Tag: Personal

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Sunday Fun: My First Survey Ever

Here is a little survey for some Sunday fun! Truthfully, this is the only survey I have ever filled out on the internet, even with all of the temptation (not really) to do them on MySpace, I have never given in. However, I got called out by Dan…so this is only because I think Dan is a great guy. So if you have ever sent me a survey and I did not fill it out…get the hint, I did not think you were a great guy/girl…just kidding 🙂

1. Do you like blue cheese? No

2. Favorite T.V Series? 24, Lost, Office, Psych, Monk

3. Do you own a gun? Yes, a 9mm handgun

4. What flavor do you add to your drink at Sonic? None

5. Do you get nervous before a doctors appointment?  Yes.

6. What do you think of hot dogs? I love them. Turkey dogs are the best because they have less calories, but I love a beef hot dog when I am cheating. The best hot dog I have ever had was from Pink’s in L.A. Cali.

7. Favorite Christmas movie? The Christmas Story

8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning? Unsweetened Tea, sugar free lemonade, or Pibb Zero

9. Can you do pushups? Yes, but not a lot, I have a permanently injured neck.

10. What’s your favorite piece of jewelry? My Wedding Ring is the only jewelry I wear, unless you count the nipple piercings…just kidding 🙂

11. First boyfriends name? I plead the 5th I’m not out of the closet yet.

12. Favorite hobby? Sports, Blogging, Watching Sports, Fantasy Football, Traveling, hanging w/ my family

13. Any Birthmarks? Yes, on the inside of my right arm, its very small, looks like a med. freckle.

14. Do you have A.D.D.? I am told as a child I had symptoms of such, but I think my dad cured it with his belt and paddle.

15. What’s one trait you hate about yourself? I hate my ‘love-handles’ they won’t go away despite how much weight I lose, grrr!

16.. Middle name? Mark

17. Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment – What can get rid of my ‘love-handles’, I wonder who won the Braves game?, How long is this survey?

18. Name 3 things you bought yesterday: Gas, Lunch, Dinner – That’s it!

19. Do you like your job? %&#!$ NO!!!! (Hopefully it will be changing soon)

20. If you had a night off, what would you do? Have a family night.

21. Current Dislikes? Cost of Gas and Dishonest People.

22. Favorite place to be? The Mountains or California.

23. How did you bring in the New Year? At home with my wife…she was sick from pregnancy and asleep.

24. Where would you like to go? Aspen Colorado, Ireland, Israel, Hong Kong

25. Name three people who will complete this? Billy, Shane, Trevor.

26. Do you own slippers? No!

27. What shirt are you wearing? T-Shirt from Abercrombie

28. Do you like sleeping on satin sheets? Yes.

29. Biggest Pet Peeve? People who do not wash their hands in the bathroom, dishonest people, loud/obnoxious people

30. Favorite color? Blue

31. Would you be a pirate? Heck No…A Ninja!

32. What songs do you sing in the shower? Don’t sing in the shower!  However, some of my best thoughts come from there. – Ditto, I totally agree with Dan’s answer!

33. Kids? Two awesome boys and a beautiful but cranky newborn little girl.

34. Favorite boy’s name? Chance, Gavin, Tristan – I did not win with Chance, thus our boys are Gavin & Tristan

35. What’s in your pocket right now? Nothing.

36. Last thing that made you laugh? Something I cannot say, but I laughed for about 10 minutes straight.

37. Favorite girl name? Jordan & Hailey – Lost on this one too, our girl is Hailey, but it was not my #1.

38. Worst Injury you have ever had? In H.S. I punched an old fire extinguisher box that had a glass door and the inside of my hand got sliced from one side to the other and small pieces of glass got lodged into my hand, I did not go to the ER to get stitches, I wrapped it up and went to play a soccer game, when I got home we had to steri-strip it as it was really bad.

