Pagani Zonda R – Nurburgring lap
I want to wake up in the morning and do a lap before brushing my teeth. Would wake me right up.
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Franck Barfety
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Franck Barfety
Junior High
Time is a precious commodity.
It’s hardly believable but Camille enters Junior High this year. Locating and solving how to open her locker was her first assignment. Things will get easier for her I hope
Just kidding. We didn’t have lockers in France. You had your stuff and you carried it around with you all day. I’ll have to ask or research how the whole locker thing got started here. I think it may be because of the emphasis on sports after school which, like lockers, we didn’t have either. Tomorrow school starts and social Camille can hardly contain herself. -
Franck Barfety
We have some great coaches this year for Gabe’s football team. The head coach forwarded this video this morning to all of us parents and I shed a few tears. Those who know me know that I love this country. I came here from France at 17 and part of me wishes I had lived every minute of my childhood here. I came here as an exchange student and I did play football my last year of High School here. Though I played only in one minute of one game at the end of the season, I loved every practice and suiting up on Fridays. My 8 year old son Gabe loves sports, particularly baseball and football, and I am so blessed to live vicariously through him. His experiences give me a glimpse into childhood in the United States. I love every minute of it. In fact with work I can never get enough of it.
I think of the game of football in terms of the Christian life. There are so many parallels I won’t elaborate here. But I listened to these coaches in the locker rooms and oh I wished for a Dad giving me (any) advice as a child. These coaches/dads are transferring knowledge to these boys but especially heart which is an odd non-physical component of this game. How do you measure heart, how much does it weigh? Is it more important than physical skills? So I listened to their words and the song and I wondered How bad do we want to put the uniform on (the armor of God in Ephesians)? Do we have heart? Do we play this game of life as if it’s our last play? Do we get the butterflies in our stomach when it’s time to talk to someone about Christ? Do we have a heart so swelled up before a play it feels like I better give it my all or my heart is going to explode inside my chest? Do we focus on today or do we worry about tomorrow? Do we dream big enough?
I too look back and think How fast 27 years has gone by. Do I battle through though times when not everything is going right? Do I give it all I have for the cause of Christ? Do I play the game like it’s my last play?
As the coach says, you can’t be unemotional, this is an emotional game. How do you go about playing your last play today?
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Franck Barfety
TX Congressman, Kevin Brady’s flowchart of healthcare and America’s out-of-control federal government When we direct our attention to this flowchart, light bounces off the screen and enters our eyes through our retina which allows us to perceive the lines and the shapes that compose the flowchart. There is an electrical current that fires neurons in our brain but our brain is not what sees the flowchart, neither are our eyes seeing the flowchart. What sees the flowchart is our mind – a faculty of our soul. The mind has this fascinating ability to take everything in all at once because we are a simple unified conscious self. The brain and the mind are closely working together but they are not the same thing and the Law of Identity (A is identical to A or A is the same thing as A) continues to apply here. There are some things true of my brain states however that are not true of my mental states and vice versa, which logically implies they are not the same thing. For starters my brain states do not believe anything – that the flowchart is nuts for example. My mental states clearly do. My mind takes the flowchart in as a whole, and I determine that the minds who created this convoluted, government-heavy healthcare system are nuts, but it is not my brain or the physical particles that compose it that determine that – I do. Deducting the presence of other not-so-bright minds by observing this chart is what we do when we look at the universe, human beings or humming birds and deduce a personal God. Flowcharts just don’t pop out of thin air. They are designed by designers ID proponents would say.
Colors are fascinating. Here we see red, blue, yellow, green, orange and so on but there is not a brain state that is red or sees red or any of the colors here. There is not a brain state that makes the distinction between yellow and green, between a nice gradient red and an ugly red. We do this in our mind and this simply demonstrates they are not the same thing. Colors have meaning too, and meanings do not rest in the physical.
Lines are also interesting to continue our flowchart theme. We want to follow lines. We have lines on the roads we drive on, trees form lines, we wait in orderly lines. When lines get a bit convoluted we tend to think of chaos which is probably the intent of the author of this chart by showing the role of government when it wants to take over our health and by extension our physical bodies. But surprisingly we see through it, follow the lines and make sense of the chaos with the legends at the bottom. All with our mind. The brain facilitates the process but isn’t the same thing as the mind.
Words on the chart have meaning which are not physical. We can say for example that two sentences “the flowchart is mind-boggling” and “l’organigramme est ahurissant” are semantically completely different, yet they mean the exact same thing, which implies that the content of the thought that they express is not physical.
With the mind we willfully draw a chart to expose a flawed system. Minds have purpose, they plan, and then our soul uses the super power of free will to execute. For theists who have a problem with this dualistic view of the mind/body, simply think of God carrying out his purpose – God does not have a brain and he does not miss it. The brain simply facilitates the process while we are in our bodies. For non-theists, think about it!
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Franck Barfety
La vérité
Il y a un moment dans notre vie où la vérité essaye de se faire connaître. Ce que l’on décide à ce moment précis change tout.
Jusqu’à l’âge de 25 ans, je préférais passer mon temps dans l’obscurité, confortable dans la réalité que j’avais moi-même inconsciemment façonné. Jusqu’au jour où je me suis retrouver face à face à la vérité. A l’âge de 25 ans, j’ai du faire un choix – aimer la vérité et lui faire confiance dans tous les aspects de ma vie ou la renier.
