The Tick

And The Word Of The Day Is....

2009-03-23T20:18:00.000-07:00

I'm back up in Fishkill, New York again this week for work. Normally when I come up here I go to work, go to the hotel, go for food, repeat as necessary. You know, I'm here to work. This time however, I have decided to take a few side trips and go see all this historic stuff that I happen to be surrounded by.

Today I took a thirty minute drive from my hotel to the town of Hyde Park, NY and visited the country mansion of the Vanderbilts. It was amazing. Hence, the word of the day is "opulence".

The mansion (preserved by the US National Park Service) is a part of probably one of the greatest estates preserved from the Gilded Age of America. I learned this from our tour guide. Some other things I learned:

- The term "Gilded Age" was actually a snub of wealthy society types by American author Mark Twain.

- The Vanderbilts only stayed in the house a couple of weeks each Spring and Fall. (They had a bunch of houses and yachts they also visited.)

- The Vanderbilts preferred the English Service System where men did all the serving and women did all the cooking and behind the scenes work. (As opposed to the French Service System where women do all the serving and men do the cooking and work behind the scenes.)

- Mr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt slept in separate rooms. Mrs. Vanderbilt's room was a copy of Marie Antoinette's bedroom at Versailles.

- All the beds in the house are very small.

- There was a very strict protocol around the turn of the century and a visitor's social status was considered always when it came to assigning bedrooms for them or even where they were to sit at dinner.

- Most of the exceptionally wealthy people during the Gilded Age in America gave away almost all of their fortune to charity. (They also paid a fortune in taxes.) The reason they didn't give it to their children was the belief of the time that their children had all the advantages of being raised with money and were expected to go out and make their own money.

In a word...Opulence....

Front of the Mansion

Rear of the Mansion

View of the Hudson River

101

2009-03-21T19:53:00.000-07:00

How often do you resharpen your saw? Author Stephen Covey (the "7 Habits" guy) uses the term "Sharpen the Saw" to describe the process of self-renewal. It's true that we all become dulled from time to time and a quick resharpening is often just the thing to put thing in perspective and get us back on track.

Last Sunday, the small group that Daleen and I lead at our church provided the food for a church class entitled PCC 101. All of the small groups take turns to provide the food and child care for the class and this time was our turn. No one in the class brought children so Daleen and I just had to bring dinner. After everyone ate, we asked if it would be ok for us to sit in on the class since it had been several years since we went through it. I can honestly say that being reminded once again of the mission of our church has had quite an impact on us. It almost feels like we were growing a bit dull lately at our church and have now been resharpened.

For those of you who don't know, PCC 101 is a class that introduces people to Powhatan Community Church and basically tells them all the ins and outs of who we are and what we do. The class is led by our senior pastor and he spells out everything about our mission, how we are organized, what we do, what we don't do, and why we do it. It's actually a requirement for church membership and I think it's great. How often have you wished that before you signed up for something, a senior member of the organization sat down with you and told you absolutely everything so you could make a membership decision based on all the information?

The best part of the meeting was when we went around and folks explained how they found our church and what keeps them coming back. All the stories we heard were really interesting. We even got to tell our story which made for some fun reminiscing. All the people in this particular class, including us, had come from some previous church. But everyone in the room had come to PCC looking for something.... something they hadn't found until they came to us. Some people had positive experiences from their previous churches and some had very negative experiences. However, what struck me the most that night was the part of each person's stories where they talked about their initial experiences with coming to PCC. While there were differences in how people found our church, what they experienced walking in the door was all very similar. The folks we met at the 101 class all experienced some great things about PCC from the moment they first arrived. They all felt welcome and liked there wasn't any pressure. They loved the music and Brian's messages, and since their initial visits, it seemed most had been growing into our church community.

There is a saying among a lot of the people who make our church go. "It's not about you." I think it's a good reminder. However, last Sunday I got to see up close who "it is" about. These folks left the churches they were attending for a variety of reasons. They could have simply stopped attending church and fallen away from Christian community. Instead, PCC and the people who make it happen, worked together and were used by God to create the right environment where these people could come and be met right where they were. I think about the other people who show up every week who have never been to church, feel they are broken or lonely, and are looking find some purpose and experience God. They are all who "it is" about.

I was reminded once again that the first part of the mission of our church is to reach the unchurched people around us. When we first started attending PCC, I was excited about working on Sundays and seeing that part of our mission happen. Seeing God use me to carry out that part of His work was what really got me pumped. However, over the years of attending PCC, I felt my enthusiasm start to dull a little. I started to see the work I did with the church as simply "work". I think attending this 101 class has fixed that. Talking with people who have been affected positively because folks in our church put their spiritual wellbeing ahead of their own set me right back up again. I feel like I have had my saw resharpened.

You know, it really isn't about me. It's about God and the unchurched people and helping to get them connected up together. A spiritual matchmaker if you will.... with a boss that is willing to take anybody. I think my level of spiritual growth is beyond what just sitting in the seat on Sunday mornings alone can offer to me. I have been reminded that where I am personally going to get the most bang out of my Sunday mornings is to put the people and God, who it is all about, ahead of myself and do what I can to help the church with it's mission.

There are still a lot of people in our community that are looking for what we are offering and want to experience God, and I'm recommitting myself to working with our church to make that happen. My saw is resharpened and I am ready to get to work. What's happening with your saw?

John, I'll email you this week to give you all the dates I am going to be in town and available to serve.....

Hate to Paint

2009-03-21T19:45:00.000-07:00

I was home from New York last week. It was great being back. As you can expect, I had missed Daleen, Colin, and the rest of my family and friends. My time at home was busy as well (didn’t have time to write a single blog posting). While at home I was driving back and forth to Manassas, VA where I have been doing a lot of work. In addition to travelling locally, we spent a lot of time working on the house. This time I installed some new lighting, did some drywall repairs and getting ready to do some interior painting.
We have a lot of small drywall cracks, nail pops, etc. My friend Josh is a structural engineer so of course I showed them all to him, expecting him to tell me my foundation was starting to come apart and the house was going to fall over at any moment. (I always expect the worse when it comes to my house.) But alas, Josh said everything looked fine and there was nothing a little spackle and mud couldn’t fix.
Personally, I hate doing drywall work almost as much as I hate painting. I think my drywall repair work isn’t as easy because I lack the proper tools. I watched a guy at work do it the other day and he used a really big, very clean, metal drywall knife to get his mud smoothed just right. He also did very thin coats of mud and in the end, didn’t need to do any sanding. I need to get the right tools for the job. Mmmm… new tools….
Then there was the electrical work. This is the part I actually do enjoy. The hallway by our front door has always been very dimly lit by one light that is too far away. We remedied this by installing two new recessed lights just inside the front door and replaced the old hallway fixture with a larger and brighter one. Unlike my drywall work, this job went very quickly and turned out perfectly. Unlike working with sheetrock, I have all the right electrical tools and the experience to actually use them.
Now it’s time to do some painting. I’m back in NY working this week and Daleen is going to try and do some of the painting on her own. I secretly wish she could just do all of it before I get back. I rate painting my house right up there with waterboarding as things I would rather not be subjected to. If you ever want information from me, no real torture is required. You could just threaten to force me to paint my entire house and I’d tell you whatever you wanted to know (even if I didn't know anything.)
We have a lot of work to do on our place this year. We’re going to need to buy some more paint and tools. That’s the cheap part. Our ancient heat pump and air handler is also probably going to die this year and that’s going to be the expensive part. There’s a lot of stuff in between that also needs to be done. We’re in no hurry though. We’re going to get it all done eventually and we’re going to do it right. By then a whole new list of things to do will come up. I just wish we didn’t have so much painting to do…..

