Nate's Halloween Costume

Me: "What are you going to be for halloween Nate?"
Nate: "I'm going to be a Mexican."
Me: "A Mexican? Um.. I'm not sure I understand. What do you mean by "being a mexican?"
Nate: "I'll wear a sombraro, a mustache, a poncho and then have bullets across my chest."
Me: "A bandito?"
Nate: "Yeah. A mexican bandito. Same thing."
Me: "Not sure about that, but in the future, let's call it a Bandito instead."

My daughter's strange sense of humor

Emily: "Dad, when are the girls going to be back from taking Lola for a walk?"
Me: "Gee, let me check my crystal ball."
Emily: "You want me to lick the wall? Ok." (Proceeds to lick the wall)

My iPhone's latest feature

Conversation between Maddie and I:
Maddie: "Dad, can I borrow your phone to call my friend?"
Me: "Sure, here you go." (Dialing phone)
Me: "Oh, turn off the spanish translation feature. Otherwise when you call Maddie all she's hear is Spanish."
Maddie: "Ok. How do I turn it off?"
Me: "Hit the spanish translation button and turn it to english"
Maddie: (panicked): "I can't find it Dad. Hurry, she's going to answer!" (hangs up call)
Me: "That's okay. I can translate back if she speaks in spanish to you."
Maddie: "Dad!"
Me: "I'm kidding. I'm kidding. It does none of that."
Maddie: "Oh."

Rough Start

My day started with me rolling over, looking at my hotel-room clock and noticing that it was 6:15AM, while my alarm was set for 5:45. PM. Cripes. I jumped out of bed to find that I'd left half of my shower kit at home, so I had no razor or tooth brush. I got one from the front desk, showered and ran out the door. I had put together a meeting with a customer at 7:30 AM. I never want to be THAT GUY who schedules the early meeting and then doesn't show.

I was able to meet up with a good friend of mine, Matt, who's down here for meetings nearby. Matt used to work at Xerox as a sales rep and he and I worked on a project together for about four years and were a great team. Matt is a master sales person who helped me make the transition from being a technical guy with lots of answers to a sales guy who asks more questions. We became great friends and have stayed in touch even after he left Xerox. Matt owns more shoes and more clothes than any guy I know and is almost as good of a negotiator as Bob Rays. He is the guy that will call me and say, "Dave, you take a 44 long jacket, right? I found one in a style that'd be perfect for you and it's only $100." and I'd have him buy it for me sight unseen. We got harassed pretty heavily by the project teams for our metro-sexual shopping trips, but I'm sure they envied our bargains secretly.

Full moon in the back yard

I went out last night to take the puppy out to the bathroom and saw this amazing skyline. The full-moon was reflecting off the clouds behind our giant tire-swing oak-tree in a way that looked very cool. I stayed out for about a half hour trying to capture it, but these pictures don't really do it justice in terms of the color and lights.

In the beginning...

Maddie and I were talking last night at bed time and she was telling me about what she was learning about at church. They're going through the book of Genesis. We started talking about Adam and Eve and had a conversation that I thought was very cool:

Me: "So why did God create us with the choice to go disobey him in the beginning? Why didn't he create us to just obey?"
Maddie: "Because then we'd be robots Dad. If you don't have a choice to love, it's not really love."
Me: "Well then why didn't God come down with all his power and might and tell us to bow down before him?"
Maddie: "Because fear isn't the same as love, Dad. How would God know if we really loved him, or if we were just afraid of him?"

Maddie gets things in her faith at the age of ten that I didn't get until I was much older. She's a wise little kid in a lot of ways. She understands why God's love for us compelled Jesus to come to earth as a carpenter and not as a king in ways that I never did until I was much older. The conversation reminded me of the the story of story of "The King and the Maiden" by Søren Kierkegaard:

Suppose there was a king who loved a humble maiden. The king was like no other king. Every statesman trembled before his power. No one dared breathe a word against him, for he had strength to crush all opponents. And yet, this mighty king was melted by love for a humble maiden. How could he declare his love for her? If he brought her to the palace and crowned her head with jewels and clothed her body in royal robes, she would surely not resist -- no one dared resist him. But would she love him?

