Biggest Liar!

NBC's Biggest Loser has an online club. On the info site they have a place to enter your height and weight, so they can give you a free evaluation. The evaluation said that a healthy weight range for me would be 128.9-173.6. That's ludicrous!

I was this height when I was in a senior in high school. Back then I was a skin-and-bones cross-country runner who would runner several miles daily and was semi-careful about what I ate. My weight then: 175!

There is no way I would even want to weigh less now than I did then. What a scam!

They did say that my current BMI (body mass index, I guess) is within a healthy range, even though my current weight is about 25 lbs. over what they say is a healthy weight. Weird. Maybe their calculator is malfunctioning.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all readers. I chose the above picture, because it does a good job showing the humble circumstance of Jesus' birth while not forgetting the presence of the divine. It's really a picture of our daily lives with Christ, isn't it?

Hero

A video from community Christian Church

An idea

I have some ideas that I think could work, but I don't how to make them work. OR I don't have the drive to make them work. I'm going to share some of them, please feel free to steal them. Just thank me later.

My first idea is Disney Savings account. I got the idea from watching my 4 year old daughter shove pennies into her piggy bank so she could go to "Mickey's house". The account would be for children who wanted to save money for one of the Disney theme parks. It would bare a conditional interest. That is, it would bare an interest that could only be spent in one of the Disney theme parks. You could do this with gift cards or "Disney Bucks" or something like that.

I think parents would like this. It would teach their children the value of saving and investing in interest-baring accounts.

Disney would make a small fortune off of it, for at least these three reasons: 1) With children ear-marking their dollars for Disney, more of them will end up spending it that way, as opposed to the kid with the piggy bank who, on a whim, spends on something else. 2) Some percentage of the children will end up leaving the interest on the table. Meanwhile, Disney has been allowed to reinvest those dollars over so many years and keeps all the interest. 3) All the interest they would pay out in the accounts would be immediately spent in their theme parks.

While I'm thinking of this, why wouldn't other companies who market to children (or even adults for that matter) do the same thing? For instance, would you buy an $100 CD (certificate of deposit) from Home Depot if over 12 months, you could get say 15% conditional interest on it? The interest rate is about ten percent more than you could get on any other CD. You would if you knew you had a home improvement project coming and were going to be spending that money there anyway, right?

It seems they would be happy to do it, since it makes you more likely to shop there than Lowe's or some place like that. Plus giving you a $15 gift card is not close to the same as giving cash. They get it all back. The money they would make on having you in the store spending your gift card would more than make up for the loss in inventory, it seems. Plus, there are always those guys who lose their gift cards.

And while we are at it, why don't we apply this idea to colleges. Say, Great Lakes Christian College (my alma mater) offers a "college savings account". High school students can put their money in this account which bares a conditional interest. That interest can only be used on GLCC tuition. If you could entice them with a high enough interest, you could secure a much higher sense of commitment (where your treasure is and all that). They could use the money now. And, once again, students who do not attend would forfeit their interest.

What do you think?

419 Fraud

I watched a 20/20 special on Nigerians scamming Americans through e-mail. Then today I got this e-mail that fits the formula perfectly. I thought it was interesting the way they attempt to prey on people's greed and dishonesty. An honest person would not fall for this one. Also, they spelled my name wrong.

Attn:CAROLAN,

I am ADEJUWON BABATUNDE (Esq.), a Solicitor. I am the Personal Attorney to Mr. Fredrick CAROLAN, a national of your country, who is an oil merchant in Nigeria. On the 21st of April 2001, my client, his wife and their two children were involved in a car accident along Sagbama Express Road Balyasa State, here in Nigeria. All occupants of the vehicle unfortunately lost their lives. Since then I have made several enquiries to locate any of my clients extended relatives, this has pr oven unsuccessful.

After these several unsuccessful attempts, I decided to trace his relatives over the Internet, but of no avail, hence I mandated my secretary to search for any possible relative of my late clients in the Internet before the bank get the account confiscated or declared unserviceable, the bank where the deceased had an account valued at about USD$12 million (TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS) The bank has issued me a notice to provide the next of kin or have the account confiscated within the next 14 working days. I then decided to present you as the next of kin of the deceased since you are from the same country and bear the same surname. The said amount will be paid to you if you comply immediately with all the necessary documents of the deceased in my possession. Immediately the money is paid to you, 60% of the total amount will be for me, 30% for you, while the remaining 10% should be for expenses or taxation as your government may required.

I have all the necessary legal documents that can be used to back up our claim. All I required from you is your honest co-operation and assistance to enable us sees this transaction through. I guarantee you that this will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of the law. In other words, every document to affect this process will emanate from my table and I will perfect every document to be in accordance with the banking law and guidelines. So you have nothing to worry about, because we have all the legal documents to back it up when the fund is finally hits your chosen bank account.

Please be rest assured that this transaction is 100% risk-free. Note that the particular nature of your company's business is irrelevant to this transaction. If this proposal is acceptable by you, to assist me achieve this goal, please endeavour to contact me through my private email address :barradejuwonchambers44@yahoo.co.uk for more clarification and your understanding in regards to this transaction.

Best regards,

BARR.ADEJUWON BABATUNDE (Esq.)

Change of Plan

Instead of dedicating this blog to talking about the pending adoption, Cindie and I will work together on a blog dedicated solely to that. We will both have the ability to contribute, so you will see more posts with more information representing both of our perspectives.

On the right, you'll see a link to that blog, beneath the link to Cindie's "family blog. The web address for the adoption blog is www.ramiahadoption.blogspot.com

I've already reposted the "Ramiah" post on that site.

We are sending out information about how to financially support the adoption in our Christmas letter. If you would like that information, but do not think you would be on our Christmas card list, you can leave a comment letting me know. Or give me a phone call