Coffee + Energy Drink = Awesome

I generally dislike so-called energy drinks, such as Red Bull, for two reasons:

1) they all have a weird taste (maybe from taurine?), and
2) they're super expensive.

Yesterday morning on my drive to work I picked up a Java Monster Nut-Up. It was tasty!

Java Monster is Monster's coffee-based line of beverages, tasting like coffee with sweetener and cream plus extra flavoring and Monster's special "energy blend". The Nut-Up tastes like it has hazelnut flavoring. Monster is pretty vague about how much caffeine is in a can, but several web sites claim it is 160mg for a 16oz can (which is what I had). It tastes good, and is good for you!

Before you get too excited about that caffeine content, just remember that 16oz of brewed coffee, if brewed pretty strong (like how I usually make it), could surpass that amount.

Anyway... I definitely liked it. But it's still much too expensive ($2.50). For me, it's priced as a luxury... if it were between $1.00 and $1.50 I'd probably buy it more often.

My daily Bible reading is currently going through the Book of Job. Very interesting. One can really sense Job's frustration at not understanding why God had brought all these calamities into his life when he believed he'd all along lived as God had wanted him to live. His friends' general lack of encouragement adds to Job's frustrations. Here's an example exchange:

Job's friends: Job, just confess to whatever horrible thing you did and God will restore you.
Job: But I didn't do anything wrong!
Job's friends: Whatever.

UPDATE: Yes, I know that "energy" is misspelled in the link for this post. I corrected the spelling in the title, though.

Happy New Year, 2011

Winter returned today. Yay! The temperature dropped throughout the day and the winds picked up. I think the daytime temperature was around 35.

I got a good start on two of my new year's resolutions. One of them is to read the Bible through this year. The boys + Olivia had given me a chronological NIV Bible for Christmas. Neat!

Even though I was up pretty late the night before waiting for Tim to return from his party, I didn't sleep in too late. I just don't like feeling as if I'm sleeping the day away, and that's how I feel whenever I'm in bed past 10 AM.  I had a pretty busy day, anyway, and wanted to get started on it.

First, I started my world-famous pizza meatballs in the slow cooker... sauteed some chopped onions, then mixed into that some pasta sauce and my secret ingredients, and poured that over the meatballs.

After my wife's lunch break, I wrapped presents for our extended family Christmas party. Then we all went to that party. It was a pretty good time. Doug & Olivia showed up! And I kind of learned a new card game. I forget its name, though.  Something like "nerf" cards, because when you think you've one a round, you yell out "nerf!" (only not "nerf" but rather the word you're really supposed to yell out).

Here are some pictures:

dinner!

dinner, still! and there's Bennett again! and
Jon sure does turn around a lot!

snowman on the tree, just hanging out