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	<title>Undercover Pastor</title>
	<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog</link>
	<description>Steve Whitney, writing as a pastor, a former Silicon Valley computer guru, husband, and dad</description>
	<lastBuildDate>Fri, 07 Aug 2009 05:39:51 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>Roadside Memorials &#8211; Filling in for the Church?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Are the currently-popular roadside memorials a sign that the world has rejected the church or an opportunity to reach out to meet people's needs?]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/239</link>
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		<title>Morning Prayer for Night People</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I have to admit it.  For years, people have talked to me about the importance of morning prayer, of starting out each day by dedicating it &#8211; and myself &#8211; to God.  I have tried a bunch of times to do it too.  But I find it hard.
Here&#8217;s the deal.  I&#8217;m not a morning person [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/236</link>
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		<title>Public Restrooms and the Church</title>
		<description><![CDATA[


On a recent coffee run I saw a sign at a local restaurant located near a major freeway.   &#8220;No Public Restroom (Customers Only),&#8221; it read.
The sign was posted on the front door where everyone would see it &#8211; in fact, that and the hours were the only things posted there.  It reminded me of a [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/226</link>
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		<title>Denny&#8217;s Big Breakfast Gamble and the Church</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I saw the Super Bowl ad for a free grand slam breakfast at Denny&#8217;s on February 3rd.  And I was planning to take the family.  Only each Denny&#8217;s we visited had a line around the block.  Apparently, Denny&#8217;s served 2 million breakfasts that morning.  They estimate that they got $50 million worth of free (positive) publicity [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/222</link>
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		<title>Resiliency</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m about halfway through a three-week vacation from my position as pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church.  After 5-1/2 years as pastor with no more than two weeks off at any one time (except to have kids!), I started to feel tired, and it was taking more and more to recover.  I later learned that psychologists [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/219</link>
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		<title>My Post-Christian Son</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve noticed a big difference between the assumptions my 6-year-old son makes and the ones I made at the same age. I used to assume that everyone went to some kind of church. Johnny is surprised to learn that someone goes to church. He realizes that he lives in a post-Christian world.
I hadn&#8217;t realized this [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/217</link>
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		<title>163440 Bible Content Exams served</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The annual Presbyterian Church &#8220;Bible Content Exam&#8221; happened again today.  And as of this evening, my web tool for studying the Bible &#8211; mainly for people taking that test, has been used 163440 times!  I never would have imagined that 9 years ago.  It&#8217;s very cool that I get to help so [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/214</link>
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		<title>Come, Labor On!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I have the week off from church so we were planning to worship at another church as we generally do.  but t his week, Lydia is sick with some kind of stomach flu.  Rather than leave Eleanor and Lydia at home alone, we decided to have &#8220;home church&#8221; today.
I put on some recorded hymns as [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/208</link>
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		<title>Speaking of habits&#8230;</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Looks like I kicked the blogging habit.  Let&#8217;s see if I can get back into it.  I&#8217;ve been learning a whole lot in the last few months.  More soon, God willing!
]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/207</link>
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		<title>Keeping Habits</title>
		<description><![CDATA[People talk a lot about breaking bad habits, but keeping good habits can be just as hard &#8211; sometimes harder.