The Last Hour

2009-03-06T02:32:00.000-08:00

I’m looking at my watch and it’s 5:00AM. I’ve been at work since 4:00 yesterday afternoon. Everything is humming along as it should now and I can finally relax for the last hour before I can head out the door and go to my hotel for some much needed rest.

I’m in Fishkill, NY this week, working out of my company’s office at one of IBM’s semiconductor plants. Unfortunately, my work this week is all at night, usually between 6:00PM and 6:00AM. Needless to say, I’m very tired. There are a lot of folks here who have been working the night shift for years. I have no idea how they do it. I’m simply not made to work that kind of schedule.

Regardless of my difficulties with working at night this week, I am very thankful to be working. Many of you know the plant I was working out of in Richmond closed a few weeks ago. The consequences of that closing including the closing of our company’s office at that site and shipping all of our parts and equipment back to our factory. Since that time, I have been sort of an engineer-at-large, working on some projects from home and doing a lot of travelling to some of our other field offices.

In these recent economic times, many of my friends and coworkers have been let go and are having extreme difficulty finding work elsewhere. Seeing long-time employees of my company get laid off has been hard, and I see myself in a tough situation with no real place to call home right now. I’m not the only one in this situation either. Some other folks in my company have seen their sites close and are also floating around, waiting. For me, being in NY right now is a good thing. And I am being utilized which is a very good thing. However, these trips are only temporary. We are going to continue going around and around for a while like this, but nobody knows for how long. I am just hoping that when the music stops, I won’t be without a chair.

I’m still not all that worried about what the future holds. I firmly believe that whatever comes, it’s going to be great, one way or another. Life really is too short to go around making yourself sick over what might happen. We’ve chosen to be optimistic. We are still hoping to stay in Richmond and I’ve started to shake a couple of trees to see what might turn up to allow us to stay. However, we have also started to prepare for having to relocate with my work. So, you’ll get to hear all about our painting and remodeling projects to get our house ready to sell, just in case.

I’ll be sure to keep you informed as this all unfolds. However, I think I have blogged about this more than enough lately and haven’t really had anything new to say about it. Right now, we’re good. Really good. But man, am I tired…..

The Crazy Life of Colin J

2009-02-11T11:37:00.000-08:00

My son is a whirlwind of activity these days.

We recently celebrated his 3rd birthday and since then, he has been a man on the go. For starters, his 3rd birthday parties were great (both of them). We had one for him and his pals and a family one. As expected, he got a ton more toys that we found room for by getting rid of older toys he had outgrown. This of course we had done in secret because if he knew those older toys were going away, they would suddenly become his new favorite toys. His birthday was also a little different this year because we added in some games we could play as a family. He got a game where these little plastic fish open and close their mouths and you have to catch them with these little plastic fishing poles. He also got the game "Don't Spill the Beans", which consists of all these little plastic beans which have now ended up all over the place. The best game he got has been "Candyland". It has been something fun we can do together and it's neat to watch him work with his colors and do some counting. He even wins the game more times than me! He usually stays focused in the beginning of every game. Now if we can just find a way to keep him from drifting away near the end.

After his birthday came his buddy Luke's birthday party. Luke also turned three. His mom and dad are good friends of ours and it was a fun party. They had it at the YMCA here in Powhatan. It was a pool party.....in February. Luckily the Y puts a big bubble over our pool in the winter so it was nice and warm for the swimming. (I think it also helped that it was 70 degrees outside.... 70 degrees out.... in February....that's going to be a whole different posting.) Luke's mom and dad put on a great party. Pizza, cupcakes, and lots of apple juice were on the menu and it just so happens that those are Colin's three favorite food groups. Then they did some awesome crafts (the party was a beach theme). On the way home, after all that sugar, I figured if the car were to break down, Colin would have enough energy to tow the car back to the house. However, the swimming must have worn him out because after we got back, he crashed out on the sofa. He never sleeps on the sofa so I know he must have been really tired. I'll have to remember to get him over to the pool the next time I need him to get some sleep.

The latest thing Colin has been doing is soccer. There is a local indoor soccer club for small children. Daleen took him for his first game the other day and I got to watch the video afterward. What fun. Colin did pretty good actually. We have a soccer ball at home that he likes to kick around, so he knew that part. The only bad part is that Colin would randomly just run off and go do his own thing. He would be standing in the circle, doing what the other children were doing and then he would just run off for no reason. Hey, it's his world. We all just live in it. His buddy Luke is also on his team and more or less did the same thing. Together they are sort of like the Thelma and Lousie of the 3 year old soccer team. Colin hasn't changed his name to Pele' just yet, but we're glad he's into sports.

So I guess we have officially opened the Mom and Dad Taxi company for business. Our taxi company has not yet acquired the necessary minivan vehicle, but Daleen assures me there is one in our future. In the past Colin used to just go wherever we were going with the exception of the occasional doctor's visit, play group, or trip to the park. But now he has places to go and people to see. It's all a part of growing up I guess. The next big thing is going to be potty training. We sort of have been messing around with this, but this weekend the gloves are coming off. Daleen has a plan and is on a mission. I'm just going to get out of the way and just do whatever she tells me. It's just safer that way.

The Facebook

2009-02-06T06:00:00.000-08:00

As usual, it's been a crazy week. Well, maybe a little crazier than others.

As I mentioned in my last posting, my customer whose site I work at is closing their doors. It was a very sudden move on their part and caught a lot of folks off guard. Imagine walking into work on Monday morning and being shuffled into a room to be told you were out of work, effective immediately, and you were not getting any kind of assistance, severance package, or anything. Needless to say a lot of folks were upset, and now most of them are already gone.

Since I work for an equipment vendor, when they shut down, we had to kick into overdrive and get all of our things out of there before they decided to cut the power and chain the doors shut. My boss was working at a site on Oregon one time where this happened. He showed up for work and all the factory doors were locked and everyone was standing out in the parking lot. No notice. No anything. Since my boss had experienced this before, he wanted all of our equipment and parts out of there as soon as possible. I don't think I've had to work that hard in months, but yesterday, the truck pulled away with several neatly organized pallets.

This week at work, it's been like a big party breaking up. Everyone has been shaking hands and swapping details and making promises to keep in touch. Normally these have always seemed to be hollow promises. You keep up with email for a while and eventually that trails off. However, this time, because of technology, things have proven to be different. Enter LinkedIn, Skype, and Facebook.

People all remember many of Pres. Bush's funny sayings. Bushism's I think people call them. One of my favorites was when he said he had been looking up stuff using "The Google". I can't tell you how much I laughed when I heard that. I still laugh when I think about it. Unfortunately, now I can't stop adding "The" to the front of all my favorite computer applications.

I've had LinkedIn and Skype accounts for a long time but never really did much with them. Skpe is awesome if you have relatives who live overseas like we do. It definitely helps with the phone bills! However since the party has ended at work, those "We'll keep in touch" promises have been kept and my contact lists on those accounts has grown considerably.

