2 billion a week

Here's what the American government is spending in Iraq:

$2,000,000,000.00 each week

$285,714,285.71 each day

$11,904,761.90 each hour

$198,412.70 each minute

$3,306.88 each second

Approximate total spent so far: $353,883,517,000.00

Amount borrowed to pay for the war: $353,883,517,000.00

Weirdness

In honor of being tagged by the PickleOs, I will do my own set of 6 weird things about me.

1. I like drinking hot water. I got this peculiar habit when I lived in China where all the water had to be boiled.

2. Unlike the rest of the world, I don't like chocolate and nuts combined. Hold the Snickers bar please.

3. I try to practice the Alexander Technique. You can read my initial impressions of this on my 11/21/05 blog post.

4. I'm trying to memorize the 12 words that have the letter "q" in them but not the letter "u". This is a strategy to help me win against my dear mother & mother in law in Scrabble. When's the last time you used qwerty in a sentence?

5. At night I sleep with my feet sticking out from under the covers. Hot feet means no sleep.

6. After college, I lived in 7 different cities in 8 years.

There, done.

New Dad praying

Being a new dad has changed the way I pray. It feels like I pray less.

I used to pray for my own needs. I used to pray for other people too. Now, I seem too tired and distracted to do much of that even though I think it would be great to be consistent in this kind of prayer.

But, I have been praying consistently for my 9 month old son. I pray that he will grow up to be strong and healthy in body, soul, mind and spirit. I pray that I will pass on as little emotional baggage so that he can approach the world with trust and strength rather than fear and shame. Finally I pray that he will love Jesus, be His disciple and bless many people.

So, even though I pray less than I used to, I feel a powerful intensity in praying for my son. Few things are as powerful in life as the blessing of your father.