Does PTSD deserve a Purple Heart?

I have been diagnosed with PTSD, but I am turning to the one thing that can wipe away all evidence of my "wounds" of PTSD and that is Jesus Christ. Oh here he goes he’s getting all spiritual. No I am telling you that PTSD should not be something that you receive a Purple Heart for cause there is no permanent wounds. There are many soldiers that saw the same thing as me and not all of us have PTSD that affects our day to day life. Many war veterans are getting out everyday and trying to fight PTSD with drugs, alcohol, and the well known VA. They are quickly discovering that none of these resources are working for them. I turned to God and gave him my life and he gave me freedom. The same freedom that is available to everyone. Jesus is who I go to for all my struggles and I never leave empty handed. The wound that I received my purple heart for was from a roadside bomb that hit my Bradley directly and I was hit by shrapnel in the face. That is justified as a Purple Heart injury, I will always have evidence of that wound. Everyday I give more and more of my PTSD "wounds" to God and he takes them away. It is not something that just goes away but it takes some time and effort and the willingness to hand your life to God. I understand that this might be a little harsh for some people but I am not going to soften up the fact that the best cure for PTSD is a complete surrender to God.

"Password" A game night gone bad.

Password is an old "word association" game... the object is to get a partner to say a target word, the Password, based on a one word clue. Many of you might remember watching this game on The Game Show Network, or for the older readers out their you might remember watching this game on CBS hosted by Alan Ludden from 1961 to 1967 as you might remember from the pic below.

With that being said, our friends "The Polites" from the previous post about smores and singing, decided to play the board game version. Well after much discussion about the rules we started play. We very quickly learned that we would have probably been better off playing Twister or something. Just to name a few of the words that we were given to guess:
Greasy
ingenious
litigate
mild
fiendish

So next time you see the old game PASSWORD for $0.50 at a garage sale save your money.
This long running CBS daytime game show was hosted by
Alan Ludden and has gone through various format changes
over the years, but this version ran from 1961 to 1967.

The rewards of a budget.

So Jackie and I are on a budget that Travis form www.callmetravis.com introduced to us when we first joined hands in marriage. This budget is called the envelope system it is encouraged by well know finance guru Dave Ramsey. We had used it in the past but after getting out of the military we slacked off a real budget. So desperate times calls for desperate measures. We went on our weekly trip to Wal-mart and calculated everything in separate categories: Groceries, Household Items, Blake's Fun Money, and Jackie's Fun Money just to name a few. We approached the cash register with confidence we had done good. Our Groceries came to a total of $31.12, oops wait I forgot this $1.00 coupon for the $.75 Powerade. Yes, $30.12 that will due I have $.12 in the penny bank. When it came to Household goods $9.98 that's a whole $.02 under budget, which means only a dime needs to come from the penny bank. It really does feel good to be living on a budget and know that it works.

Game Night "The Perfect Date"

The night begun with us ready to rent a Redbox from McDonalds then Matt Polites called and mentioned that he knew of someone that had some extra tickets to the Springfield Cardinals game that started at 7:10. With my cousin Will Leitch ,which is the founder of www.deadspin.com, being a die hard Cardinals fan I couldn't pass up the opportunity to wear my cubs apparel. Once we found our section we were lead to our seat but first introduced to a Chicago Cubs Scout. We then got comfortable and the found that we were surrounded by scouts. The one pictured below is from the Royals and was very friendly in describing his entire job to Jackie during the 7th inning stretch. As you can see the entire night was eventful. We had a hat thrown to us which is camoflauge by the way. I caught a T-shirt for jackie that was actually her size, I was expecting a XXXL or something. In the fifth inning Tyler Greene hit a home run which made our ticket stubs good for a Concrete at Andys Frozen Custard for the small cost of $1 which is a good deal saying they are about a $5 dessert. Then in the bottom of the 9th Allen Craig hit a walk off Home Run to win the game. Finally since it was friday fireworks preceded the game.
Kansas City Royals Scout














Jackie quizzing the Royals Scout














Springfield Cardinals hat just her size














What do you know a T-Shirt that will fit perfect.















Perfect way to end the night: walk off Home Run and fire works

Can you beat me?

31 words


I know that this has been a blog in the past @ www.callmetravis.com I have been told that I need to work on my typing by a employee @ Assemblies of God National Office. So my goal is to be able to add 15 to this score in 7 days. I challenge you to take this test just once then come back in 7 days and we will compare the improvements. The challenge is not the fastest but the most improved.

Calling all settlers fans!!

Click on image to enlarge.

I was playing my daily settlers game @ www.asobrain.com waiting for it to be time to go pick up my wife from work. It was a simple game to 10 points with 3 players. I started out with a settlement on each of the sixes and thats where the domination began. Final score: Gunner82 (11 points) Other two players (4 points) You can check out the pic to somewhat begin to understand the humility the other players must have been going through.

For those who are not aware of ASOBrain it is a site built by a couple of competent developers
from the Netherlands. They’ve coded an excellent Java version of Catan that allows you to play solo or multi player; basic ‘Catan’ or ‘Cities and Knights of Catan’. To avoid copyright violation, the game has been renamed to Xplorers.