Studio711.com – Ben Martens

Earlier today, Grandpa Martens lost his battle against cancer and won his seat in heaven. At 94 years old, he had been fighting complications for quite a while and was ready to go home. This leaves a big hole in our hearts, but it’s comforting to know that his faith was strong to the end and we’ll see him again.

Grandpa holding me in 1980

Our church has been trying to get a new sign for years. It must have been three or four years ago when we raised the money for it, but for one reason or another, it never got completed. Late last fall, the project got kicked into high gear. TimS got the permit from the city, we moved all the landscaping back to it’s new location on a work day, FrankL did the masonry and TimS designed/ordered the sign. It finally arrived and last weekend I helped Frank install it! There’s still a little masonry work left on top and a two line reader board will go in at the bottom, but it’s getting close to being done. We’re having a workday in a few weekends to finish the landscaping around the sign too. I’ll post more pictures when it’s done, but this is pretty exciting for us after all these years of waiting so I wanted to get it posted.

The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified.  He is not here; he has risen, just as he said.  Come and see the place where he lay.  Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee.  There you will see him.  Now I have told you.”  Matthew 28:5-7

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Every year, the Cirque du Solei show comes to Marymoor Park in Redmond and sets up their tents for a month or two. We’ve always talked about going and this year we finally pulled the trigger. We were a little hesitant because we’ve seen some Cirque-style shows on the cruises and haven’t been that impressed. WOW. I’m so glad we went to this! It made those other shows look like a grade school performance.

The particular show we saw was called Amaluna. The story line is something like two people who fall in love and are surrounded by people with freakish athletic ability and a lizard man. Spoiler alert: the lizard traps the guy in a giant tub of water but he escapes and marries the girl in the weirdest wedding you’ll ever see.

But seriously, there was some incredible talent in the show. From unicycles to slack lines and teeter totter acrobatics to some kind of crazy light twirling thing, this show had a wide variety of acts. There were definitely some boring parts like the two clowns that came out between acts, but overall the show moved quickly and was very entertaining. The video below gives you a rough idea of the show, but it doesn’t look nearly as impressive as it did in person.

One note for those looking to buy tickets: you can pay a LOT to see this show. The seats cover bout 70% of a full circle and the most expensive seats are right up the middle. We sat in the second section from one end and still had a great view at about a third of the price. We also saved money by sitting in the very top row. We were prepared with binoculars but didn’t need them at all. There are only maybe 30-40 rows in the place so it makes very little difference unless you’re in one of the first couple rows. I’d happily sit in the cheap seats again.

So even though I wasn’t sure if I’d enjoy this kind of show, I can definitely recommend it now!

I generally shop at Home Depot because it’s closer than Lowes, but as I wandered through Lowes recently, I wondered what is different between the two companies besides the colors. Here’s what a little internet research turned up:

• Size: Home Depot has 500 more stores than Lowes
• Original: Lowes started first but they lagged until the 90s when they decided to turn themselves into a nicer version of Home Depot. They tried to accomplish that with better service and better looking stores.
• Money: Home Depot has a 5.91% profit on $73 billion in revenue. Lowes does 3.9% on $51 billion. Home Depots profit margin is one of the best in the business.
• Growth: Home Depot’s stock has gone up 150% in the last five years. Lowes has gone up 50%.
• Price: Price comparison are almost exactly identical when you look at a large project.
• Products: Home Depot has more tile and toilets for your bathroom remodel but Lowes has more appliances for your kitchen or laundry room.
• Returns: Both have almost identical return policies, but while Home Depot will only give you 30 days to return damaged goods, Lowes gives you 90 days.
• Military: Both stores will offer discounts to military personnel (Home Depot and Lowes details.)

So as expected, these two companies really are extremely similar. It looks like Home Depot takes the edge in the business world, but the consumer probably won’t notice the difference.

When you spend tens of thousands of dollars on a new car, it’s more than a little frustrating to have the dealer slap their thirty cent emblem on the back and give themselves free advertising. I didn’t push it when we bought our car because every car on their lot already had it, but it sure is tacky.

I’ve heard that you can remove stickers and emblems before, but I was nervous about screwing up the paint or the clearcoat. I emailed car guru MattM for some advice, and with that (and some YouTube videos) as training, I headed out to the garage. My tools were warm water, a sponge, hair dryer, a plastic putty knife, Goo Gone and a micro fiber cloth. Here are the steps I followed. Please note this was the first time I’ve ever tried this and if you screw up your car, don’t blame me.

1. Use the warm water to clean the area and start heating up the emblem. Dry it off.
2. Fire up the hair dryer and warm the emblem and the area around it. Don’t leave the hair dryer in one spot for too long as it’s possible to make the paint bubble up. Your goal is that the emblem or sticker should feel warm to the touch, but not hot. Think about how your car feels when it’s been sitting out in the sun on a 100 degree day. I didn’t get near that hot but that was my gauge for how far I was willing to go.
3. Use the plastic scraper to carefully start to lift up the emblem. Try to pull it off leaving as little of the glue behind as possible.
4. Use your micro fiber cloth and the Goo Gone to remove any remaining glue.
5. Wash the area again and check for any remaining residue.
6. I waxed the area just in case I’d removed any wax or clearcoat in the process.

