Chris Comeaux's Collection of Contemplations

Charitable Giving

2009-12-10T15:43:00.005-06:00

I got this image from the Mint.com blog. They typically post things that are enlightening, but I found this especially so. Two things jumped out at me:

Conservatives give more than liberals. I've tried to tell my liberal family that I do believe in taking care of the less fortunate, but I can do that much better than the government.
"Religious" people give more to secular charities than secular people do. Now, I'm not sure what makes one religious in this study, but certainly puts reduces the "religion is only good for starting wars" argument.

budget planner – Mint.com

New Orleans Mission Trip

2009-08-03T10:03:00.008-05:00

For a week in July the past 2 years, Liz and I have traveled with Brook Hills to South America on a mission trip. In 2007, we went to Venezuela with the worship team to a lead a conference. In 2008, we went to Ecuador to do a similar event, but combined with the conference a sort of vacation Bible school for the local children.

This year was a little more domestic; we traveled to New Orleans. This time we didn't lead a worship conference or do anything musical. Instead we helped rebuild homes that were damaged by Katrina. The trip was advertised as being for the worship ministry, but it turned out about half of the 80 people going were not associated with the worship ministry at all. This allowed members of the faith family who don't normally interact to get to know one another. Since we have more than 4,000 members, I cherish these opportunities.

We worked through an organization called Operation Noah. They took care of a lot of the details for us. For starters they gave us room and board. The rooms were in a church that was nearly destroyed by the hurricane. You can see where the rushing water dented the side of the church! There was a team of from a church in Mississippi that cooked both breakfast and lunch for us everyday we were there, as well as setting out the ingredients for a brown bag lunch. The meals were very good and included red beans and rice and pancakes that rivaled Liz's dad's.

Operation Noah also had a warehouse with equipment and supplies along with a list of projects that we were to work on. We divided everyone into teams of 5, each led by a skilled craftsmen from ages 18 to 50+. All told we worked on more than a dozen homes, each team working alone or with one other. This allowed the small teams to really bond with each other.

Liz and I were the runners for the week and didn't work on any particular job. This was both good and bad. We got to see all of the projects every day of the week. It was amazing to see them progress so far in such a short time. It also gave us the chance to get to know everyone a little bit, as the cost of getting to know a few people well. We also got to see a lot of the city. On the flip side, we did feel like we cheated a little by not getting as dirty as everyone else. We stayed extemely busy running around among the projects, the warehouse, and hardware stores, so we knew we were needed.

The project we wide ranging and included:

installing siding, both vinyl and wood
painting
installing and finishing drywall
replacing a subfloor
finishing cabinets

I was impressed at our collective skill and hard work to get a lot of quality work done in just four days. We clearly made a physical impact on the home owners. But the impact was also spiritual. One home owner told us the storm made her lose faith in God, not because of the disaster itself, but the actions of people as a result of it. She said we were restoring her faith in people, and subsequently God. I'm overwhelmed we could have such a profound impact.

But all work and no play make Chris a dull boy. So I brought games. I didn't realize we'd have so much free time. On our past 2 trips, our entire day was planned out. This time, we worked really hard for 8 hours, but then were free to do what we wanted. So while some hit the town, many of us played games.

I was asked to bring some of my collection, but Liz encouraged me to bring more involved games than just Time's Up!, such as Settlers of Catan and Bohnanza. Boy, was that the right decision. A game of Settlers was played with 6 players every night. Bohnanza is still getting played almost daily as some of the gang borrowed my copy. Of course, Time's Up! did make it's usual big splash.

In addition to being plain fun, the games gave us a chance to get to know some of the high school and college kids a lot better. I was super-impressed by all of them. I know I didn't have my head on my shoulders that well when I was their age.

Liz and I stayed through the weeked to celebrate our 3rd anniversary a little early. This included dinner at the Palace Cafe and August, a ride on a swamp boat, lunch at Mother's, and a day in the French Quarter. Oh yeah, and lots of sleep.

What a great trip. Every year I think I'm going to really sacrifice for God's glory and the hearts of those we're ministering to, but we always seem to be the ones most impacted.

Be sure to check out our pictures on Picasa. I wonder where we'll go next year...

Trip to Fall Creek Falls

2009-03-02T21:59:00.000-06:00

Holy moly, I'm getting this out more than a month later than I intended. Better late than never I always say (as most procrastinators do!).

