honda Accord. It has been a great car for its 140,000 miles, and I’m going to be sad when it finally dies. I don’t know if any of you have learned anything about life from your car, but I sure have received more than a few valuable lessons from mine. I’d like to share two of them with you now.
As you can see, it’s not in the greatest shape. The main eye-sore is the paint on the roof and trunk which is oxidizing from being parked outside for the last 9 years. It’s a little dirty in this picture, but when it’s clean, it doesn’t look a whole lot different.
I went to a wedding a while back and I had heard that there would be valet service. Being that I had worked for a while as a valet before college, I decided to wash my car so that the valet guy wouldn’t be too disgusted. I got all the bird crap and dust off of it, and it looked ok. Not anywhere near a new car, but better than it had been. I valeted at the ceremony, and after it was over, the friendly valet retrieved my car. I got in and drove about two blocks from the church when I noticed that the little bus that was taking the wedding party to the reception was parked on the side of the road and all the occupants were mingling around outside of it. As I got closer, I was halted and told that the bus had broken down and would it be alright if I drove some people to the reception. I was more than happy to help out, so I told them I would. The brides mother and grandparents were elected as the first ones to get a “lifeboat” and leave the “sinking ship.” As the mother got into my car, she said, “Don’t you wish you would have washed your car for the wedding!?” I chuckled a little and nodded, but inside I was dying of laughter because I knew that I HAD washed my car, she just couldn’t tell cause it was so beat-up!
About 6 months ago, I went to dinner with some friends that I hadn’t seen in a long time. One of them was bragging a little bit about the new BMW that she had just bought. She explained about the cool features of the interior and how fast and cool it was. The conversation moved on and we eventually finished dinner and left separately. About 5 minutes after I left the parking lot, I got a call from her asking if I had jumper cables in my car. I said, “Yes, is everything ok?” She told me that they couldn’t get the car started and asked if I could come back and give them a jump. I turned around and headed back laughing a little to myself that my piece of junk car was going to save the day.
My point in these stories is not that I got to laugh at others who had a bad day or hard time. Sure, I chuckled at the irony of the situations, but I certainly did not take pleasure in their misfortune. My point is that even though my car isn’t that great looking, fast, or comfortable, it was still able to be used to help others.
Many times in our daily lives we are forced to recognize our shortcomings or the many reasons we don’t fit in with society. We might be unattractive, poor, unfunny, or not athletic. We may feel we have nothing to offer someone else or society in general. This is not the case! We can be of great value to others. All we need to do is allow ourselves to be used when the opportunity arises. Better yet, we can actively look for opportunities to serve others with what we have. We may not have a lot of money, but we can give a lot of encouragement to those who have had a bad day. We may not have nice possessions to loan others, but we can joyfully lend a hand to someone who needs help. We may not be funny or the life of the party, but we can listen to someone vent about their tough week at work.
It reminds me of the story found in John 6:5-13. Jesus was able to use the boy’s seemingly small gifts of five loaves of bread and two fish to feed over 5000 people. If the gifts were not given by the boy, then many would have gone hungry. But the boy offered what he had, and many others benefited from it.
Maybe you’re one of the lucky ones who is attractive, rich, funny, and athletic. The same applies to you in that whatever your gifts and talents are, they can be used to benefit others. This life would be so boring and meaningless if all we ever cared or worried about was ourselves. It’s a privilege to be able to help others, and I hope that we all can strive to look for the chances to do so every day.
It’s not very often that it happens, but this year almost all of my closest friends from high school got together to catch up. It made me happy and sad at the same time because it’s so good to see the people that had the 
greatest influence on my life growing up, yet we hardly talk or see each other anymore. I know that’s just the way it goes in life, but it doesn’t make it any less bittersweet. I’m glad to see that Sara and I have grown up and put our differences behind us, and no longer despise each other to the very core. Other than that change for the better, everyone else seems to be pretty much the same as I remember them. Sure, we all look a little different and discuss more important topics than what’s on MTV or who’s going to ask whom to prom, but I still relate to each person based primarily on my memories and experiences with him/her from back in high school. We were a great bunch of friends back then, and we’re still a great bunch of friends now… even if it’s only once a year.
I got a new job. I like it a lot. I’m now the High School Ministry Assistant at my church. In addition to the high school ministry, I’m also on staff as a Multimedia Technician which is in charge of running the video booth during services. Since starting on November 1st, I’ve been enjoying both jobs because of the level of satisfaction they bring. It’s very early on, but I could see myself spending many years with these jobs.