Then the other night, I did the unthinkable. I got an account on "The Facebook". Initially, I was very reluctant to do this. I really don't have time for another thing to keep me in front of my computer. I was always getting Facebook invitations but just could never get around to doing anything with it. Then last Christmas, my sisters started harassing me about it. "It's so great", they would say. "You have to do it."
"What's so great about The Facebook?" I asked.
"Ohhh, you can keep up with everyone from High School!", they gleefully replied. Their answer was, in my opinion, the number one reason I wouldn't want to get on-board. I already keep up with everyone from High School that I was friends with. Sometimes we go awhile without seeing each other or talking, but we can always pick back up right where we left off.
But I got the account anyway, because of all the people I had been working with, I was probably the only one not on The Facebook.
So far so good. I do like that instead of emailing my pictures to everyone, I can just post them in one place. We had been doing them on The Snapfish, but since everyone is on The Facebook already, it will be easier. The only thing I haven't had fun with is filling out my profile. I figure I'll eventually get that sorted out, but I never know what to put down. I want to be honest about myself while still trying to maintain some tiny sort of "cool" factor. It's a tough tightrope to walk.
So the only other thing I have noted in the past couple of days is that The Facebook sure sends you a heaping helping of email. I have it tied to my home email address that until recently was hardly ever using. I check it once a week or so but have realized that I need to check it daily now to keep the mail from piling up.

It's interesting to see how technology has changed how we do relationships. We never really permanently say goodbye to one another anymore. It's possible, and very likely, that most of us have friends or know people we haven't and will never meet in person. Also, I have single friends who use The Match.com for dating and they tell me that dating for them is so much easier now. They just spend some time online and make it happen without having to go to bars or have those awkward moments of trying to get around to asking someone on a date.

I'm into this for now, but who knows for how long until I begin to feel it taking over and I gain another temporary seething dislike for technology. I'm still not ready to get on The Twitter though. That is a whole other animal and I just don't think I can be that plugged into the grid right now. But who knows what's going to happen down the road.

So, for those of you who are curious about my job...
I have a job now. My company right now says they have enough work that I can stay based out of Richmond until at least this summer. By then someone will be operating the Richmond plant again and I'll go back there, I'll find a different job in Richmond, or I'll be ready to relocate with my current employer. All are possibilities. I've updated my resume and am sending it to a couple of friends/contacts this week to start doing a little networking and shake a few trees. My aim is to stay in Richmond but we're going to be ready for anything.
In the meantime, while I'm going to be based in Richmond, I'm probably not going to be in town a whole lot. We have an office in Manassas, VA where I'll be spending a lot of time and they already have me scheduled for a couple of trips to NY.
It's going to be an interesting ride and I'm sure something good is going to come out of all this for me and the family.

But don't worry. No matter what happens, it will never really be goodbye for us. I'll see you around...... on The Facebook....

Sailing the Sea of Uncertainty

2009-01-29T10:01:00.000-08:00

It's been a crazy week at my work.

Last Friday, Qimonda, the customer who's manufacturing facility I work at, filed for bankruptcy. They are a European company so they filed in Germany. Since that time, things here have just been surreal. I'm still waiting for someone to pinch me so I'll wake up.

Prior to Friday's announcement, there were no indications they were planning to file. Was I completely surprised? No. I didn't need Dionne Warwick or her Psychic Friends Network to tell me the company was doing really bad. They were bleeding money at an unbelievable rate and there was no way they could just go on without additional financing.

Since they've announced their insolvency, they are under credit protection and are currently trying to reorganize and get some funding from investors. It's hard to believe this is going to succeed, but they're giving it their best. In the meantime, since they are insolvent, they can't buy materials to manufacture their products (DRAM memory chips), so they have completely ceased all manufacturing and lots people are just standing around not doing anything. It's just freaky.

They are trying to get it together. What is even more freaky is that there are a lot of folks here who are in denial of the situation and believe wholeheartedly this place is going to get bailed out and be back to running production (and losing money) within the week. That may happen. But there's a really good chance it won't.

So how has this affected me? Well, with our equipment shut down we have been able to get caught up on a lot of work we were putting off. And starting today, I'll get to leave work early. We've already brought our property and equipment down from their factory floor. Now we're just waiting to see what happens. Either we are going to go back to work here, or they're going out of business. They're having a large employee meeting this afternoon. I wonder what they are going to say. Regardless, we're prepared to wait until next weekend to give them time before we pull all our parts from their stockroom, gather our things, and walk out. It may happen sooner, but we just don't know right now. My customer is happy we haven't walked out yet. A lot of their other vendors and equipment suppliers already have. Qimonda owes a lot of folks a lot of money, including us.

I don't work for Qimonda. I work for one of their equipment suppliers so I am somewhat indirectly affected by this. Am I concerned? Yes. Am I really worried? No. Strangely, I feel sort of calm about the whole situation. I figure really only one of four things is going to happen:
1. Qimonda gets financing and we go back to work here.
2. Qimonda gets bought and we go back to work here.
3. Qimonda goes out of business and I quit my company to stay in the Richmond area.
4. Qimonda goes out of business, there aren't any good jobs in the Richmond area, and I stay with my company and relocate to somewhere else (somewhere probably not as nice as where I live now).

All four of those options are equally probable. I've updated my resume and have made a few calls just in case. We'll just have to wait to find out which one it will be. Right now I'm sailing on a sea of uncertainty. God is at the wheel and only he knows where I'm headed. I'm good with that. This is going to work out one way or another. Whatever happens, I know things are going to be ok and I'm going to be thankful. I already am.

Hello Again....

2009-01-28T05:09:00.000-08:00

Took a little time off from blogging. For the past two weeks I haven't written any postings. I haven't even read anybody else's.

I occasionally go through seasons where I just avoid my computer. A technology mini-vacation. I stay attached to my computer all day at my job and eventually I just get sick of it. Instead I read more books and try and do more stuff around the house. I have been thinking about getting a Facebook account and everyone has been telling me I should. However, the thought of spending more time in front of a screen and keyboard right now just seems so unappealing to me. It's not that I haven't had anything to write about... I have. But sitting down and putting my fingers on the keys..... yeeesh....

I've been loosely keeping up with my email. But I haven't even been really surfing the web lately or playing any computer games. I am pretty addicted to Wikipedia but right now, I only check it every couple of days. I still momentarily go to a couple of news sites that I like, just to keep up with what's going on out in the world. I'm not yet ready to fall completely off the grid.

I think this condition is more encompassing than my computer and has also spread to other technologies including my cell phone. Normally on the ride home from work in the afternoons, I call my friends and catch up with them. I haven't even been doing this. Again, no real reason. Just don't feel like picking up the phone and pushing the buttons. I'd rather just put on the radio (I listen to NPR and WRVA... gotta have some balance) and just drive.

Do you ever go through times where you feel allergic to technology? Over the past couple of weeks, I wished it was warmer so we could pack up the truck and go camping somewhere and just get away from electrical cords and all the data swirling around. My mini-vacation from technology has been good for me. I feel it is ending and I'll be getting back to posting on this blog. This isn't the first time I've taken a break since I've started this blog. It won't be the last. I need a break from technology once in a while. I need to break away from my computer monitor to make sure I'm not missing out on anything that is going on around me. I think my computer and phone need a break from me as well. We all have batteries that need to be recharged.... don't you agree?