Thanks to Greg Schloesser to organizing a weekend trip to the Fall Creek Falls state park in Tennessee back in January. Eleven of us descended on this beautiful park for hiking, gaming, and eating.

I've to been Gatlinburg, TN many times, often hiking, so I thought I knew what to expect at Fall Creek. I had no idea there would be such gorgeous gorges (heh). The park is on top of a plateau and has all kinds of rifts in it that drop straight down creating beautiful waterfalls. I forgot how many falls there are, but the ones we saw were all great. It helped that the sun wasn't able to reach the river, leaving much of it frozen.

All told, we went on about 5 separate hikes. Some crossed the river with rope bridges that bounced all over the place as you walked on them. Some we slightly averse to walking across them, but we didn't lose anyone on the trip, so they were safe enough. Half of us went on a cable trail - a trail that was easily steeper than 45 degrees where we needed a cable to get down. It was well worth the effort to get down to the base of the waterfall.

The Bergs introduced us to the wonder of geocaching. Basically this is treasure hunting with GPS devices. We were 2 for 4 in our hunt. 1 of the locations eluded us only because the river was too high to cross. That didn't stop us from trying. The other location we missed probably had its target covered by leaves. It was totally work the search as we found a big cave behind a waterfall way off the beaten path. Liz and I have since purchased a GPS unit as a gift for each other to continue geocaching - thanks for the introduction Craig and Kim!

We also gamed of course. The 11 of us know each other primarily through board gaming circles, so when the sun went down, the games came out. The highlight to me was Greg teach me Le Havre. I have since played it 3 times, and it's quickly becoming one of my all-time favorites.

Last but not least was the food. Sheldon made Chili that I had at least 3 separate times over the weekend. Liz made her soon-to-be-famous corn dip. The Bergs liked it so much, they made it for the Super Bowl. Now if only we could find the wheat chips we used to use - they're not at Target or Publix any more! Mike Adams skipped the cable trail so that he could make his homemade spaghetti sauce. That was a good call - it was unbelievable. Finally, the Bergs made pulled pork sandwiches. The pork melted in your mouth before you could chew it.

That's all I can remember as it's been more than a month now. We're already making plans to do it again next year. I can't wait.

Very Sad Week

2009-02-08T20:36:00.002-06:00

I thought the next blog post I made was going to be about my recent trip of games and hiking. That will have to wait a few more days. I wanted to share the unbelievably sad week I had. All of the following things happened in the last week:

One of my friend's mother died. I know she had been having health problem, but I think she was still pretty young.
A coworker lost her father. She lives in California, but he is in Alabama where she grew up. She was on her way back home to see him, but he passed just a few days before she left. Again, I believe he was having health problems, but still quite young.
My gaming friend passed away at the age of 36. Just one year older than me. He suffered from the same cancer that took my dad.
One of my favorite high school teachers passed away from a sudden heart attack. He was still teaching and was believed to be in good health.
An ex-coworker's (actually the one who hired me to MedSeek) 8 year-old son was diagnosed with stage 3 lymphoma in his stomach and other internal organs. This is a very aggressive, but treatable cancer.
Talking with a current coworker, he remarked that he didn't know how he would handle it if this was happening to his son. Later that night, he took his 10 week old son to the hospital where he had emergency surgery to remove a large brain tumor.

I have been overwhelmed at all of the bad news I continued to receive over the week. Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, I would receive more bad news. I don't think I've ever had a week like this before in my life. I've had to rely on God and remind myself of his sovereignty. Most of the people in the list above are Christ-followers, so that gives me comfort that they are likely doing the same. I am thankful that I have the freedom to do that and the friends and family around during these trying times. I am especially thankful as I know there will be more times worse than these.

2008 in a Nutshell

2009-01-21T21:17:00.000-06:00

As expected, my goal in 2007 to blog fell completely flat. As Bay pointed out, I lasted 3 days. So I will attempt to do this again in 2009. I've already posted one thing, so I'm doing something right.

Let's renew the blog with a recap of 2008. Hopefully I'll remember all of the good stuff.

In January, I was working long hours at MEDSEEK to meet what seemed to be weekly deadlines, while Liz was working weekends for various events at WORKPLAY. Yes, both companies capitalize every letter in their names.