I know this because I just did my old weight program at the gym for the first time in just about a year.  Now I could make plenty of excuses.  I stopped last year because I [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/204</link>
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		<title>Why would God confuse us?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In his well-known daily devotional book, My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers writes
&#8220;Ye know not what ye ask.&#8221; Matthew 20:22
There are times in spiritual life when there is confusion, and it is no way out to say that there ought not to be confusion. It is not a question of right and wrong, but a [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/201</link>
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		<title>Busy-ness vs. Thankfulness</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
I’ve been busy lately. There are a lot of big things happening at our church plus we have three kids, two of whom are starting new schools this year (one at preschool and one at kindergarten) plus one eight-month-old!   I’ve been working really hard and feeling tired. Sometimes exhaustion can rob you of your joy.But [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/195</link>
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		<title>In memoriam: Edith Whitney, 102 years of life and faith</title>
		<description><![CDATA[My grandmother died almost two weeks ago now at 102, and I now have the bittersweet task of officiating at her memorial service.  My grandmother didn&#8217;t have an easy life.  As a polio survivor, her reaction time was slow and her sense of balance was unreliable.  She lived with a lot of pain at various [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/177</link>
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		<title>Pain and Pastors</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The word pastor comes from our job as shepherds.  Of course, Jesus is the real shepherd, but we pastors try our best to represent him well as we seek to care for his flock.  Jesus taught us that he&#8217;s the kind of shepherd who cares if a single sheep goes astray and wanders into danger, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/175</link>
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		<title>Dreams vs. Reality</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Tomorrow is the fifth anniversary of my first day as pastor at Trinity Presbyterian Church.  I can still clearly remember talking to the pastor nominating committee at my face-to-face interview with them back in 2003.  After they asked me their questions, I asked them a few, including what would you to see happen in the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/171</link>
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		<title>Flu and Thankfulness</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ve got the stomach flu, and it has completely ruined my plans.  Sure, I should have been prepared when my son Johnny got it a few days ago, but I lived in denial.  I&#8217;ll spare you the unplesant details, but the part of this that&#8217;s interesting is that on Wednesday, someone in our Revelation Bible [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/169</link>
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		<title>Crossing the Stormy Lake</title>
		<description><![CDATA[During my vacation this year, I had the good fortune of being able to spend a week at my grandmother&#8217;s cabin at Donner Lake.  And this year, my aunt had left a kayak for us to use.  The previous night I had tried it out and taken my sons on a short loop in the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/166</link>
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		<title>The front or the back of the line?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Eleanor and I were headed for a rare cup of coffee without the kids and during the five-minute drive, we encountered two different people who were angry over someone getting into the lane of traffic ahead of them.  Eleanor and I actually let a couple of people in and then found a great parking place!  [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/165</link>
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		<title>It&#8217;s official &#8211; I&#8217;m my father</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I believe I&#8217;ve blogged about this before, but lately in Northern California, we&#8217;ve had high heat and smoke everywhere from the many fires burning in our state.  This, along with high energy costs, leads to a new urgency to&#8230;  wait for it&#8230; keep the door closed!
I don&#8217;t want to cool the neighborhood!  (Of course I took engineering [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/164</link>
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		<title>Put my crayons up high, Dad</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Lately, my son Joshua has had some trouble with drawing on the floor, walls, furniture, and windows with crayons.  We&#8217;ve always had an understanding that crayons are only to be used on paper, and he can answer the question, &#8220;Where do we used crayons?&#8221;  &#8220;On paper, Dad.&#8221;  But temptation strikes, and our little artist feels [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/159</link>
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		<title>The ultimate water cooler for really lazy people&#8230;</title>
		<description><![CDATA[When I was a kid, my dad had to make a rule that you could never take the last ice cube from the little ice bin on our freezer drawer without opening and refilling a fresh tray of ice.  So my sister and I always left exactly one cube.  Then Dad changed the rule to [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/157</link>
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		<title>Worship space decisions revisited</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In response to my earlier post about the difficulty of making space in a smaller church, Becky made this suggestion:
Have you thought of starting a new (small) church? I love the idea of small churches being so appealing that they multiply like bunnies.
It&#8217;s really a reasonable thing to think about too &#8211; a different model [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/158</link>
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		<title>Thankfulness: Not So Obvious</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Yesterday afternoon, my kids were starting to get a little bit of cabin fever.  It was hot, and the air had been smoky for most of the day, but by late afternoon, the air had cleared a bit and a cool breeze was blowing.  &#8220;Why don&#8217;t you go outside and play, Johnny?&#8221; I [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/154</link>
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		<title>Small churches have a unique call</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I had a wonderful opportunity to address pastors and elders from small churches at the Presbyterian Church&#8217;s biannual General Assembly on Monday.  I really do believe in the ministry of small churches.  By their definition, we are Trinity are now a medium-size church, but we&#8217;re still a lot smaller than many of the churches around [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/153</link>
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		<title>Decisions, decisions!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The past couple of weeks, I&#8217;ve been troubled in my spirit&#8230;  Is that good Bible language for spiritually messed up?
Our church has experienced a lot of growth lately and we&#8217;re having growing pains.  That&#8217;s partly because our building is way too small.  It was built in a time when a) churches didn&#8217;t have parking lots [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/152</link>
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		<title>Waiting for God</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I don&#8217;t like waiting at all.  It&#8217;s annoying.  And then there&#8217;s all that uncertainty.