39. Do you love where you live? Yes, born and raised here, but not against leaving either!

40. How many TVs do you have in your house? Three.

41. Who is your loudest friend?  No comment, since I said that was one of my pet peeves, Ha!

42. How many dogs do you have? None, no more dogs for us since our German Shepherd got lost.

43. Does anyone have a crush on you? My wife, she can’t keep her hands off of me!

44. Favorite Candy? Peanut M&M’s, but I don’t eat candy…never really have, but if I did, it would be these.

45. What is your favorite book(s)? The Bible, Barbarian Way, Messy Spirituality, Chasing Daylight, Soul Cravings.

46. What is your favorite store? AE, Abercrombie & Fitch, Buckle, Wal-Mart, Target, Rue 21, Sports Authority

47. Favorite Sports Team? Georgia Bulldogs, Atlanta Falcons, Duke Blue Devils (college basketball), Atlanta Braves

48. What song(s) do you want played at your funeral? I don’t want a funeral I want a party. ‘You Are My Joy’ – David Crowder Band…Anything Hillsong or Passion, upbeat, not dead.

49. What were you doing 12 AM last night? Sleeping, which is rare, I would usually be watching TV, blogging, or anything but sleeping.

50. What was the first thing you thought of when you woke up? I don’t want to get up this early, mmm blueberry pancakes!

Ok, so I survived the 50 question drilling about all the personal details of my life. I called out Trevor, Shane, and Billy…so lets have it…post this survey on your site and lets hear about your every little secret!

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Family Pictures 2008

These are our first professional family pictures…ever! I think its the perfect timing now that we are complete with the 5 of us! The truth is, I refused to have my picture taken because I was self concious when I was 40 pounds over weight. If you saw most of our personal pictures, you would know why, but I also look angry in them because Nicki would catch me off guard and I would not be smiling. Click on the thumbnails below to see the full size picture, then click on that picture to see the whole thing (its complicated 🙂 ). We took several poses, but these are the one’s we puchased.

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My Prayer

At the beginning of the week as I was spending some time praying the old song, He’s Still Working on Me, popped into my head. It all just clicked and made sense…what I was asking Jesus was simply, “Lord, Make Me What I Ought to Be…”

Where I lack wisdom…
Where I lack love…
Where I lack patience…
Where I lack skill…
Where I lack in priorities…
Where I lack…

“Lord, Make Me What I Ought to Be!“

Join the Conversation…What’s Your Prayer?

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Master Pontiac, Buick, GMC and Archie Hixon

I don’t know about you, but I hate going to car dealerships! I used to sell cars for a short stint of my life while I was in-between jobs. I’ve been in the meetings where the salespeople are trained how to be dishonest and how to lie to gain a sale, so when it comes time to buy a vehicle, I hate it and get serious headaches as well, I get in a bad mood.

On top of having to go purchase a vehicle, this is a horrible time to have an SUV that you are trying to trade-in. It is a great time to be in the market for a SUV. My family and I were in both predicaments. We had a 2005 Nissan X-Terra that we needed to trade-in as our family just grew to the place where we could no longer legally and safely fit in it, but we needed a larger SUV or van to solve our problem. We were siding with the SUV…just because we are not the van kind of people.

Saturday morning we went to our normal breakfast place (Sunrise Grill) before we went to Master Pontiac, Buick, GMC of Augusta. I said a little prayer to myself that God would give us a salesman that would do us right and not play games with us. We pulled into the lot and there he was, the salesman that was going to be our headache for the next several hours or the man that God was going to answer my prayers with. Fortunately, Archie Hixon, was the answer to my earlier prayer. He was a great salesman and a very great guy overall. My wife and I left the lot feeling like we knew a great deal about his family. It turned out that Archie goes to a local church and is very involved in their small groups. When he found out I used to be a full time youth pastor and was praying about God opening a door for me to get back full time, he urged me to check into the opening at his church as their youth pastor just left to start a church. As serious as Archie was, I knew this guy was not about to pull a fast one on us, when he was wanting to see us every weekend.

My wife and I were very pleased with the deal they gave us on our trade and the price that we got our new/used Chevrolet Trailblazer for. We asked for them to lower the price on the Trailblazer but they said it had already been discounted and they were firm on their price, but they easily gave us a new set of tires without any hassle. We were never put under pressure to add anything, Archie wanted to make sure we were offered the extended warranties and the other extras, but once we declined we faced no rebuttals. The bottom line is, we left the dealership $2,000 under what we were expecting to pay, we feel the price for the vehicle we purchased was fair and right, and Archie was a great salesperson. We did not purchase from him because he was a Christian, but a good salesman (trust me I have not bought from people because they were horrible salespeople), however I am glad I found out we were helping provide for a fellow believer with our purchase, as I know the car market is a tough business period, but especially with a tough economy.

