Ryan's Thoughts

I love sports movies! There is nothing better than an action packed, feel good sport movie. Not only are they super fun to watch, many have great life lessons. Luckily for those of us fans, Hollywood completely agrees and is constantly pumping them out. After having seen gillions of sports movies, I wanted to rank my top-ten all-time greatest sports movies, and yes they are in order! Here we go... 1) Remember the Titans - This is an easy pick for #1!! This is a great feel good story with players overcoming racial tensions in the 1970's. You cannot beat this movie. Denzel is the man and the action scenes are awesome. There is even a little love story and plenty of drama. It is a win for everyone and it is based on a true story! If any movie will give you chills and bring a tear (even a manly tear) to the eye it is this one! 2) Miracle - Amazing and true story about the USA whooping the USSR in hockey. Oh, this was no regular hockey match, it was during the Olympics at a...

A few years ago, the government’s involvement in monitoring all of our online and phone activities was exposed.  Every phone call, instant message, email, text, and pretty much any type of electronic communication is being recorded and monitored, always.   The reasoning behind this began years ago to provide for the security of the country.  After the 9-11 attacks, the Bush administration passed laws that would allow them to perform wiretaps on suspected terrorists without having to obtain a search warrant. Even after 9-11, the country was in an uproar as the government was clearly bypassing citizen's Constitutional rights. This was a huge infringement of the rights clearly set forth by our Founding Fathers, even if the end goal was to keep us safe. President Bush was under attack and was frequently compared to Richard Nixon for his spying maneuvers. It wasn't long until people were calling for his impeachment over his evasive move to wiretap terrorists without a se...

Mom's are the single greatest group of people to ever live. Ever. There is no greater or more noble calling that than of a mother. There is no group of people who deserve our respect and admiration more than mothers. Nope, nothing. Not a doctor, senator, football player or firefighter, mothers are the greatest and here is why... I believe the definition of "mother" to be fairly wide open. Some who may not fit the traditional role of motherhood, but are definitely still moms, include women who are unable to have children, grandmothers, neighbors and yes, even some men who devote themselves to raising children. For my purposes, if you have had children or are raising children, here's to you! MOTHERHOOD IS GODLIKE God is our parent and our creator. Being an all-knowing and all-powerful being, his options for how he spends his time, are fairly wide open. He has chosen parenthood and raising His children (us), as His greatest undertaking, not lounging aro...

LOSING A POUND A DAY ON THE BACON DIET I lost twelve pounds in 10 days on the Bacon Diet. It is always fun losing weight on a diet, but doing so while eating the greatest food ever? Yup, pretty awesome! Since it is not your conventional diet, I wanted to answer a few questions. As you can imagine, when I'm cooking up a half pound of bacon in the break room, there are plenty of questions that follow! Did you only eat bacon?  - No, but I ate a lot of it. I did mix in some eggs and a few veggies but it was pretty much just bacon. This was a pretty common dinner for me... Did you get hungry?  No, if I did get hungry, I'd eat more bacon. Generally I'd have a couple eggs for breakfast and then have an early lunch and a late lunch with bacon. Most lunches were similar to that next picture. You know that is going to make you fat right?  No, I don't think so. Funny side note - I drank Diet Coke throughout this time as well. I only say it is funny because that...

I am a Christian and do not believe in evolution. Let's just get that out there right now. After hearing that statement, you likely thought one of two things - hey strong work brother for believing in God! Or hey man, how could you let religion control your mind like that!  Am I right? The funny thing is, I cannot for the life of my figure out why these two thoughts would be opposing. My personal faith offers no objection to the theory of evolution. I believe in the creation as reported in the Bible with God's creation occurring in the seven creative periods - the creation of the day/night, stars, heavens, light, water, plants, animals, man and culminating in the creation of women.   As I see it, God could have easily used millions or billions or gillions of years to let His creations evolve. The Bible teaches that God created the Earth in seven periods, not 24-hour days, though some may believe the latter. The "third period" may have very well been when th...

I love cars, they are just plain awesome. There is nothing better than the wind blowing through your hair (or in my case, where your hair used to be) as you drive around on a sunny day. Or as you drive over dirt roads in a 4x4. Or as you drive pretty much anywhere, in pretty much anything. Driving is just plain fun! After doing quite a bit of research, ok, I didn't really do any research, these are just my favorite vehicles ever made... Ferrari Since watching Magnum PI as a kid, I loved the 308. Of course, we've had a few new editions since Thomas Sullivan Magnum IV saved the day back in the 80's. We've had the 360, the 430 and the 488 and they are all beautiful. From kindergarten through my master's program and to this day, owning this girl is what kept me doing my homework and working hard at my job (Ok, I drive a 15 year-old Acura right now. Maybe I should have studied and worked a little harder!).

A few years back, my friends Eric and JP got me hooked on reading and listening to books. They taught me how to work the library system and about an awesome social media site just for books! Since they were both far smarter and better looking than myself, I decided to follow their advice. Since that time, I have been enjoying over 100 books a year and have surpassed the century mark for 7 years (going on 8) in a row! This turns out to be over 25,000 pages every single year. Even with five kids, a full-time job, and all of the craziness that life brings, it is still possible to get through loads of awesome books. The adventures, learning, development and growth that come from books are unparalleled in other adventures in life. Frequently friends ask me where I get the books and how I get through them so quickly so here is the secret. 1) Goodreads - www.goodreads.com This is my favorite website ever. It is a social media site for those who enjoy reading or just want to stalk those wh...