I preached about waiting for God on Sunday.  Then as I was feeling frustrated today about a couple of things, I happened to hear two different people on the car radio at two different times talking about waiting on God&#8230;  [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/150</link>
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		<title>First African-American Presidential Nominee</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Today was a historic day.  I was trying to explain to my 5-year-old son why the nomination of Barack Obama as the Democratic candidate for President of the United States is such a big deal.   He didn&#8217;t get it.  I had to explain to him that there are still people in [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/151</link>
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		<title>The Mars lander has landed!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[We&#8217;ve landed on Mars!  Check out news from the Phoenix Mars lander.
]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/148</link>
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		<title>Stay-at-home parents cause cancer?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[A recent study claims that kids in daycare have better immune systems than those with stay-at-home parents, possibly leading to a reduced likelihood of leukemia.  See the New York Times article here.
This makes me feel a lot better about the various sicknesses that some of our church kids passed around recently.  You see, as it [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/147</link>
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		<title>Our God Is a Great Big God</title>
		<description><![CDATA[My wife woke me up for morning prayer this morning and I went back to sleep.  This was a bad choice because there&#8217;s a lot going on in my life and the life of our church right now.   As a church grows, it can no longer connect everyone &#8220;automatically.&#8221;  It&#8217;s a much more conscious and [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/146</link>
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		<title>Agree with God and be at peace</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I was just reading Charles Spurgeon&#8217;s Morning and Evening devotional for this evening, and it referred to Job 22:21.  In the NRSV (New Revised Standard Version), it says, &#8220;Agree with God, and be at peace; in this way good will come to you.&#8221;  In the NIV (New International Version), it says, &#8220;Submit to God and be [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/144</link>
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		<title>The church and the needs of sexual assault survivors</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Last week, I attended a &#8220;round table&#8221; of sexual assault survivors and members of the clergy. The honesty of the six women who had survived sexual assault was extraordinary &#8211; and extremely difficult to hear. But the hardest part of what they had to say was the part about how their churches had treated them. [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/143</link>
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		<title>Goodbye, Myra</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In Memoriam
Oscar Myra Mendoza Whitney (Myra)
1994-2008
Last night (April 30), our long-haired miniature dachshund, Myra escaped from the back yard.  When we realized it late last night, I went searching for her in the neighborhood and after about 45 minutes, found her across Jefferson Blvd. (a busy, highway-like street with 4 lanes).  She had been hit by [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/141</link>
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		<title>God works through difficult stuff</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I preached on sex, lust, and divorce on Sunday.  Blech!  
I knew that I needed to do it, but I sure didn&#8217;t like the idea of standing in front of a whole group of people and talking about sex.  Heck, I don&#8217;t want to talk to a small group of people about sex.  And [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/140</link>
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		<title>An exercise in God&#8217;s love for YOU</title>
		<description><![CDATA[First a word of  introduction.  I had the great pleasure of attending the Bayside Church (of Granite Bay, CA) THRIVE 2008 conference.  It&#8217;s nice that such a huge and wealthy church &#8211; that could easily hold a world-class conference just for its own leaders &#8211; invites leaders from other churches to come and learn and share fellowship [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/139</link>
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		<title>A new advisory system &#8211; What&#8217;s your level?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Tired of the Homeland Security Threat Level or the fire danger level?  Try this.  My level of caffeination (is that a word?) is on the low side today.  Where&#8217;s yours?

HT: KC Wahe
]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/138</link>
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		<title>Don&#8217;t just do what you&#8217;re told!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[About a year ago, I was at a ministry conference and someone I had been talking to the day before came up to me and said, &#8220;I have a message for you, Steve!&#8221;  &#8220;Uh, OK&#8230;&#8221; I replied.  &#8220;The message is that you&#8217;re ministry is on hold until you can stop caring what people [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/136</link>
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		<title>Enough or Too Much?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Johnny had a birthday party for some of his little friends last Saturday.
We always struggle with the gift issue.  Eleanor wants to have a &#8220;no gifts&#8221; party, and I imagine what that would feel like for the kids.  They bring presents to all of their friends&#8217; parties.  Is it fair for them not to get [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/134</link>
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		<title>God in the Mess</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Last Sunday, many things went wrong in worship at Trinity.