It all worked remarkably well for me. You can’t even tell that anything was there!

Is it just me or have glasses gotten crazy expensive? They lure you in with the price of the frames, then add a half dozen coatings and gimmicks to the lenses, and suddenly those glasses cost more than your monthly car payment.

I’ve heard enough people talking about warbyparker.com that I’m going to give them a serious look the next time I buy glasses. Here’s their concept in their own words

Warby Parker was conceived as an alternative to the overpriced and bland eyewear available today. Prescription eyewear simply should not cost $300+. The industry is controlled by a few large companies that have kept prices artificially high, reaping huge profits from consumers who have no other options. By circumventing traditional channels and engaging with customers directly through our website, Warby Parker is able to provide higher-quality, better-looking prescription eyewear at a fraction of the price.

If you don’t live in a place that has a showroom, there are a couple tools available. You can upload a picture of your face and then see the frames on your face. Once you get your choices narrowed down a bit more, they’ll send you a sample of the various frames which you then mail back. Additionally, for every pair of glasses you buy, Warby Parker will donate a pair to charity.

It seems like a great company that is producing some quality products, and I’m eager to give them a try.

Tyla’s parents recently got a new car so as we chatted about our purchases, we briefly discussed them being “made in America.” They bought a Chevy and we bought a Ford, so they’re both made in America, right? But what does that even mean? Is it made in America if the company is headquartered here, if the car is assembled here, of if the parts are sourced from the US? I decided to do some research.

ABCNews.com lets you look up the percentage of parts in your car that were made in the US. (It’s a bit vague though and I can’t even tell what model year it references.) The Chevy Captiva that Tyla’s parents bought comes in at 26% while the Escape says 65%. So clearly the badge on the car doesn’t indicate where the parts come from.

Cars.com has an American-Made Index that “highlights the cars that are built here, have the highest amount of domestic parts, and are bought in the largest numbers by Americans.” 2011 is the most recent data I could find, but in that year, the #1 car on their list was the Toyota Camry. Number two was the F150 which has historically done very well in most years of their study. The amount of “American-ness” of a vehicle can vary from year to year as new sources are found for parts or production lines to decrease costs. For example, in 2010, the Ford Escape was #3 on the cars.com list but in 2011, it didn’t make the top 10.

Some websites say that assembly is a good place to look for how much of the money ends up in America. So by that mark my Subaru Impreza is a good buy because it’s assembled in Lafayette, IN. But if you look it up on ABCNews it contains 0% American parts!

In all my research, I didn’t find any cars that were assembled 100% in the USA with 100% American parts by a company headquartered in this country. Cars are a great example of multi-national corporations sourcing materials and labor from around the world to bring you a product. Using country of origin as your top priority when buying a car is going to make your life difficult.

If you want to buy stuff that’s made in America, it’s a lot easier to start with things that have fewer components. Something like a car is just too difficult to figure out these days.

The second episode of the History Channel mini-series “The Bible” has now aired. Tyla and I watched the first one and are about halfway through the second. I heard quite a few discussions leading up to it wondering how accurate it would be, and expectations were pretty low. But after 3 hours of the show, I’ll say that I’m fairly impressed.

Sure it’s not 100% accurate. There are some small embellishments here and there and they do expand some short sentences in the Bible to multi-minute scenes, but overall I’m impressed. I’ve had quite a few thoughts as I watched it:

• The show has raised countless questions in my head as I empathize a bit more with the participants or think in a different way about stories I’ve heard hundreds of times before. What did it feel like for Noah as all the people he knew were clamoring to get into the ark after the door shut? How willing was Lot to help the angels or Rahab to help the spies? These types of questions have sparked some good conversations on our couch.
• The Bible is violent. Too often I pull up the Sunday school version of a story when I hear it, but in reality it was much more gruesome and intense.
• There’s so much that is left out of the show, but they’re trying to cover the entire Bible in 10 hours (including commercials.)

When you read the Bible, there’s a strong theme throughout the Old Testament showing how God was directing it all to send Jesus to die and save us. That theme hasn’t come through very well in the show. That’s probably the biggest negative. They’re shooting the mini-series using the Bible as pure history book with very little religion. While it’s true that the Bible is an excellent historical record, it’s so much more than that.

So far, I’d call this an easy win. For believers, I’d say most of us are enjoying watching the director’s take on the Bible. And surely there are at least a couple people out there that are going to think twice after seeing this and dig into the Bible a bit deeper. They’ll come up with more questions and hopefully they’ll head to a church for some answers.