In February, I was able to get away for a couple of days to Gulf Games 21 in Huntsville, AL. I was only able to make it up Friday night, but the trip is only an hour and a half, so it was well worth it.

In March, Liz changed jobs. She left event planning and sales to begin working for our church, Brook Hills. She's the ministry assistant for the Worship staff. That means she keeps all of the creative people organized. Not easy. She loves her job, especially due to the great people. Plus it's strictly 40 hours a week. She doesn't even have to work most Sundays.

April had 3 weekends of fun in a row. Our nephew Bryson turned 2 (where we took too many pics). He looks just like my dad did at that age. I don't think it's a coincidence since Dad died a few months after Bryson was born. The next weekend Liz's cousin Millie got married. Her husband's name is Josh, same as her sister's husband's name. Weird. The next weekend was the annual Magic City Art Connection. This is an outdoor art show that we attended on our second date. In addition to being nostalgic, they have some great art there. We bought a photograph and some pottery and always see stuff we like.

May was a low-key month. Besides getting sick, I got to reconnect with one of my best friends from high school, Mike Murphy.

June started off with a bang - a nine day mission trip to Ecuador. This was similar to the trip we took to Venezuela the year before. We lead a worship conference for native Ecuadorian church leaders, but we also conducted vacation bible school-like sessions for local inner-city kids. The trip was an amazing experience and the country and its people were beautiful. We have photos to prove it. Click on in front of an active volcano to see the entire album.

Ecuador

Also in June, I was able to return to the Oasis of Fun for more gaming with friends both old and new from around the country. I had missed the last 2 or 3 years, so I was glad to reconnect with gamers I hadn't seen in too long.

July was pretty uneventful, but I was able to make it to Gulf Games as I try to do every 6 months.

At the end of August, I changed positions within my company. No longer would be an engineer/developer/code monkey; now I was an architect. Nay, a Senior Technical Design Architect. So instead of writing software, I talk about writing software. The jury's still out whether this is my forte or not.

September again brought a new football season. Liz and I go to essentially every Auburn home game. Since Auburn was ranked #10 to begin the season, we were looking forward to a great year. Alas, it was not meant to be. We still always enjoy visiting Liz's parents who live in Auburn. That includes a weekend in October when we celebrate both Liz and her dad's birthday.

Every November my mom's family rent a few house and condos near Gatlinburg, TN. This year was our biggest turnout yet with 60 people on Thanksgiving day. I got to meet my first cousin for the first time ever. If this sounds strange, know that I have 15 of them on my mom's side spread out close to 35 years.

December was even busier than anticipated with Christmas parties, game nights, and all the other holiday trappings. I came close to my goal of averaging playing a game a day, ending up with 353. Maybe I can get there next year,

So 2008 is in the books. Maybe I'll be more regular with updates here in 2009. I've got nowhere to go but up!

Chalk one up to procrastination

2009-01-05T19:51:00.007-06:00

So I've been meaning to get a guy to clean the gutters since spring. I really have. I even called somebody right before the leaves fell to line them up. They said to call back when I was ready. Didn't they realize that would cause problems for a procrastinator? Well, they haven't caused a problem yet, so why bother?

Today the rains came. Actually it's been drizzling a little for the past few days, but today it rained much longer and harder than it has in a while. Before dinner, it sounded as if it was really coming down, so I looked out the back door from the dining room to see just how hard it was falling. That's when I noticed the gutter had pulled away from the house and water was heavily pouring out of the side. Alright, that will get me going, I'll call the gutter guy tomorrow.

Liz took a look for herself...and came away with wet socks. Hmm. Seems the water must be seeping in under the door. Like an entire foot into the house. Yikes. I put a bucket under the biggest drip to prevent it from hitting the house - that should do it. I went to the basement to see if this manifested itself in the ceiling. That's when I found this...

Not good. Going back upstairs, I passed by the TV and heard the weather man say we were in for heavy showers all night long. Really not good.

So I gritted my teeth, and went outside to fix the problem. Armed with a hammer, flashlight, and bucket I went to work. I found the the gutter was almost completely full of muck and leaves from stem to stern. That had pulls two nails that used to hold the gutter out of the house. I spent the next 15 minutes in the pouring rain scooping mud and leaves into a bucket, and every 2 minutes, climbing down the ladder to empty the bucket.

