Out of My Hat

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Sunday, 6 January 2013

The Benefits of Regular Posts

Posted on 23:07 by Unknown
I am not a regular blogger. When I started Out of My Hat, I thought that it would be nice to post something a couple of times a week or so. Looking back, there have been only three months that I have posted everyday--the past two months (Nov. and Dec. '12) and August of '08.

A noticeable benefit of daily posting is daily readership. (Imagine that!) For the first time in all of these years, I've manged to reach 4,000 hits in a one month period. I realize that's nothing compared to several of the blogs I read, but none-the-less, a mile stone worth mentioning.

Now that we are one week into the new year (how long is it acceptable to call it the "new" year?), I hate not to post for fear of dropping below the 4,000 count. The Google counter drops a day every day and then adds the hits from the current day. At the beginning of Saturday I was below 4,000 but made the climb on the daily hits. As soon as the counter rolled over to Sunday (6pm CST), I dropped back below the mark only to climb back during the day.

Really, it's not all that important. I suppose that if I allowed Google to run ads and I actually made money when people clicked on the ads, then it may be more important to keep readers coming back and to hope for new readers. As it is, it's just a personal best that the competitive person in me would like to keep improving on.

There were no political or controversial posts in December, but there were a couple of Christmas posts that received more than the usual number of hits. I guess I'll have to keep looking for interesting things to post about.

That's it for the first week of 2013. How are you doing on your resolutions? Still working out? Still dieting? Still reading the Bible? Still doing whatever it is that you resolved to do?

I'm just glad that you're still reading!
Have a great week #2 of 2013!
36 days 'til pitchers and catchers report to camp!
And the Cubs are still undefeated in '13!

John <><
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Sunday! Sunday! SONday!

Posted on 12:41 by Unknown
There is something about Sunday.

I look forward to Sunday mornings. This day, the first Sunday of 2013, was no exception.

Sundays are more than just a day off of work. Sundays are days set aside to express our love for God and to worship Him. Most Sundays I am at Hopedale. I am privileged to be to able share the Bible with our high school boys during our Bible study time. I am honored to be able to worship our God with a few hundred other believers. And I am humbled that God chooses to speak to me through the preaching of His Word.

Sometime this week I will share with you our Bible study lesson. I think it's a good lesson and needs to be shared with more than a dozen or so teen aged boys. But that will be for another post.

One of the things that made today an exceptional day was that I got to hear a second great message preached--another one from my son, Aaron.

Click here to take you to the link and on the speaker icon to hear the message (or arrow to download it).
Please take the time (a whole 24 min) to listen.
Where is your heart? Where is your treasure?

John <><


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Saturday, 5 January 2013

The Curse of the Bambino...

Posted on 00:13 by Unknown
It was January 5, 1920 when the New York Yankees purchased Babe Ruth from the Boston Red Sox for $125,000. This was after The Babe broke the major league home run record in 1919 with 29. As a Yankee, he broke the record again in 1920 (54) and 1921 (59).

After the deal, the Yankees went on to win 26 World Series titles and the Sox went 86 years before beating the St. Louis Cardinals for the Series Championship in 2004, thereby breaking the long lived curse.

Pitchers and catchers report to camp in 38 days.
Cardinal Season Opener is April 1st in Arizona--no fooling!

I'm getting baseball fever.

John <><
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Friday, 4 January 2013

Because We're Still Waiting for His Return...

Posted on 00:56 by Unknown
This Advent message was delivered several weeks ago. Because I didn't listen to it immediately, it managed to find its way to the bottom of my "things to do" list and was eventually forgotten. Because I am familiar with the young preacher, I should have been more attentive to getting around to listening to his message.

Bad Dad!

After being reminded of it (by my daughter in law), I did finally listen to it.
And she was right--it is a great message.

I hope that you have the twenty minutes (or so) to go to the link and listen to it.

John <><
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Thursday, 3 January 2013

Kicking the Can

Posted on 19:27 by Unknown
As much as I hate to start the year with another political commentary on the ineffectiveness of our elected reprehensatives, I have to say that I am thoroughly disgusted with the non-work that has been done in Congress in regards to taxes and spending.

I am interested in compiling a list of government expenditures that can be cut to reduce spending. I know that everybody has their own ideas--some well thought out and reasonable, some not so very much. If you have an idea, please suggest it here. Even one idea that saves a measly 1 million dollars is a helpful idea--really less than that if the expenditure doesn't outweigh the benefit.

Be nice.

Here we go!

John <><
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Wednesday, 2 January 2013

Joe the Dreamer: The Castle and the Catapult

Posted on 08:39 by Unknown
Joe the Dreamer: The Castle and the Catapult by Ada Brownell is a soon to be released book that is written by one of the leaders in our Christian Writer's club.

Even though it is a teen novel, I'm looking forward to its release.

Today's post just takes you over to Ms. Brownell's blog for an early look at Joe the Dreamer.
More on the book after its release!

John <><
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Tuesday, 1 January 2013

And the Streak Continues...

Posted on 09:14 by Unknown
It was after having posted for the first week in November and attending our monthly meeting of the Ozark Chapter of American Christian Writers' (OCACW) meeting that I felt challenged to write more often. I started by setting a goal to write something every day.

I did a little free writing and stored it in my Google Documents (now Google Drive). I also started something that may work itself into that elusive book. At first, I thought that setting daily writing time aside would mean that I would be blogging less. As it turned out, I decided that this is as good a forum as any to write if I am going to be writing a little bit every day.

...And after having posted something for the past 62 straight days, it's a little bit difficult to just not post something.

January 1 offers the opportunity to post about the grand plans for the coming year. I imagine that many are making their annual resolutions and even resolving not to have any New Year's resolutions. I'll make a later post about some of my personal decisions for the coming year--writing will be a part of them.

I know that at some point a day will pass that I won't post something here at Out of My Hat. When that happens (and it could be tomorrow), it won't be a big deal--not to me or to anybody else. But until then...

I am enjoying some subtle encouragement by receiving an invitation to join a writer's circle on Google +.
I am planning on bringing some of my writing to the OCACW critique group following the January meeting.
I am planning on writing better notes during my personal Bible study time so that I can develop sermons from them as the opportunities are presented this year.

I think that reading is a big part of being a good writer, so I really want to be more purposeful about reading this year. I read a lot. But in 2012 I found myself reading more of the daily articles, blogs and news stories on the internet than books of fiction or non-fiction. I rarely enjoy a book of fiction anymore; I need to do that once in a while this year.

I hope that you find enough interesting material at Out of My Hat that you will continue to read during the coming year. Hopefully there will be the occasional inspiration to share this post with your friends or leave a comment here or at on of the other forums where you might find Out of My Hat, like Facebook, Google +, LinkedIn or Twitter.

For now, duty calls and it's time to set this aside and get ready for work. I hope that you have a relaxing holiday recovering from your New Year's Eve celebrations.

I wish each of you a joyous and prosperous 2013!

John <><
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Posted in personal stuff, writing | No comments
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