It's somewhat of a joke in my home that I never finish a book. While for the most part, that has me pegged, it's not entirely true. I can read fiction books like nobody's business. But I struggle when it comes to non-fiction. This year I want to do something about that.

Fiction
The thing with fiction is that, to me, it's almost like watching TV. I can burn through lots of pages in no time when it comes to fiction. For example, last holiday season, I read the Circle trilogy (Black, Red, and White) by Ted Dekker. Combined, the total length of that story is over 1,000 pages. A few weeks ago, I picked up C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy. I'm nearly finished with the third book, That Hideous Strength. While Lewis's books are more mentally challenging, they're still a quick read, because even the deep philosophical passages have an intriguing story to carry them along. It's that story that keeps me going. I just gotta know what happens in the end.

Non-Fiction
When it comes to non-fiction, however, I rarely finish a book. In fact, the last non-fiction book I finished was 9 Marks of a Healthy Church, by Mark Dever. That was in December of 2005! In the last 2 years, I've started all of these books but never finished a single one:

• The Discipline of Grace, by Jerry Bridges
• What Is Reformed Theology, by R.C. Sproul
• Shepherding a Child's Heart, by Ted Tripp
• Twelve Ordinary Men, by John MacArthur
• Teach Them Diligently, by Louis Priolo
• Business By the Book, by Larry Burkett
• Pro WPF, by Matthew MacDonald
• First Love, by John MacArthur
• Software Requirements, by Karl Weigers

There are probably lots more. We  have shelves full of books that are only half-read. I want to change this. I shudder to think of the benefits I've been missing in my spiritual life and professional life because I'm too lazy to stick with these non-fiction books.

My First Attempt
So, my first attempt at a non-fiction book this year is going to be The Four Pillars of Investing, by William Bernstein. My father-in-law recommended it to me after I asked him (for probably the 5th time) about how to allocate my 401(k). He says it's the best investing book he's ever read, that he put its principles into practice, and saw immediate improvement in his investment performance.

We've been thinking a lot lately about all the things we need to save for (vehicles, Audrey's college education, home repairs, etc), and we're realizing that we need to be a bit smarter about how we invest our money. So, I'm going to start reading this book and attempting to put its principles into practice. We'll see if it can help us out!

Being a geek, you'd think I'd baby my technology. You know...daily blowing out my keyboard with compressed air. Diligently wiping off my screen with those special wipes that you can get just for monitors. Backing up my hard drive daily.

But I don't.

In fact, I have a confession to make. I've had my laptop for 2 years now, and I've never once cleaned it! The thought really didn't cross my mind until my fan started running nearly nonstop. It made enough noise to be annoying, and the bottom of the computer got so hot, that I couldn't even hold it on my lap without fear of bodily injury.

So, I finally decided to clean out my laptop last night. Bec, Audrey and I were in Atlanta visiting my folks, and it was almost midnight. I figured there was no better time to give it a try.

Disassembly
Getting the computer apart was easy. I just started taking out screws until the piece of the case that covered my heatsink was loose. Then I removed the plastic piece to expose the fans and the top of the heatsink. I used a vacuum with a crevasse tool to vacuum it out.

Cleaning
A LOT of crud came out of my computer almost immediately. Our house is average when it comes to dust. But we do have a dog as well, and there was an inordinate amount of dog fur inside my computer! Yuck!

After I got all the crud I could see, I almost stopped. But then I thought better of it and decided to remove the fans completely to see if I could find any more. Boy, was I surprised! It was jam packed with dust and dog fur behind the heat sinks. I'm amazed that the poor fans could even get any air through them at all! No wonder they were going full blast all the time! And no wonder my computer was still overheating!

I vacuumed off the heatsinks using a brush attachment. Then Rebecca and I cleaned all the dust off the fan blades with some cotton swabs and rubbing alcohol. We had it looking good as new!

Reassembly
I was going to go even further, but it was really getting late, and most of the crud happens because of the fans. So, I put it back together (successfully, though there were some at the table that weren't sure that I could. HA!).

Results
I am amazed at how much better my computer runs now. It doesn't get hot at all on the bottom any more. Tonight we watched an episode of Monk that we downloaded off iTunes, and it barely got warm. Before the cleaning, something that processor-intensive would've threatened to shut down my computer uncontrollably (which also happened a time or two).

So, the moral is, CLEAN YOUR LAPTOP!! In case you're not sure how, here are some good articles to get you started:

• Clean a laptop heatsink
• Laptop Fan Overheating and Cleaning

It's already busy here as Bec and I join a group of about 50 preparing for this year's Smoky Mountain Youth Conference. Man, I love this event. I've been coming to SMYC since I was a freshman in highschool. I've participated as a student, as a speaker, as a worship team member, and now as a behind-the-scenes techie helping this thing go down.

It's amazing how much techie stuff goes into this conference. A quick look around at the auditorium reveals huge speakers, two giant video screens, banks and banks of video and audio equipment, a half-a-dozen or so laptop computers, a Linux file server, a wireless router, a digital multi-channel mixer, and a bunch of other stuff I don't know about. It's a techie's dream come true!

But the cool thing is that all this technology is being put to good use: supporting the expansion of the Kingdom of Christ. This weekend, several hundred teens will converge on the Smoky Mountain Convention Center in Pigeon Forge to take part in SMYC. Some will come because they want to get away from their parents. Some will come because they want to hang out in Pigeon Forge. Some will come because their friends come, and some will come because they're hungry, ready to grow in their relationship with God. Tomorrow night, all this technology is going to explode with the message that they all need to hear.

Oh, Father, if You don't show up this weekend, this conference is in vain. All this technology and all the effort it took to put it together will be wasted. Jesus, unless you build the house, the workers work for nothing. So please, please, come in POWER here at SMYC. Let Your agenda be done this weekend in the hearts of those who attend. Make all this effort worthwhile with Your presence, oh Lord!

Merry Christmas, and welcome to DougAndBec.net! 'Tis the season for giving, and nothing says, "Happy Holidays!" like free web hosting! Yes, after several years of wanting a web account of my own, my parents agreed to get me a web hosting account for Christmas. How cool is that? So, after some searching, I set up our digital home on hostrocket.com. So far, so good!

I'd love to take some time to introduce my wife and I to you, but as of right now, it's 2:10 in the morning, CST. Even for me, that's getting late. Instead of going ahead with the introductions, I think I'm going to sign off for now and get some sleep. Hopefully sooner than later, I'll get a chance to make the formal introductions. In the mean time, good night and sleep tight!