I'm pleased to say the gutter is flowing freely (at least the part I could reach from the deck), and it's reattached to the house. Liz put towels on the wet floor to soak up most of the water. I even pulled up the carpet. It appears as if this is new, since the floorboard seemed to be in good shape. Liz is out buying a fan now to dry out the floor faster. Here's hoping the gutter was the only thing causing the problem.

UPDATE: Appearantly, they don't sell fans around here in January. By "they" I mean Lowe's, Wal-mart, and Walgreens.

Struggle of Empires

2007-01-20T12:47:00.000-06:00

Since there were seven of us, we sat down to play Struggle of Empires. I was the first time for some, and a long time for the rest of us. The rules explanation took 30 minutes and the game clocked in around 5 hours. The general consensus was it was a good game, but not worth the investment. I'm sure we could trim it down to 3 hours, but I'm not sure everyone is willing to give it another go. The round-by-round scores are below.

Player	Empire	Round 1	Round 2	Round 3	Final
Holt	Russia	18	41	62	62
Richard	Spain	19	38	60	60
Foster	Britain	14	30	55	51
Pete	France	14	28	50	50
Christian	Austria	22	38	52	48
Tell	Prussia	17	39	51	47
Chris	United Provinces	23	35	45	38

Gaming so far this year

2007-01-17T21:58:00.000-06:00

All-Day Civ

I heard through the grapevine that a local group was trying to get a game of Civilization organized for the first Saturday in January. I was able to horn in on the game as the seventh player.

I had played before on the PC, but the few times I have played in person, we were only able to get a few turns into the game before having to abort. This time we blocked out 8 hours, so we were able to get much further into the game that I had before. Daniel had everything set up when I arrived, but we decided to play Advanced Civilization instead.

There were a few who hadn't played the game before and weren't "gamers," but we were able to explain the rules as we went - they caught on just fine. I was a little worried that a game of this magnitude, length, and conflict would lead to problems, but everyone handled themselves great.

I was able to score Babylon, supposedly one of the easier civs to play with. I had 7 sites to build cities and plenty of farmland. I was greedy at first, grabbing for extra city sites along the Mediterranean. This forced Asia to head into Asia Minor and tangle with Crete, while Egypt (who had migrated to grab the sites just south of me) and I were able to get a noticeable lead.

I realized that I had to do something to catch up to Egypt, but it took several turns of maneuvering to get my army in place to attack. We had just entered the Late Iron Age as I poised for an attack... then time ran out. We played the turn to an end and I was able to pick up 5 civilization cards with my best hand of trade cards all day. We didn't count up victory points - since we were playing to completion they wouldn't reflect a true winner. Italy didn't have many points at the time, but was primed to close out strongly.

My impression of the game only improved with this playing. The 8 hours flew by. The calamities are somewhat random and devastating, but did seem to keep the leaders in check more than anything else. One exception was Joe (Thrace) who got hit with Civil War, leaving him a small civ along the map border, then barbarians who ravaged his remaining tokens. He never could recover from that.

Trading proved to be a major factor. Tim (Egypt) was able to form valuable sets early and avoid all calamities. I'll have to remember that next time. I can't wait until then.

Other Games

I got to finally try Ys. You are primarly blind bidding, so there is a bit of guesswork as to what your opponents are doing, but the range of numbers you can bid is narrow enough to make the guesswork less of a crap shoot. There proved to be a lot more control than I expected. Thumbs up.

I played probably my quickest game of Saint Petersburg. We ran through the first two decks really fast, making my 5 aristocrats the top group. I was enough for me to win. This continues to be a 9/10 for me.

I forgot how great of a game Intrige can be. It's so fun to hear all of the false promises made and broken. The last round took 30 minutes which is way too long.

Settlers of Catan saw the table after a long hiatus. We played with the 5-6 Player expansion. Richard said he didn't like having both starting settlements on a 5 while not being on either a 6 or 8. Well, 5 came up a ton, especially early, allowing Richard to win without too much competition. It didn't hurt that an 11 gave him 5 brick and 3 ore while sitting on a brick port. We all agreed that we will use a dice deck and play with the food stamp variant next time.

Introduction

2007-01-17T09:55:00.000-06:00

So I've decided to try a blog, at least for a year. (We'll see if we can make it that long.) I have no idea what all I'll put on this thing, but I figure it will be fun. Or it will become tedious quickly and I'll give up. Well, at least I have something to write about already, so let's get cracking.