Friends in Need

2009-01-15T05:14:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a slow day at work. Very slow. Yesterday afternoon I was keeping myself busy by writing in this blog about how my friend Dan (sits in the cubicle across from me) and I were keeping ourselves busy by trying to solve the world's problems. The big problem yesterday was that India is the world's fastest growing video gaming market and yet there are no games specifically for them. Our solution?.... Sitar Hero... ta-daaaa! Yeah I know, we're such nerds.

And then I got the call from Daleen.

It's odd how the big problems in life always hit you on some idle Wednesday afternoon.

Daleen phoned to tell me our friends Frances and Shannon Wells' house burned down. Everyone in their family is safe thank God. They were renting the house and everything inside of it is gone. They've lost pretty much everything.

We've known Shannon and Frances for a long time through our church. They are a close-knit, hardworking family and great people to know. I can't imagine why this would have happened to them, but many of our friends and church members are not going to worry about that. What we are doing now is thinking about how we can help them and what we can do to meet their needs.
With the loss of everything, they obviously have a lot of needs, everything from a new place to live, clothes, pots and pans, plates to eat off of, furniture, you name it. They need a lot, but I know there are a lot of people in our church family who are ready and want to help.

For those of you who don't do the church thing, this is pretty much how God often works. People run into real trouble and God acts by sending the church and it's people in to help. I have to admit, it's a pretty effective way to go. Together, we can do a lot more than a few individuals could ever on thier own. Also, when I'm helping people in this way, it makes me feel great. I feel like I'm doing something I was meant to do, like I have a purpose. Incidentally, I have also been on the receiving end of care and help provided by the church. In those times, I have always felt a lot more comforted and at-ease than I ever could have without them.

The Wells family has a lot of needs. Our church has a lot of work to do to help them. It's not like there are a bunch of government agencies or any other major aid groups swooping in to assist them. So it's up to them, their families and friends, and us. I would encourage you to help as well. Even if you don't go to church or know them. They're great folks and deserve some help during this time. It will definitely make you feel great.

If you want to help, Powhatan Community Church is accepting monetary donations for the family and will get those into their account. You can contact the church office at 804.598.1174 or at www.powhatancc.org. Also, if you have any tangible items you would like to donate, please contact John Starkey with the church at johnS@powhatancommunitychurch.org. My family is going to help Shannon and Frances during their time of need. We're going to help the church help them. I would encourage you to do the same. I'm doing my part now because it's the right thing to do, and I know someday I am going to be on the receiving end again, and I'll be glad to see that same sort of help coming to me.

What Inflation?

2009-01-11T06:22:00.000-08:00

Who wouldn't want five hundred million dollars?

You know, I can't even say "five hundred million dollars" without automatically holding my pinky to the corner of my mouth and doing my best "Dr. Evil" impersonation.

Guess how much five hundred million dollars will buy you in Zimbabwe these days? Nothing.... Absolutely nothing. How sad is that?

I read in the news this week where the Zim government is now printing (hold on to your hat) Fifty Billion (with a B) Dollar notes. That's $50,000,000,000.00 in case you couldn't figure out how many zeroes that is. How much will fifty billion Zimbabwean dollars buy you? Try two loaves of bread. That was earlier this week. It probably won't even buy that much now. One person interviewed said he didn't even understand why the government was even wasting time printing money nobody uses. He said people are only using foreign currency as their own loses almost 100% of its value daily.

This is nothing new. Their hyperinflation problem has been going on for some time. Zimbabwe has, several times now, knocked a few zeroes off their money to try and keep the numbers functional. Apparently, they keep reaching the limits of the numbers that ATM and banking systems can handle. According to Wikipedia, the current inflation rate is over 80 sextillion percent. (For you math types, sextillion in scientific notation is ten raised to the 21st power). In comparison, the current second worst inflation rate in the world is in Burma (at a paltry 39.5%)

So how did they get like this? Well, since their independence from Great Britain and subsequent civil war which changed the nation from the white-controlled Rhodesia to the black African ruled Zimbabwe, there had been a desire to increase black empowerment and redistribute the nation's farmland. Initially, Zimbabwe was a large exporter of food, grown on it's many large scale (and typically white owned) farms. After the change of power however, there was a widely held belief by black Zimbabweans that the land the farms were on was stolen from them during colonialism and that it should be returned to the hands of the indigenous people of the nation.

Prior to 2000, the government sponsored a "willing-buyer-willing seller" program for land reform. Then in 2000, the government, led by a man named Robert Mugabe, started a compulsory program where almost all white owned farms were seized, (often violently), broken up, and then redistributed. The chaotic implementation of the program, coupled with the small sizes of the new plots, the lack of equipment, and the lack of agricultural knowledge severely traumatized the nation's ability to grow food. Zimbabwe, instead of exporting, now imports almost all of its food and people are starving.

In addition, the commercial system has also broken down. The newest commercial black empowerment program requires all businesses (including foreign owned) be owned/operated by black Africans. This has resulted in the failure of most businesses and the departure of almost all foreign investment, adding to the country's problems.

As you can imagine, the results of these governmental decisions have been disastrous. Due to the violent seizures of farmland, several nations (including the US) have leveled sanctions against the nation. Also, Zimbabwe has ceased making foreign debt payments resulting in suspension from the International Monetary Fund. In addition, due to a lack of donations, the UN World Food Program has stopped food aid. HIV is now at it's highest levels in the history of the country at 1.8 million people infected, and the average life expectancy has plummeted. Since 1990, the life expectancy for males has dropped from 60 to 37 and for females it is now lower than 34 years.

The government, led by Mugabe, denies the severity of the situation and continues to place the blame of the problems on the international community. They are convinced, and tell their people, that their situation is a conspiracy to return the country to colonialism and oppression. They have been accused of numerous human rights abuses and election tampering in order to stay in power. Also, they only allow state controlled news organizations work inside the country. News companies such as CNN and Britain's Sky News do not have permission to operate in Zim.

What a sad situation. One can understand that when the indigenous Africans regained control of their country, they wanted to have a greater stake in land ownership and business ownership. The people wanted better lives for themselves and new opportunities. It's a noble goal. Unfortunately, there was a total lack of patience and planning on the part of the government, resulting in a total crash of the economy and the scaring away of potential investors.

So, who cares? Well, for one, I do. I travelled there years ago with work and spent a week in the capitol city of Harare. It was awesome. I also care that these people are starving and dying and their leaders are doing nothing but making the situation worse. They have only succeeded in scaring away or running off anyone who tries to help them because receiving help would mean they would have to admit they made mistakes and they could lose their power.

My in-laws care. Where they live in South Africa is near the border with Zimbabwe. They are currently experiencing a severe problem with illegal immigration as people come looking for food and work. In addition, there is now a severe cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe and these people are streaming across the border and carrying it with them.

It's a bad situation. It makes me sad. It makes me angry. I don't think they can go on like this for much longer and then something is going to have to change for the better. There are many nations on the continent that, like Zimbabwe, are in various stages of development. I hope they learn the many lessons the situation in Zimbabwe offers. Democracy and emerging markets are new to many of these nations and my hope is that they don't start taking steps backward. That would be a tragedy.