She would say she loved him, of course, but would she truly? Or would she live with him in fear, nursing a private grief for the life she had left behind? Would she be happy at this side? How could he know? If he rode to her forest cottage in his royal carriage, with an armed escort waving bright banners, that too would overwhelm her. He did not want a cringing subject. He wanted a lover, an equal. He wanted her to forget that he was a king and she a humble maiden and to let shared love cross the gulf between them. For it is only in love that an unequal can be made equal.

Our new Puppy, Lola

We're starting to adjust to having a puppy. We've ever decided on a name. At Brad's advice, we agreed to wait a bit to see the personality of the dog before deciding on a name. We all had ideas and we narrowed it down to a few different names that we all agreed on. The end result was "Lola" as in the showgirl, as in L-O-L-A Lola.

We're crate training her and it's been tough listening to her cry at night. It's getting better, though, as the week wears on. We're working on house-breaking her. I think Lola's got it all backwards. We take her outside, she walks around for a while and then comes back in and immediately poops inside. She's so darn cute, as I guess all puppies are that it's tough to get too mad at her when she has accidents.

Maddie's Pom/Cheer Competition

On Sunday Maddie had her first Panthers Cheer/Pom competition. She had to be there at 11 and it finished up at 5. Maddie's team competed with a pom routine and a cheer routine with her team getting a gold in both.

The team did a great job with their routines that they've been practicing all year. They're coached by girls from the high school cheer and pom squad and they did very well. We were right there in the front row cheering for Maddie as she cheered. In between, Mark Kohne and I followed the Lions game via our iPods and swapped iPod apps.

We have friends who had kids in both the Freshman Squad (started at 7am) and in the JV Squad (ended at 9pm).

Saturday Football

My Dad, Judy, Jon, Beth, Libby and Reagan all came down to see Nate play and Maddie cheer on Saturday. They played Brighton and got crushed again. Nate was playing outside linebacker and tight end. He lined up against a guy who was 140 and about 6'1. Not bad for a sixth grader, let alone a high school senior. Nate is about 74 lbs soaking wet.

The kid was huge, and gravity just wasn't working in Nate's favor here. I was so proud to watch him go up against this guy who had him beat with size, but not with heart. Nate kept coming back to this guy and hitting him as hard as he could.

Nate had some great plays, including a strip and a fumble recovery.

Maddie's team did a great job cheering, doing some of their routine for Sunday's competition.

Reasons your co-workers shouldn't read your blog

This is what happens when a co-worker who reads your blog is not amused by repeated uses of his name in said blog. As you can see from his comment, he loves the name choices, so I'm confused as to why he would send this PowerPoint slide out to my co-workers. He also made it a point to tell me how dull my blog is getting lately. I see a direct correlation with my references to him and my blog getting dull.

The Business Case for Short Term Mission Trips

This is a very interesting article from the Wall Street Journal that looks at the overall impact on the people go go on the trip and the recipients of the service - kind of a spiritual business case, around short-term mission trips - The 'Great Comission' or Glorified Sightseeing?

Calvin College sociologist Kurt Ver Beek surveyed U.S. missionaries who built homes in Honduras after Hurricane Mitch in 1998. After coming down from a post-trip "high," the short-termers did not evince much change in their lives. Only 16% reported "significant positive impact," including in prayer, friendships and financial giving. Then Mr. Ver Beek surveyed those whose homes were rebuilt by missionaries and those whose homes were rebuilt by local nongovernmental organizations. He found that there was "little or no difference" in the spiritual response of the beneficiaries.