If you are in the CSRA or the Augusta area and you are looking for a vehicle, go talk with Archie Hixon at Master Pontiac, Buick, GMC in Augusta on Washington Rd. You’ll be glad you did!

Join the Conversation: Have you had a great experience or a poor experience with a recent purchase? Tell me about it!

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Aerie by American Eagle – Smart Marketing?

I have an American Eagle All-Access Pass, so their new underwear & lounge wear company, “Aerie” sent me a post card for a free pair of panties. If you are not familiar with Aerie they are a company for ladies, kind of like an American Eagle style Victoria Secret for 14-30 year olds (I may be off on my demographics) minus the lingerie.

Since I do not wear panties I let my wife redeem the card for the free pair. Something like an early birthday or anniversary gift, you know just in case I fortget when those special events come around! We walked into the new store at our local Mall, I loved the outside, it was cladded in brick, just like it was located at an outdoor Promenade. When you walk into the store everything is laid out nicely, the store was lit up brightly, and everything looked fresh. My wife browsed through the tables of the underwear that they were giving away as a part of their grand opening special. I was surprised that they had about 4 tables of free underwear, usually a store gives you one small section of free stuff and it usually looks like the items come from the lower quality products that they sell. Aeries was giving away their everyday $7.50 or 5 for $25 pair of underwear for their promotion.

We took my wife’s selection up to the table, and the store representative hit my wife with the BIG question, “Are you a member of the A-List?” – The store rep did not care if my wife said no, as she did, because as soon as my wife said no, the representative said, “If you would like to sign up for the A-List tonight, you will get another free pair of panties now and every Thursday you will be eligible to receive a free in store gift, just bring this card in and they will give you your free gift and punch your card.” “If you want to go pick out another pair of underwear, I will get you a registration form ready.” My wife’s response, “Ok!”

My wife brings her selection back to the counter and as the representative is ringing them up, my wife fills out the simple form to be an “A-Lister,” and waits for the representative to finish her technical stuff at the register for the free underwear and to wrap up the free gifts. The next question from the rep was, “What color ribbon woul you like?” My wife quickly responded, “Pink is fine!” – The store representative wraps both items in a nice box and tops it off with a ribbon. Here’s a few things I noticed while all of this is taking place:

  1. Aerie got my wife into the store with an offer for a free product, something she would like but also with something she has to have.
  2. Aerie will retain customers with the quality of their product and by gaining the trust of their customers, even if the customer is in the store for a free product. The customer leaves realizing the company is not trying to scam them with a less superior product than what they typically sell, they want you to walk away owning something you can buy everyday.
  3. With a lot of people coming in Aerie for a free product, they are going to sell them more than what they came in for, because the group of people they are attracting will see something they like and want to buy it, and most will if they have the money (we are just too poor for anything other than the free stuff!) 🙂
  4. By earning the trust of customers like my wife, when they offer them a customer email program like the “A-List” they are going to have a great rate of participants because they trust that the other free gifts (every Thursday) are going to be at the same high level of quality. – By the way, my wife went into the store for a free pair of underwear, so they know they are attracting people who will come in for something free.
  5. It was easy to get someone like my wife to sign up for the “A-List” because she was already in there for something free and they were offering her another free product on-site.
  6. Finally, this is what I see as genius! This may not have been their intention, but I thought about it as I was standing there observing it all…what would have been a 3-5 minute visit to this new store turned into about a 10 minute visit. They kept us in the store longer, which forced us to look and observe what they had to offer during that extra time. I don’t think it is a mistake that all around the sides behind their cash register was full of product on their walls. As we were standing at the counter filling the card out and waiting for the lady to finish all that she was doing, it provided an opportunity to see more of their products. – As we completed our transaction which cost us $0.00, the store representative walked around the counter and placed the gift box in our hands and told us to have a great evening. We were never pressured to buy anything, it was a great experience. In my mind, it was great marketing of a new company and great customer service. I am sure my wife will return…and if I am with her, so will I!

Join the Conversation: What’s your thoughts?