Back in Black

2009-01-06T03:38:00.000-08:00

I checked my 401K account yesterday and got a pleasant surprise. According to my account statement, I am back in the black......but just a little.

The last time I checked it, I was in the red. Severely in the red.
"How could this be?" I wondered. Am I the new Warren Buffet? Did I somehow pick some winners that overnight propelled my retirement fund back to where it was before this current financial crisis hit? No, of course not. I looked again at the return percentage. "Oh", I realized, "It's my year-to-date return". Which as of yesterday was only a few days.
But still, it was an encouragement to see this, even if it's not really a complete or accurate representation. I have lost a lot from my retirement. A whole lot. I didn't ignore reality, but I got a real boost from seeing that positive number. The encouragement I felt was great.

Way back a long time ago when I was in school, I used to work for Ukrops (a local grocery store chain.) I didn't work at a store. I worked at their central bakery (great experience.... surprised I don't weigh a lot more than I do because of that experience). I could have bagged groceries, but the idea of not having to deal with customers appealed more to me. (Plus, it paid a dollar more an hour.) During my time there, I got to know this guy who worked on the oven room. His name was Paul and his primary job was pastoring a small church somewhere in the Richmond area. It was a very small church, so he worked nights to make ends meet. A great guy. The one thing I remember about Paul was that he was an encourager. He used to always say, "Everyone needs encouragement from time to time." When walking through the facility, he made sure to tell folks what a great job they were doing. He wasn't the boss. He was just some guy. But you could tell what he said about others and their work were genuine. When he came by on his way to the break room and told you your work looked great, you could tell he meant it. It seemed kind of silly to me at the time (I was a teenager) but now I look back and realize that little bit of encouragement was always uplifting no matter what my situation was, or how I was feeling. It was such a little thing but it had a big impact on everyone who worked there.

My son Colin, even though he is two (about to turn three) really responds to encouragement. Sometimes I think he is easily discouraged. He seems to give up easily when something like putting on a shirt or taking off his shoes becomes even slightly difficult. "It's too hard. You do it.", he cries. Or he'll yell, "I can't do it". Lately I haven't been helping him as much with this type of thing. Instead, I have been encouraging him and telling him he can do it. Then when he does, I'm quick to tell him how proud I am of him. I've actually taken to telling him I'm proud of him for all sorts of things he is doing. I can tell it has an effect on him. It makes him smile and I think it helps him to believe he can tackle all sorts of stuff without giving up easily.

My friends Julie and Barry are encouragers as well. Like everyone else, they have a lot to be thankful for, but they also have their fair share of problems. But no matter what, they always seem to have a positive attitude and encourage others to look at the good side of every situation. They're awesome to be around and no matter what mood I'm in when I see them, I'm always uplifted after we talk. It's not that they try and help me solve my problems or ignore reality, but they always take time to actually listen, and then say something to put me in a more positive frame of mind.

My 401K is down, but I saw a little positive movement and it had a big impact. I was encouraged. I like being encouraged. We all do. Perhaps over the next week you could take a moment and encourage someone. In the tough times we are going through right now we can certainly all use it. Tell someone you are proud of them. Tell someone what an awesome job they do in their work. Tell someone you appreciate what they do and how it affects you. A little bit of encouragement goes a long way and you'll see it makes a difference. I promise.

End of a Season

2009-01-05T03:53:00.000-08:00

It's all over... and my wife couldn't be happier.

The 2008-2009 deer hunting season in Virginia has officially come to an end. Daleen is very happy now that she doesn't have to listen to my alarm clock go off at 3:30 most mornings I am off from work. I'm not too sad about it either. I need a break and I like sleeping in too.

Now the countdown is on once more. It's already nine months and counting until the mayhem begins all over again for the 2009-2010 season. I have already been thinking about what I did this season and how I can make improvements for next year.

It's been an awesome hunting season. I put plenty of food in the freezer and I also let a lot of them walk away. I learned a lot of new things this year, met some really great folks, and built up better relationships with some guys I already knew. I even got to spend some time with a relative I hadn't seen in ages. Best of all, I spent countless hours in the woods, just sitting, taking it all in. In case you didn't know, Virginia forests and farmland are extremely busy and loud places. You just have to sit still long enough to notice.

Of course it wasn't all fun. I think I got the biggest scare of my life while hunting this year. Also, those deer I harvested didn't just walk to my truck and get into the back on their own. (I definitely got my exercise.) And while I like processing the venison myself, it is a lot of work. It's really not all fun.... but that is all part of the package.

Overall, it was a great season. A dream season. I can't wait till next year. I actually don't have to wait the whole nine months this time. I'm kinda cheating this June and going on a weeklong hunting safari in South Africa with my brother-in-law and his buddies. New places, new friends, new challenges. It's going to great.

In the meantime, Daleen is going to be happy. No getting up early. No wondering if I'm going to be home or out in the woods. No wondering if I am going to get around to my honey-do list. She deserves a break from my absences. I'm going to enjoy it too..... until the woods beckon once again...

2009 Resolutions (like I kept any of the 2008 ones..)

2008-12-31T03:52:00.000-08:00

Have you decided on any New Years Resolutions?

As you know, I am a planner and a list maker. I love to plan stuff. Actual execution on those plans is a whole different story. I usually execute on the big stuff but tend to over plan and think I can fit in more than I actually have time for. So every year, I make long, detailed lists of things I will never have enough time to do.

So this year, things are going to be different. This year I've decided to only list three things that I absolutely am going to do and I am going to concentrate on doing those things. Then of course there are some other things I am going to list, but only as nice-to-have items and if I don't get to those, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

The first item is that I'm going to get out of debt. By the end of 2009, I resolve to be completely out of debt, except for my mortgage. That means credit card debt and a car loan. That's it. My nice-to-have's following this are: I'd like to make an additional mortgage payment and I'd like to build up our emergency fund so we can actually handle an emergency. Daleen and I are looking at how we can do this. I don't know what we will end up doing, but all options are on the table.

The second item is that I am going to lose weight and get in shape. Yeah, isn't this one on everyone's list every year? But I resolve to lose 20 pounds and shave 10 minutes off my Ukrops 10K race time from last year. As you know, my blood pressure was reading high at the end of 2008 and I want to put off going on meds for that as long as possible. (Although, because of family history, I will most likely be going on them no matter what I do.) This should be easy. All I have to do is eat less (hmmm.... doing less of something and spending less money on food....sounds like a good idea.) and exercise more (getting more out of my YMCA membership). It's a no brainer. Now all I have to do is get over this silly resistance I have to actually going out of my house to go to the gym. Once I get there I'm always glad I went. I just get tripped up on that little curb that always seems to get in the way of going there. I just need to make it a priority.