The business case says this:

Indeed, if you were to ask an economist about short-term missions, many of which involve such manual-labor projects, he would have a simple answer: Ditch the traveling team members and send a check. A career missionary knows better what manual labor needs to be done on-site, and he can hire local laborers for much less money than what flying in unskilled Americans requires. Using local labor contributes to the local economy and avoids perpetuating a culture of dependency and powerlessness. A career missionary is also fluent in the local language and culturally aware, so he can be more effective at evangelism, discipleship and social-justice ministries.

Anyone ever been on a trip like this? Do you agree?

Puppy Names

We haven't decided on a name yet for the puppy yet. These are our choices right now that we all agree on:

1. Chloe
2. Lola
3. Maggie

Cathie, Maddie and Em like Sadie. Nate and I like Juno and Delilah. What's your vote?

New Additon to the family

We picked up the puppy today from the airport. We took Em out of school to get the puppy with us because of her unbelievable love for animals and excitement about this event. The puppy was shipped from Missouri and got here without a problem. American Airlines had a very cool site that I could track it each step of the way and even notified me when it had arrived at the cargo center, all via my beloved iPhone.

We played on the lawn for a while when we got home. The puppy seems to be adjusting pretty quickly. Running around, licking and cuddling. We haven't heard it bark yet. I'm taking it to the vet today to get it checked out.

We haven't decided on a name yet. The name Silas was already used for our Praying Mantis, otherwise it would be the perfect name for a female dog.

Practicing for Sunday's Big Cheer Competition

Silas the Praying Mantis

We found Silas the Praying Mantis outside of our front door. He's huge. I walked in the door and quietly told Cathie, "I found this praying mantis", only to hear Emily from upstairs shouting, "What! You found a praying Mantis? Can I keep it?" The girl is near-deaf at all other times when we call her to dinner, bed-time or room cleaning. Amazing what selective hearing can do.

Silas is huge. In a creepy way. He turns his head to follow your motions. He's a rather cool pet. Too bad he'll die soon. Apparently praying mantis's don't live through the winter. They're also pretty grusome creatures, hence the name Silas. The females kill the males after mating and their young eat their siblings. Wild.

We went to the pet store last night and bought some crickets to feed him. The pet store owner was telling me that we can hand feed Silas. He'll basically take the cricket from your hand and devour him live, right in front of you.

Our cat has been mesmerized by Silas. It sits next to it's cage all day long watching him. I'd like to let 'em fight it out. Maybe I'll add poison to Silas's claws to make it a little more fair. Emily took him into school today to show the class. We'll see how long it takes for Silas to die. Meanwhile, I'm hoping to get some video of him eating a cricket.

I'll know I have too much money when...

I get a life-size Lego replica made of me, for $60k.

Triad Tire Flip

This morning's workout involved giant tractor tires and throwing them back and forth. Sitting on one side of the tire you would decelerate the tire down and press it back to the other guy. There's something about a 250lb tire falling on your that puts a little umph in your press as you heave it back up to the other guy. It's also a great dynamic motion, since the tire doesn't fall in a straight line at you.

Two Year Anniversary of my Mom's Death

Two years ago today my Mom died.  It is still sad, but hurts less.  I still think of her almost every day.  We all still tell stories about my Mom, almost daily. We still have the, "You know what Mom/Grandma would have thought about that?" moments all the time.

As you can imagine, my Mom really loved this picture (not at all).  At some point I thought it would be funny to cross my eyes in every single one of the poses.  Her explanation was this: "The people who looked at the pictures probably thought 'Oh, look at that cute little retarded boy' and picked the best out of the bunch."

Football Pants

Nate: "Mom, why did you wash my football pants?"
Cathie: "Nate, they were covered in mud so I figured they needed to be washed."
Nate: "Mom, I like them muddy, plus they had blood on them."
Cathie: "Blood?"
Nate: "Yeah! Someone else's blood"
Me: "Someone else's blood? Cool. How'd that get there?"
Nate: "I hit a guy so hard in practice that he bled on me."
Me: "Nice."
Nate: "Yeah. Cool, huh?"

Happy 40th Shanananan