Random and occasional thoughts on

After a couple of Tuesdays without a dedicated Good News Tuesday, it is about time for another edition. I ran across the first one today, but the story is from last week. It is a story of how people from all over the world heard about a family in need of financial help to keep their house. They needed $10,000 (US Dollars) in 2 weeks to keep their house from foreclosure. That was their financial situation after mechanical problems, health problems, job loss and an unexpected pregnancy. A friend posted an entry on her blog about the families situation and word spread. Read the story for a great tale of Christmas spirit. I read another story about some folks that anonymously paid off layaway items for some Sears customers before Christmas. I think this another great story because the donors are not doing this for publicity, but just to help some people have a little better Christmas. They chose to payoff necessities like children's clothes, shoes and even some toys. Read the ...

Half Full: 100% of the votes in last weeks poll about making regular "good news" post every week said YES! Half Empty: There were only 2 votes. So am I an optimist (half full) or a pessimist (half empty) kind of guy? Well, I like to think of myself as an optimist, but in this case, I am going to choose a middle ground. I will not commit to posting a dedicated blog every week about a positive story, but I will post a dedicated blog about positive stories every time I find one. I know there are positive stories all around. With just a little searching, I found this one: Woman buys foreclosed home for stranger. And talking about this next one always chokes me up a bit. You see, my youngest son was born with a cleft lip and pallet and while we are blessed to have had good insurance and were led to a great surgeon, many people do not have that chance. Operation Smile goes around the world donating the medical care needed to provide many kids with the surgery they need to ha...

The news is all too often negative and it sometimes seems like there is not a whole lot of good left in the world. The only purpose for today's entry is only to point out a few of the good people out there trying to make a difference. The neat thing is that I consider both of these people friends as we are fellow members of a close-knit online running community called the 30-something's. Lucky for me they don't enforce the 30's part of the group. Case Number 1 Larry is a volunteer firefighter. That makes him an example of good people right there by being willing to take personal risks to save others. That is not all. Larry is raising money to support his volunteer fire department department. That's right, he not only does NOT get paid to be a firefighter, but he is raising money to meet a need his department has. They do not currently have enough radios for each firefighter and that can pose a safety risk if all firefighters do not get a message in time or are...

Last week , I asked for opinions on which picture I should donate for a church auction. The voting on the survey was fast and furious and it was a ton of fun for me to read all the positive comments from people. I closed the survey and printed the winning photo. The race was close with several photos taking the lead and only a few votes separating the top contenders at the end. The winner was Waterfall : Hopefully the picture brings in some money for the auction.

Our church is having a silent auction and I thought I would donate a picture. I am thinking 8x10 in a plain black wood frame. Please take a look at the candidates and let me know what you think with the survey to the right. Also, feel free to add comments as well if you think a different size or framing choice would be better. BTW, please pass this link on to others so I can get as many votes as possible for this survey. Thanks!

Google announced an initiative called Project 10 to the 100th. The project web page says May Those Who Help Most Win. Their goal is to put people with ideas to improve communities, the environment, health or education together with money to help implement those ideas. It seems like a great idea. It will be interesting to see what ideas are submitted. Maybe the end result of this project will be to stir up some ideas that get the Google funding and some ideas that get enough interest to get other people interested in helping to make a difference in their own communities. Stop by their web page and see if you can come up with any ideas or if any of the ideas spark a chord with you.