J’espère vous encourager à raisonner et à penser aux questions les plus importantes de la vie, et ultimement à adopter la vérité, peu importe quoi.
Blaise Pascal a écris : « La vérité est si obscurcie en ce temps, et le mensonge si établi, qu’à moins que d’aimer la vérité, on ne saurait la connaître »[1]. Cela demande d’être honnête avec soi-même et de placer la vérité avant tout. C’est-à-dire, avant notre passé, nos traditions et surtout notre fierté.
Aimer la vérité va nous aider à répondre aux questions les plus difficiles que l’on se pose de temps a autre. Il y a des questions qui me semblent être plus importantes que d’autres, telles que : Peut-il y avoir une seule vérité ? Pourquoi existons nous ? Avons nous évolué ? D’où vient l’univers ? Peut-il vraiment y avoir un infini passé? De quoi sommes nous composés? Est-ce qu’il est possible qu’un Dieu existe et quelles en sont les preuves ? Peut on connaitre la nature de Dieu ? Pourquoi nous aurait-il créé ? Qui a créé Dieu ? D’où vient le mal ? Est-ce que toutes les religions mènent au même Dieu ? Y’a t’il quelque chose après la mort ?
Nous devrions donc aimer la vérité et vivre notre vie en désirant la connaître intimement. La logique, fondée sur ses lois surnaturelles, peut nous aider à répondre à ces questions les plus fondamentales.
Mais est-il possible de connaître la vérité ? Aimez vous la vérité ?
Quelles questions importantes vous posez vous ?
[1] Blaise Pascal, Pensées de Pascal, 857-924, Section XIV, Fragments polémique, 864. -
Franck Barfety
I thought I’d share this article from Dave Ramsey’s eNEWSLETTER August 2010:
I’ll always have a car payment.
You’ve probably heard that comment before, right? You might have even said it yourself—with a defeated, woe-is-me tone of voice. So what’s the deal? Are car payments really just a way of life?
Well, that’s the normal way of thinking. But, as Dave always says: When it comes to money, normal is broke. You want to be weird, and weird people don’t have car payments.
So how, exactly, do you live without a car payment?
Here’s the deal. Recent statistics show that one-third of car buyers sign up for a six-year loan at an average interest rate of 9.6%. Among these buyers, the average price of the car is just over $26,000. This means that one-third of the cars you see on the road are dragging a $475 payment behind them.
The car dealer won’t tell you that your awesome new car loses about 25% of its value the instant you drive it off the lot. After four years, your car has lost about 70% of its value!
What does that mean? After six years, you’ve paid almost $33,000 for a $26,000 car, which is now worth maybe $6,000. Not a good deal.
Here’s a new plan. What if you bought a cheap $2,000 car just to get around for 10 months? Then you take that $475—the average car payment—save it every month, and pay for a new car (with cash!), instead of giving it to the bank.
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Franck Barfety
Storm hits the cul-de-sac and knocks down the neighbor’s tree.
Un orage est passer dans notre cul-de-sac hier soir. Avec le vent, l’arbre des voisins n’a pas vu le lendemain.
“Vous qui ne savez pas ce qui arrivera demain! car, qu’est-ce votre vie? Vous êtes une vapeur qui paraît pour un peu de temps, et qui ensuite disparaît.” Jacques 4:14.
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Franck Barfety
The new Jetta is a vehicle designed to increase VW’s sales in the US market. Most folks looking at the Jetta, unless they were looking for a TDI or a GLI in past years, don’t ask whether the car as a fully independent suspension or rear wheel disc brakes. These cars are designed to take on the Corollas and Civics of the world head on. Jetta shoppers look at price, gas mileage and room in a car primarily. This car will do well as anyone shopping the other brands will come to the conclusion that the Jetta is still the nicer car.
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Franck Barfety
At 126, 243 miles I had to replace the clutch on my 337 and discovered that the driveshafts were damaged from split CV boots and a control arm bushing was broken preventing the car from being aligned properly.
From 337 These are rebuilt driveshafts bought from Molle VW in Kansas City. The replacement made the alignment true and also took care of a vibration in the front end of the car. The car rides really smooth again and has that new tight feel I was starting to miss.
Although it’s painful to spend money on cars, it needed to be done to keep an old car going and more importantly keep on driving debt-free:Replace Clutch kit and flywheel
Replace Rear crank seal
Replace master cylinder and bleed system
Remove and Replace Control arm bushings
Install new shifter bushings
Flush & fill transmission with gear oilThis is Eric Brown (left), formerly with Bob Hindson Racing. He is on his own now and did the work on my car. The other character is Dallas Summers who also sells VWs at Molle VW.
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Franck Barfety
2011 Volkswagen Jetta leaked images — Autoblog
My first thought is it looks too much like a Honda Accord. But again 4 door sedans aren’t my favorite anyway. The interior uses pretty much the same materials.
Candice is discussing. 
Candice 8:09 am on August 16, 2010 Permalink |
Look at your beautiful girls! I can't believe that Keely is a seventh-grader, too. This means we are getting OLD!
Franck Barfety 8:57 am on August 16, 2010 Permalink |
We took her to school this morning and Andi whispers: "You know in 5 years she'll be 17…" I suddenly got the feeling that I should save more or spend more time with her. It's all happening so fast. Enjoy today to the fullest.