ARK (act of random kindness)

I woke up this morning after driving after being up all night driving to ohio and I was thinking why do we perform random acts of kindness. I was thinking about this because we drove someone home that lives in ohio back to her house and we didnt even think twice about it. It was amandas boss whom i never met and amanda barely know except for work stuff. i can personally say that i know her alot more than amanda does know. it also helps that when i drive 9 hours that someone is there to talk to you for the whole 9 hours. is it really random or do we think about what we are going to act on. are you going to THINK about buying somebody behind you a 4$ cup coffee or will you just give them the paper when you are done reading it. to me ARK is one of those things that you cant really think about. we are wired way to confusely to think about such a simple thing. if we think about performing an ark than its not really random. So know for this holiday season i challenge you to buy someone behind you a cup of coffee without telling them or filling up your wifes gas tank with no pun intended or even buy lunch for a stranger. if we all did a little bit more the world would be a better place. happy thanksgiving and safe travels.

Fanhood

Do you root for a team that is always on the losing end. Is your team good one year and terrible the next? Does your team have high expectations but never live up to them? Do you feel like denouncing your loyalty to a losing team and root for a winning one. Before you do that please read this post. You are not alone in your feelings. Your feelings of your team is what make this so much harder. I am a fan of Cleveland sports and as long as i can remember there were always high hopes and dreams in the beginning of any training camp or Summer camp. i can remember when people who actually came to the stadium wearing another teams jersey would get spit on and swore at. know its just as humble as any other stadium. The Dawg pound used to be like a bunch of pitbulls (cleveland fans) against a bunch of pomeranians (other teams Fans). After they left in 1995 and than came back in 1999 they just werent the same team. Yeah they had the same records and the same colors but they have a new stadium with no expectations and a town that was ripped of its pride in 1995 was biting at the bit to get the beloved browns back but what we didnt know was what kind of browns team were we going to get. ever since september of 1999 all i hear i theres always next year or next game. I as a fan am tired of hearing this and seeing all these losses pile up on one of best franchises in the league prior to 1999 really puts a knot in my stomach. I will never denounce my fanhood to a team in which i am so loyal i guess its just a matter of time before we get the right coach, system and management where they belong. Than and God willing maybe just maybe they will be the browns of old. So if you are thinking about denouncing your fanhood dont cause once you do its so much harder to go back.

Lifes Little Detours

If you haven't heard i have gotten a job offer back in Ohio. The job is with the same company and the position but with a much better situation. its not that i don't like North Carolina i really do but this is an opportunity that i just cant pass up. We have put our house on the market to see what happens. we are not moving until we sell our house so we could still be here for a while. The plan that i had coming down here in my head wasn't the right plan. I know that we don't have any control over this but i feel like he as put this opportunity in front of us and is teaching us a great deal of patience and faith. Regardless of what happens i will always remember Raleigh as the place i really grew up in my faith and my relationship with my wife and with those great friends around me. i want to thank so many people that i have met along the way. So if you know anybody that is looking to buy a house contact www.nealpettijohn.com

Friends

Do you have some body that you can count on to do anything for you? Is this your best friend or just a really good friend. One of my best friends i don't get to see except when we go home for vaca. For some reason we just have a special bond that we share. its one of those relationship where if we didn't see each other fora couple of years and than we saw each other on the street it would be like we just saw each other last week. I do talk to him at least once a week and he keeps me filled in with things going on back in Ohio. I was thinking what if we didn't have friends like that. what would your life be like if willy wasn't in my life. My life would be really different. I feel like hes in my life fora reason and a purpose and i am in his for the same reasons. Willy and i played football together in middle school and than high school and we just never lost contact. The great thing is that we can rely on each other to come through in certain situations.In 2006 i asked willy to be in my wedding. i felt really honored to have him a part of our wedding. This past summer willy asked me to be one of his best men (he has 2) an once again i felt really honored to be a part of this experience. So if you have a friend like that never lose contact because they only come around once in a life time.

The Sweet Smell of revenge or is it??

