Peanut butter substitutes

Sunflower seed butter > almond butter.

Arby's roastburger

The roastburger is both good and free, with the purchase of a drink and a coupon.
I can't even remember the last time I was in an Arby's, but this is actually pretty good.

'As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God'

Whenever we entered a territory worked by missionaries, we had to acknowledge that something changed in the faces of the people we passed and spoke to: something in their eyes, the way they approached you direct, man-to-man, without looking down or away. They had not become more deferential towards strangers - in some ways less so - but more open.

This time in Malawi it was the same. I met no missionaries. You do not encounter missionaries in the lobbies of expensive hotels discussing development strategy documents, as you do with the big NGOs. But instead I noticed that a handful of the most impressive African members of the Pump Aid team (largely from Zimbabwe) were, privately, strong Christians. “Privately” because the charity is entirely secular and I never heard any of its team so much as mention religion while working in the villages. But I picked up the Christian references in our conversations. One, I saw, was studying a devotional textbook in the car. One, on Sunday, went off to church at dawn for a two-hour service.

It would suit me to believe that their honesty, diligence and optimism in their work was unconnected with personal faith. Their work was secular, but surely affected by what they were. What they were was, in turn, influenced by a conception of man's place in the Universe that Christianity had taught.

From this fascinating article, found via a friend's link on facebook.

hot drink

My wife's parents have been in town for the last few days and we all went out to lunch on Friday, before I went on to class. We went to a new favorite of ours, Cristina's, a Mexican restaurant. Emily was really enjoying the chips and salsa, meaning she was fairly quiet. With the conversation going on I wasn't watching her too closely, even though she was right by me. After a little bit, I look over at her and she is holding up the salsa directly to her mouth, guzzling it down straight from the bowl! We quickly take that away from her, and she goes back to chowing down on chips and salsa. Soon she is making weird faces and you can tell that her mouth is getting really hot. But this is a slow building salsa, so it is hard for her to tell that the pain is coming directly from the salsa. Now of course we have to take it away from her and try to get her to drink water, which only makes her think "My mouth is killing me AND they are trying to take away my delicious salsa", so she was none too happy. The trials of being two.

Crossfit

Here's my latest adventure in the fitness domain: crossfit. I love the intensity as well as the varied nature of the workouts. Its emphasis on functional movement really makes a lot of sense to me now as I get older (and hopefully wiser). Really, what's the point of trying to have a 400 pound bench? It's more useful to have strength that you can apply, which crossfit really gives you with its mix of gymnastic movements and powerlifting. I've found a pretty good article on it, and I can assure you that the title, Sweat Storm, is very applicable.

I've been somewhat hit or miss with this due to the busy schedule, but the nice thing is that many workouts are in the 20 minutes or less range (but still very high intensity). I haven't had the discipline to simultaneously change my food intake, so I'm not losing weight with this, but that can come after the MBA. For now I need something just to maintain a basic level of fitness.

Bailout

Comment one of my UT investment professors mailed out about the bailout:

I’ve got a plan to solve this whole financial crisis. We should put together a $700 billion hedge fund and let it overpay for securities. We should have Congress oversee this hedge fund because they have a record of financial expertise

Not to pat myself on the back...

...but you heard it here first!

PETROLEUM ($/bbl)

	PRICE*	CHANGE	% CHANGE	TIME
Nymex Crude Future	88.59	.78	.89	19:08
Dated Brent Spot	83.40	-4.97	-5.63	10/06
WTI Cushing Spot	87.81	-6.07	-6.47	10/06