The third thing I resolve to do is spend more time with Daleen and Colin. I finished my school program last summer and I figured I would have lots of extra time for them, but instead, I just made myself busy with all sorts of other things. I was reading recently that it is important for people to spend quantity time with their families. Basically, in order to get the best quality time with your family, you need to maximize the quantity of time you spend with them and the quality moments will just happen. Colin and I spent the day together yesterday. The whole day. I wore him out for a change instead of the other way around. We went all over the city doing all kinds of stuff and we had tons of fun. We started at Bass Pro Shops (spending a little Christmas money), went to the Richmond Children's Museum among other places, and ended up at my friend's new apartment in Chester, playing Guitar Hero with his two daughters. I couldn't have planned on our having that kind of fun. We just ran amok and the fun just happened. The best part was that Colin was completely pooped when we got home. He ate dinner and went to bed without complaint, which doesn't happen often.

Like I said, I have other things I would like to do this new year. I have the usual laundry list of home improvement projects. Then there is our trip we are taking to South Africa this summer. We're going to visit the in-laws for 2-3 weeks. While there, I'm going on a week-long hunting safari. Then we're going on a vacation to Sun City, which is the largest resort city in the country, followed by some time at my in-laws house. I've been trying to learn their language, Afrikaans. It's sort of like Dutch. All these years I have been married and travelling down there and I feel guilty they all still have to speak English to me, even though it is a second language to them. I feel I should make an effort to at least try and meet them halfway on the language thing. It's the right thing to do.

There are a bunch of other things I have planned for this year, but like I said, I have three primary things to focus on. I'm going to work my hardest at those primary things and hope to have time for all the rest. This is going to be a good year. I'm optimistic. I have an unbelievable amount to be thankful for. I'm really hoping to get my act together this year. I really am.

So, Happy New Year to you all. If you have made some resolutions, I'd love to hear them. I'm convinced 2009 is going to be a good year. A year is a long time and who knows what's going to happen? Anything's possible....

The New Adventures of Finger Man and Nebulous Boy

2008-12-30T16:12:00.000-08:00

In the sprawling metropolis that is Powhatan, Virginia, there are new Super-Heroes ready to do it all...fight crime, fix bad attitudes, and even prevent tooth decay with their miraculous powers. No, it's not the Upright Citizens Brigade.... it's Finger Man and Nebulous Boyyyyy!!!

What powers you ask? Well, Finger Man has the power to break the tendons in his own hands while doing average, ordinary tasks around the home. And Nebulous Boy? He has the power to repeatedly get croup and end up with a month-long regimen of nebulizer breathing treatments.

Yep, we're all messed up at the Crews house this month. I have this nice and shiny finger splint on the middle finger of my right hand where I pulled/tore a tendon, and Colin is getting daily breathing treatments to, once and for all, beat a case of croup that doesn't seem to want to go away.

I mentioned my finger trouble in my last posting. You wouldn't believe the attention this stupid thing has gotten me. All kinds of people have asked me about it. Today I took Colin to the Richmond Children's Museum. (If you have small children and you have never gone...YOU NEED TO GO! I will blog more about this amazing place sometime.) Anyway, they have this new thing where they have what used to be a real ambulance that has been set up for children to climb around in, with working lights and all kinds of toy equipment for them to play with. Some little girl thought my splint was part of the medical toys and got really upset when I wouldn't take it off and share it with her. I repeatedly told her it was for real but she didn't believe me and I was just a "bad man". Then everywhere else I go I get asked about it... work, Food Lion, church, etc.. If you really crave attention or feel like nobody wants to talk to you...you gotta get one of these finger splints!

Since I have been getting asked so many times about what happened, I have made up all sorts of fun stories as what really happened is just plain boring. I have told some people it happened at practice at my Ultimate Fighting gym (shoulda seen what I did to the other guy). Then I told some people it happened while scratching myself (I had this unbelievable itch). My favorite is the one I have told about walking in the drug store, saw it, and just had to have it. (It's going to be the "IT" fashion accessory of 2009.)

Here's what really happened. I was out hunting this particular morning and my hands were pretty much freezing the whole time. Then when I got home I was taking off my long johns and the elastic around my ankle didn't want to go over my heel. So I reached down and fought a little to pull it over my foot and suddenly I felt something funny on my hand. It didn't hurt, but when I lifted up my hand, I noticed the finger tip of my right middle finger was hanging down and wouldn't go straight. It didn't hurt. It didn't even really look creepy or anything. It just looked weird.

So I did what any real man would do. I splinted it with Scotch Tape and a piece of one of Daleen's emery boards. I later got my new shiny splint and finally made it to see the doctor. He liked my shiny splint and said it was the right one to be using. Then he gave me the bad news. Gotta wear this sucker for 6 weeks to see if the tendon will heal. If not, I'll have to get minor surgery on my hand to repair the tendon. He even gave me a referral to what he said was, the "Best Hand Surgeon" in Richmond and his name is (I am not making this up) J.E.B. Stuart. At that point I was looking for the Candid Camera crew. I then asked if he was aware that J.E.B. Stuart was a Confederate Civil War General who died in the 1860's. Come to find out, this modern day Mr. Stuart is a descendant of the General and apparently his folks decided on a family name. That's fine. If he can fix my hand, I don't care what his name is. By the way, my dad is a HUGE Civil War nut and I can just see his face when I tell him J.E.B. Stuart might be operating on my hand. He's probably going to faint.

And then it's on to Nebulous Boy. Remember when I mentioned Colin had come down with croup when he was in South Africa? Well, even with the meds and breathing treatments he got over there, he never really shook it completely. After returning home, he continued to have a bad cough at night. Finally it got worse and we took him to see his doctor. The diagnosis was that he still had croup and we are now the proud owners of our own nebulizer and a couple of boxes of meds to put in it. He is in the middle of a month-long series of breathing treatments designed to get rid of the problem completely. Luckily, the doctor gave us this really cool fish-looking mask that Colin actually doesn't seem to mind wearing. He even asks about his fishy mask when we tell him it's time to get ready for his treatment. It's odd though. I felt weird about buying a nebulizer for him. I never had one when I was a kid. Nobody I knew as a kid ever had one. However, now I have been asking around and now it seems like we have been the only parents who didn't have one. Are kids developing more breathing problems these days? Or are we getting better at treating them? I don't know. To be honest, I don't remember any of my friends getting croup when I was a kid either, so I'm wondering if breathing problems are just becoming more common. I hope not.

So, we're still all messed up around here this month, but eventually we'll be fine. It's just going to take time. And I was only kidding about the crime fighting thing. Perhaps I could temporarily blind perpetrators by the shinyness of my finger splint. And maybe Colin can scare them away with his Darth Vader'ish sounding breathing when he is getting his treatments. If you find you are in need of people with those kinds of superpowers, then just give us a call. We're one heck of a super-duo.

Christmas Accomplished

2008-12-27T06:52:00.000-08:00

Uhhhh...hellooo?? Anybody still reading this??

It's been so long since I've posted that I'm wondering how many people are left checking this blog. I'm sorry for not getting back to you all sooner. It has been a crazy Christmas.... but a really great one.

I didn't write anything leading up to Christmas Day because I was busy trying to get everything wrapped up at work. I was also working frantically on my lines for the PCC Christmas play that I've been telling you about. The play went well. Actually, it went great! It was just a totally amazing team effort and everyone did exactly what they were supposed to do, exactly when they were supposed to do it. Without everyone's commitment to the team and everyone working hard together, we wouldn't have had anywhere near the success that we did.