Have you ever played a sort where you had a rival or was part of a rival? was it in college or high school and in what sport. on the eve of the greatest college football rivalry in all of football i think back to a time where rivalries were near and dear t my heart besides this one of course. I played high school football and every time August rolls around i get a little feeling in the back of my throat about the ways things used to be. not that i don't like what has happened but this is a different aspect. for me going to battle against someone across from me on a different team was a feeling i can never take away. the rival i battled with was not a rival of my school but of my family. I played high school football for North Ridgeville. My family on my moms side all went to Westlake high which is the next city over. My team played them for four years and i never won a game i guess its not really a rivalry if you don't win. the feeling that you get after you lose a game like that is terrible especially one that has an outcome like that. The Game that is going on tomorrow is one of the most storied rivalries in all of college sports. the game itself has been going on since 1897 and has decided many of the last 40 big ten championships and rose bowl match ups. This rivalry is as harsh as they come the week this is played is circled on every one's calendar. is there a rivalry that you remember having and will never forget.

i Want to leave a legacy

Do you know how you are going to be remembered? I have no idea how i will be remembered. i was thinking about this on my way to work yesterday as i was listening to the David stein show he always finish with a line that goes something like this. leave the gun, take the canolli, now you know none of the story, relax and find a friend, always keep your fork cause something better is on the way, and always always live don't just think outside the box. Every time i hear this radio show i get a feeling that im not doing enough to leave a great lagacy behind for my wife and my family. this makes me really think about where my legacy will end up and where it is right know. Another quote i am gonna refer to is "memories can be forgotten but legends never die". this to me is the key i want to be remembered not only as a great husband and father but also a great person, a leader, and a great friend. Where do you think your legacy will stand if you had been taken from this place earlier than you had hoped. would your legacy alone make you change the way you live or would it be if you could see in the future and you saw your life would that be a mojor indicator about what you had to do to your legacy.

Very powerful stuff

Do you have plan? do you like plans. I think that we all awesome sort of plan in our lives whether its for work or for our personal life. the plans that people have vary from person to person. Did you have a plan that didn't go as "planned", or was it just a detour that took you away from your plan. ever since i graduated high school i felt like i have had a plan. i had a plan for my job, i had a plan for my relationships. i now know that a plan is only a guideline in life and it only guides you along the way. i had a plan for everything. lets fast forward did any of my plans workout? absolutely some had a detour and some happened a little earlier than i had planned. My "tentative" plan was to go to college find a job get married buy a house and than have a family. My plan actually happened that way but the way that it happened did not go directly by the book. i have learned that plans and guidelines can lead you to some great times and it can also lead you to some not so good times. I know that i really have no control over the plan of my life. Ultimately God has control and he will show me my plan soon enough. i know that i have to trust in god in all my endeavors because my decisions affect how good he will actually make my plan and how quckly that plan will be granted.

Chestnuts Roasting?

Well it's the holiday season once again. its the time where traditions go far spirits are high and everyone is happy. What is your favorite part of the holiday seasons. what is your least favorite part? My least favorite part of the holidays is when retail stores start putting up Christmas decorations on the 1st of November. Now i love being in the holiday spirit but this is getting ridiculous to the point where we don't even decorate for thanksgiving its just kind of an after thought. i remember when stores didn't decorate until after thanksgiving or that toys r us didn't send out the biggest toy book aver before thanksgiving day we got it two weeks ago. i think that its really sad when stores think about just money for the holidays instead of giving their customers a very homely experience. On another note my favorite part of the holidays are the traditions. What are some of your families traditions. Some of the traditions that we do are we have to go to a midnight service at a church, we also make a ginger bread house every year as well as read the book (original) the polar express, on Christmas eve we also open one gift a piece. The holidays are such a humbling time for me mentally because we can all put our differences aside and enjoy this time.

Fear!!

I don't have many fears in my life but the ones i do have are pretty serious. My first one is failure. i am afraid to fail so i work that much harder and take risks along the way so that nobody can call me a failure. The other thing i fear i GOD. this is a tough one. Amanda and i started a proverbs study and the first chapter talked about how we should fear god. and to fear god is the beginning of knowledge. so in my thought i know nothing until i understand how much power god actually holds over us. He holds all power over everybody. when we talk about fear you hear people say that there scared of spiders or small spaces but nobody ever says I'm scared of god. i think we need to really sit back and think about whats at stake here. God is in control and he has the power to do anything he wants and lead us in any direction, but he wants to save us so he gives us fear. fear is not a bad thing in this case. i never thought about it this way before.

next year!!

There is always next year is a saying i hear all the time being a sports fan from Cleveland. when you haven't won any significant championship of any sort since 1964 than you start to get tired of hearing this year in and year out. the Tampa Bay Rays season came to an end on Wednesday and I was thinking about how they are going to say there is always next year is it different for a team that had no expectations about this year but to win more than 75 games? this year was a miraculous story and almost a fairytale ending. but since they are capable of getting to the ship are there expectations going to be higher now or will they be the same as they were the previous nine seasons. being a Cleveland sports fan i feel like i have had my heart ripped out of my chest from time to time because the city came so close to not being able to say this and yet year after year our expectations are so high and we sell out stadiums and nothing this is probably why we are the most tortured sports town in all of America. OIC (Only In Cleveland)