Now we&#8217;re not one of those churches were everything is polished and perfect, but even we are not accustomed to the sheer number of small things that went wrong, from people being out sick to sound system glitches to bulletin information being wrong.  And you know [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/133</link>
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		<title>Who&#8217;s my boss?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Eleanor and I were having a conversation over lunch and the topic of the church came up.  I said something about the church not being my church.  Well my son Johnny said, &#8220;It is your church, daddy,&#8221;
&#8220;No Johnny,&#8221; I replied, &#8220;It&#8217;s Jesus&#8217; church.  And he&#8217;s my boss.&#8221;
Without skipping a beat, Johnny responded, &#8220;He&#8217;s everyone&#8217;s boss.&#8221;
Then [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/132</link>
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		<title>Follow Mii?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[
OK, I&#8217;m not a big Nintendo Wii player, but why are people so disturbed by this image of Jesus? Check out a blog entry about Mission Bay Community Church&#8217;s attempt to reach people by using the culture.  The blog post by &#8220;Ryan&#8221; at the Two Small Coins blog does a nice analysis.
Our church used [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/129</link>
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		<title>Botox poisons the brain?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[You&#8217;ve heard about Botox &#8211; the toxin (poison!) that people use to minimize the appearance of wrinkles &#8211; to look younger. Well, there&#8217;s a new twist. A recent study in rats shows that the toxin that people inject into their foreheads may travel to the brain, damaging the brain stem!  There have also been human [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/126</link>
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		<title>Dr. King&#8217;s legacy &#8211; The work continues</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Today is the 40th anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Junior.  I think everyone in this country owes him a debt of gratitude for raising the consciousness of a nation that has always prided itself on being the land of the free.
Well, it&#8217;s not over.   Since I&#8217;m a white man, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/125</link>
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		<title>It&#8217;s not your battle &#8211; Stand still!</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Jim Edwards, one of the speakers at the West Coast Presbyterian Pastors&#8217; Conference this week, spent some time this morning talking about various virtues and about how we can make a decision to act in ways that we might not feel yet.  An example for me might be to help clean up the kitchen even [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/124</link>
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		<title>&#8220;I Am With You&#8221;</title>
		<description><![CDATA[At our conference today, Jim Edwards has been speaking on a list of Greek words he&#8217;s selected from the New Testament in its original language.  One of them is a word &#8220;proserchomai&#8221; (since I don&#8217;t have a Greek font), which is the word for people approaching God.  He notes that Matthew&#8217;s gospel uses [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/123</link>
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		<title>Getting Real</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m sitting here in a huge group of Presbyterian Church pastors, and I&#8217;m struck by how real these people are!
If you&#8217;ve heard me preach or have come to my Bible studies, you know that being real is a biggie for me.  I think that one of the biggest problems that the Christian Church faces [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/122</link>
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		<title>Giant robot to rule International Space Station</title>
		<description><![CDATA[OK, I may be exaggerating a bit, but this is how a lot of bad sci-fi movies start out.  A 12-foot tall, 3400 pound robot with 11-foot arms &#8220;rose like Frankenstein&#8221; to be installed at the International Space Station.  Watch out, guys!  In space, no one can hear you scream.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2008-03-15-space-shuttle_N.htm
]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/121</link>
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		<title>Love and Discipline</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I was just holding my 6-week-old daughter in my arms.  It was actually a pretty special moment.  She was almost smiling as she gazed into Daddy&#8217;s eyes.  But then she started to get sleepy.  And she hadn&#8217;t had her pink eye drops yet.  So I held little Lydia as her mother dosed her with the [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/120</link>
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		<title>Guns, Germs, and Abs of Steel</title>
		<description><![CDATA[OK.  There are no guns in this post, but it sounded much cooler with them.
I have found the easiest way to get the abs you&#8217;ve always dreamed of, and you&#8217;re in on the ground floor.  Introducing, Cold and Flu AbsTM
Yes, all you need to get that sixpack you&#8217;ve always wanted is a preschooler.  The system [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/119</link>
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		<title>Toddler Syndrome</title>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;Can I have some apple juice?&#8221; my son Joshua asked.
&#8220;Sure,&#8221; I responded.
&#8220;DAD, HE ALREADY ASKED MOM AND SHE SAID NO!&#8221; my older son Johnny yelled.
Yes, Joshua has discovered the fine art of continuing to ask until you get the answer you want.  Dave Barney, a system software director I worked for for a while, called [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://www.steve-whitney.com/blog/archives/118</link>
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