To be honest, I was nervous about the whole play thing. Even now, I am pretty darn surprised I managed to get through two shows without missing a single line. I definitely had plenty of difficulties to overcome to do that. First of all, I have terrible memory. I mean, I'm like that guy in the movie "Memento" who, because of a traumatic brain injury, wakes up every morning and has no idea who he is, where he is, or what he's supposed to be doing. To overcome my memory problem, I reverted back to my old remedy.... flashcards. I had all my lines on flashcards that now look worn and discolored from all the practicing I did. Another issue that came up was my right middle finger. I broke the tendon that holds up my fingertip the Saturday before Christmas. (Didn't break a leg... broke my finger instead.) So, for the next six weeks, I have to wear this shiny metal finger splint. Hopefully it will heal in six weeks. If not, I'll need to have surgery which I'm sure will be fun. At least I was ok to take the splint off for the show. My super shiny/flashy splint might have been a minor distraction.

The last major obstacle I had in getting ready for the play was my voice. Two days before the play, I woke up and couldn't speak..... not a word. I went to the doctor and found out I had "Viral Laryngitis". Believe me, I begged the doctor to help me. When he said there really wasn't anything he could do, I even asked if he could just give me a shot in the neck with some steroids or something. Alas, I had to go and tell my friend Sandy who was directing the show. Needless to say, her eyes got a little wide when I told her and I think she believed I was joking at first. Rehearsing with my throat like that definitely wasn't fun. When I wasn't rehearsing, I was whispering to everyone else and chugging Motrin like it was going out of style. All I can say is the rest, the Motrin, and all the prayers definitely did the trick. My voice was good to go for the two shows and only started to fall apart right at the end of the second one.

Later Christmas Eve was spent with friends and we got home in time to put Colin to bed, get Santa Claus set up, and get to sleep ourselves. Then a wonderful thing happened. Colin slept late on Christmas morning! A Christmas miracle! (he doesn't sleep late) Daleen and I enjoyed a moment to ourselves before we went in and woke him up.

To say Colin liked his Christmas toys is an understatement. He got a lot of stuff, but not too much. We learned our lesson this time. Last year (his first Christmas) we went completely overboard and got him way too many presents. He had so many new toys he actually became quite overwhelmed and frustrated. He actually had a gift request this year which surprised me. I asked him on Dec 22nd, "Who is coming on Christmas Eve?", and he replied, "Santa Claus". Then I asked him what he would like for Santa to bring and he smiled and replied, "A camera." Apparently the child care section at our YMCA has a toy camera that he has been playing with a lot ever since we got our awesome family Christmas photos taken by the extraordinarily talented (and very patient) Sarah Brawley. So, he got his camera and has been taking pictures non-stop. The camera actually works. The pictures are extremely low resolution (1MP) but the camera is extremely rugged and made for a 3yr old. Of course I have tried to help teach him how to use it, but it has been more fun watching him try and figure it out on his own. He's getting the hang of it. By the way, his other favorite toy is a toy garbage truck that even came with a little plastic pile of trash. Photography vs. Trash Collection..... a kind of weird yin-yang sort of thing, but it's his world, we just live in it.

Other than that, we spent a lot of time with friends and family. Ate too much. And just enjoyed some seriously needed downtime.

Then yesterday was Boxing Day. It's a sort of English holiday that they also celebrate in South Africa where Daleen is from. Well, in SA they now call it the Day of Goodwill. But, she still regards it as Boxing Day. Traditionally, it is the day you're supposed to go out and give to the needy and to your employees. The idea is, you've been blessed during Christmas and then you're supposed to go out and spread it around. I like that idea. I once asked her why they call it Boxing Day. She rolled her eyes and said, "Silly man, It's the day you pack everything away and put all of your Christmas stuff back in it's boxes." Ahhhhh.... Another good reason to celebrate Boxing Day.

I hope you all had a Merry Christmas. Whatever it was you really wanted for Christmas, a particular gift, downtime, time with family and friends, a call from an old friend or relative, whatever it was, I hope you got it. For me, it was family time and giving back something to my community. On Christmas morning, in the middle of opening his gifts, Colin stopped what he was doing, stood up, and walked over and picked up a present that was for Daleen. He took it over to her and simply said, "Merry Christmas Momma" and gave it to her and then gave her a hug. She looked at me, but I never taught him to do that. It was a little thing, but he figured it out on his own. For a moment, he wanted to stop and give a gift to someone else. That's big, especially for a 2 yr old. I think he gets it.......

Did Shakespeare Ever Have Trouble?

2008-12-17T05:41:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday, we had our first full stage rehearsal that went through the entire Christmas play that I am in. I told you about the play a few weeks back. It's called "Imagine Christmas" and Powhatan Community Church is running two shows of it on Christmas eve.

The rehearsal overall, I thought, went really well. We still need a lot of practice, but my friend Sandy, who is in charge of the overall production, said she felt really good about how everything was shaping up. Sandy and the production team have been hard at work on this and it shows. Everything they have put together so far is pretty amazing and now we just have to get the thing polished up and make sure all the gears are meshing together. We are running out of time though as Christmas eve is quickly approaching. I imagine this is going to be our usual PCC thing where we run up to the last minute and everything comes out awesome. That's not to say we aren't going to have some problems come up. Last minute problems are also a hallmark of any good PCC production. However, my friend Beth has already said, "Everything's going to be fine." As I mentioned before, when she says that, you can bet that it's going to be ok. I wonder if old William Shakespeare ever had problems like we do when running one of his productions. I think his biggest trouble must have been when getting ready to do a show at the Globe Theater (outdoors) and he saw the rain clouds building. I imagine he must have had a similar saying though such as, "All shalt be not unwell."

So how did I do on Sunday? I wasn't nervous on the stage but for some reason, I kept forgetting a couple of lines here or there. I had basically memorized my lines on paper. However, it's a whole different ballgame when I am interacting on stage with my friend Chad (the other talking angel). There is just a lot more distraction and I am moving around which seems to cause me to drop a line or two. My strategy to fix this is just going to be to memorize my lines even more, meet with Chad a few more times offline, and then try and concentrate more when I am back onstage.

Apart from my lines, Beth, Chad, and another friend, Regina, all offered me some great criticism on my acting that I think will help me play this part a lot better. When it comes to acting, I feel like the great baseball player Yogi Berra when he was in grade school. According to an interview he did a long time ago, his teacher came to him one day about his extremely poor academic performance and told him she didn't think he knew anything. Berra responded by saying, "You don't know the half of it lady. I don't even suspect anything."

Beth, Chad, and Regina all have a lot of experience in doing these stage performances and I really respect what they have to say. Some of it is easy. Regina reminded me not to forget to look forward and face the audience instead of always looking at Chad. Then there is the harder stuff. Beth gave me some advice about projecting more and not holding back. Likewise, Chad has been encouraging me to really cut loose and get loud and get a little crazier. That's the harder part because it really isn't me. But I seriously value their opinions and expertise and if that's what they think will make my part better, than that's what I'll just have to learn to do.

We have another big rehearsal on Sunday and then a couple of more before Christmas Eve. I'll let you know how it all goes. I know I've asked before, but if you're really not doing anything Christmas Eve, you should come and check us out. It's going to be a great show. You won't be disappointed. I promise....