I’m sure some of you have seen those ads on the web advertising a free gift iMac, iPod, or Razr. When you get to their site, though, they tell you that you have to complete certain offers in order to receive your “free” gift. I read an article on the ‘net a while back that chronicled the author’s participation in a “Free Mac mini” gift site. He talked about his doubts that he would actually get his gift and about the ups and downs of completing the offers while dealing with the customer service people. However, in the end of the article he posts pictures of his newly acquired Mac mini, totally convincing me that it is legit. I saw an ad for a free iMac, and figured that I’d jump in and see how it went for myself.
The iMac being offered was the one with a 20.1″ widescreen, Intel Core Duo 2Ghz, 250GB hard drive, and 512MB RAM. Right now it’s being sold in the Apple store for $1,699.
I realized that the iMac was being offered from the same company that the Mac mini came from, so I decided to see how it would go for me. This gift would require me to complete 18 offers in order to get the iMac. Almost all of the offers required a purchase in order to get credit for completing the offer. Since most of them offered refunds, I calculated that I was going to need to spend around $135 after it was all said and done. Considering that it normaly costs $1,700, I was willing to spend at least $500 and still feel pretty good about the savings.
After completing all the offers on my end, there were 3 of them that didn’t report as completed to the gift site, and their terms stated that I had to wait at least 30 days before I could show proof of purchase and get credit for the offers. I waited the 30 days, and then they manually credited my account to show that I had qualified for the iMac. I filled out a redemption voucher and mailed it in, and 2 weeks later the UPS man dropped this off at my office:
It was delivered to where I work, so I could barely wait till I got home to open it up and get it running. I was so shocked that it actually worked! Not to mention the anticipation was killing me having to wait the 30 days for the credits to go through and to mail in the voucher. Here’s some shots of the unpacking.
Here’s a shot of the initial setup. Since I have a PowerBook, I can automatically transfer all my settings and files to the iMac so that when I sit down to use the iMac for the first time, it’s exactly like my PowerBook.
Here it is all set up and firing away! It’s noticeably faster than my PowerBook, however, it seemed to be a bit more RAM hungry. I quickly ordered an extra gig of RAM so now it has 1.5GB total, and hums along quite nicely. It’s amazing that Apple can fit all of that power and beauty into such an elegantly small package. I mean, if you didn’t already know, that’s the whole computer right there. The screen, the keyboard, and the mouse (optical Mighty Mouse, nonetheless). All of the components of the iMac are fitted into the white casing around the LCD display. (Notice the green box on the right side of the picture is a 512MB iPod shuffle that I also got from a freebie gift site and didn’t have to spend a penny.)
I thought I was gonna have to buy a new desk to fit the huge 20″ screen. I was quite surprised that it fit inside that little opening, but just barely horizontally. It really is a very sharp screen that is very bright and extremely comfortable to look at all day. I find myself having too much space sometimes. Wait. I didn’t just say that. One can never have too much space! The only annoying bit is that the SuperDrive is on the right side of the screen, so I have to rotate it slightly when I need to insert a CD or DVD. It’s really not that bad at all.
Ok, so you’re probably wondering the total amount that I ended up spending to get this wonderful new iMac for “free”. Well, I went over my original estimate by $79.85. The total dollar amount that I spent after all the refunds were issued and returns shipped was $214.85. Some of you might say that amount is well in excess of “free”, but may I point out that it is also $1,615.82 cheaper than I could have paid for it at the Apple store (price includes sales tax). It’s not everyday that one gets 88% off the retail price.
So in conclusion, I would highly recommend that anyone try out these “freebie” sites and bring home some really cool gear. There are tons of them out there offering a wide range of items from phones, to designer handbags, to iPods, to prepaid Visa gift cards. Not all of the companies are as reliable as the one I used, so be sure to do some research on the item you’re contemplating before you begin. Also, keep in mind that it takes several hours of your time and energy to do this. I had to keep checking up on offers to make sure I canceled in time to prevent getting charged for extra shipments. I spent quite a bit of time going over each offer’s terms and conditions to make sure there were no hidden costs or fees that weren’t clearly stated on the website. This alone probably saved me about $300. I kept a text document running and made sure to make note of how much they were charging, when I needed to cancel, and the phone number to call to cancel. I say all of this to make it very clear that I was very meticulous and aware of everything I was getting into, so if you are careless, you might end up spending more than you planned on, or possibly not even qualifying for your gift. Be careful out there. I’m not making any guarantees about your experience.
One last note. I got a call today from my credit card company saying that someone had attempted to use my credit card to make a $500+ purchase on some family reunion website in Utah. Obviously, I have closed the account and won’t ever know for sure if the account number was stolen by one of the offers I did or through some other means, but I felt that it was worth mentioning.