Day of Reconciliation & Day of the Vow

2008-12-16T19:17:00.000-08:00

It's December 16th, which is a public holiday in South Africa where my wife Daleen is from. The intention of the Day of Reconciliation is to foster reconciliation between different racial groups in the country. The holiday came about in 1994 at the end of Apartheid and was instituted by the new government, led by Nelson Mandela and the ANC. Prior to 1994, December 16th was known in South Africa as the Day of the Vow or the Day of the Covenant. This was a public religious holiday commemorating the Boer victory over the Zulus at the Battle of Blood River on 16 December 1838.

In South Africa during the 1830's and 1840's, there was a mass exodus of white farmers of Dutch descent from the Cape of Good Hope. This exodus was known as the Great Trek and involved great numbers of Afrikaner farmers (the Boers) moving northward from the cape and into the interior of the country. There are many reasons for the Great Trek. Mostly, the Boers were escaping from what they perceived to be oppressive colonial British rule. Also, the South African interior proved to have superior farming conditions.

This mass migration of white farmers northward caused many conflicts between the whites and the nations of indigenous tribesmen that occupied the land where they were moving. From an American perspective this is somewhat interesting. White people, expanding outward in covered wagons, fighting off the natives..... almost sounds like the American west doesn't it? There are actually quite an amazing number of similarities. Anyhow, eventually the Zulu leader Dingane sent the Zulu army, about 10,000 men, against an encampment of 470 Boers led by Andries Pretorius along the banks of the Ncome river. The Boers circled the wagons for protection and then, before the battle, they took a public vow that in return for God's help in obtaining victory, they promised to build a church and would keep the day as a Holy Sabbath.

The vow they took is translated as:

"Here we stand before the holy God of heaven and earth, to make a vow to Him that, if He will protect us and give our enemy into our hand, we shall keep this day and date every year as a day of thanksgiving like a sabbath, and that we shall erect a house to His honour wherever it should please Him, and that we also will tell our children that they should share in that with us in memory for future generations. For the honour of His name will be glorified by giving Him the fame and honour for the victory."

Needless to say, the Boers won a lopsided victory (3,000 Zulu killed vs. 3 Boers wounded) and the battle pretty much ended the Zulu opposition. The battle was called Blood River because of the water turning red from the blood of the fighting. And the Boers kept their promise. They built the church which still stands, and they kept the date as a public religious holiday.

In post-Apartheid South Africa, the Day of the Vow has been criticized as a racist Afrikaner holiday and celebrates the success of Western forces over native Africans. However, many people still celebrate the holiday and say it has nothing to do with racism. Many Afrikaners say the holiday is simply giving thanks to God for deliverance from certain destruction. Their belief is that thanksgiving for the deliverance of God is independent of race.

Race is such a huge issue in South Africa. Even with the end of Apartheid, race is a major aspect of the national culture. You just can't get away from it. Without the racial aspect though, I like the idea of having a day to give thanks for God's deliverance over insurmountable odds. It's very much like the American Thanksgiving holiday, where the settlers gave thanks for their survival under some extremely harsh conditions. I also like the current holiday in South Africa that falls on December 16th. The Day of Reconciliation. I think they need a holiday like that to remember where they've been and where they are heading. It's been fourteen years since the holiday was changed. A lot of things are different now in South Africa, but so many problems remain. A Day of Reconciliation is a good thing. It's a great thing. But they are still facing some very large challenges. Perhaps together, they should take a new vow.....

The Bookworm

2008-12-12T11:30:00.000-08:00

It's time again! Out with the old and in with the new!

I just finished my latest gaggle of books and now it's time to start reading some new ones. Most people I know read their books serially. You know, start one, finish one, and then start another one.... like normal people. I, on the other hand, just because I'm a wierdo, tend to read several books in parallel. I'll start a book that looks interesting. Then, while I'm reading that, I'll find another one that is also interesting, and so on and so forth. What happens is I'll end up with books scattered around my house in different stages of being read. The downside of this is that it takes forever to read a book. The good part though, is that I never have to go find a book when I want to read. There is usually one right where I happen to be.

This time the main books I was working through were: When You Are Engulfed In Flames by David Sedaris, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni, The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne.

I picked up When You Are Engulfed In Flames when I went to see David Sedaris a the Landmark Theater in Richmond. As I reported earlier, the show was amazing. I got the book in hopes of getting it signed, but my sister convinced me a warm plate of nachos at Mojo's was much better than standing in a long, slow line, waiting to have David scratch the inside of my book with a Sharpie. She was right.

The book was great. It a collection of essays, mostly biographical, very funny. If you like David Sedaris, you'll love this book. If you've never read his stuff and are looking for something that is an easy read but will make you think a little, you should give him a try.

The Five Dysfunctions Of A Team was given to me by my friend Sammy. We are getting ready to have the big annual meeting of our church's Small Group Leadership Team (that awesome team I'm on that I was telling you about) and it is required reading. To be honest, I was planning on reading it anyway. Several people I know have read it and told me how good it was. They were right. It's quick and I read the whole thing in two days (normal people could probably get through it in an afternoon). If you are on a team or lead a team, any team, you should read this. It's told as a fable, but you can identify with everyone in the story and anyone would get something out of it. I've already started thinking about how to apply what I've learned to team I am on both in and out of work. It will make your team stronger and more productive, I promise.

The Year Of Living Biblically was a book I borrowed from my friend Johnathan. It is a memoir of a year spent trying to live out, quite literally, all the rules and laws found in the Bible. A.J. Jacobs spends the first nine months in the Old Testament and the last three in the New. In the beginning he states that he is indeed of Jewish heritage, but that "he's Jewish like the Olive Garden is Italian." He's basically an athiest. But he truly dives right in and gives it his best shot. He does some crazy stuff in his pursuit, learns a lot, and you can watch him change throughout the pages. It's a very interesting book and I liked it very much. The funniest parts were all the times when his wife started to get fed-up with his whole project and would try and thwart his efforts. For example, it says in the OT that when a woman is having her...ahem.. "special time of the month", a man is not supposed to sit where she has sat down because she is ritually unclean. After Jacobs mentions this to his wife, the next time she is having her.... well, you know... she goes around and sits on every stick of furniture of the house. The Year Of Living Biblically is a lively, fun book. It has dancing, indoor tent building, old guys coming by to check for mixed fibers in clothing, and lots of crazy beard growth. You'd love it even if you're not religious, or a Christian, or Jewish, or anything else.

The final book I recently finished up was 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea by Jules Verne. It was on the discount rack at Barnes and Noble and I thought, "Why not?" I figured it was a classic and should be a good read. It was an interesting book, but I wouldn't call it fast paced adventure like I was expecting. Most of the book is devoted to explaining the oceans and waters around the globe and sea creatures inhabiting them. In our modern age of information, the facts and technology Verne describes can seem sort of dull to us. Although I can understand how, in France in the 1870's where most folks hadn't really gone anywhere and there were no cars or large scale electrical production, a story about an electrically driven submarine travelling into strange foreign waters would be of real interest. Verne apparently patched together things he had heard and read about these foreign places into one book. I did find it interesting to note that Capt. Nemo's name comes from the word nemo which, in the Latin translation of the Odyssey by Homer, is the answer Odysseus gives to the cyclops Polyphemus when asked his name. In this instance it is translated as "no-man" or "no-body".

So, what's next on my reading list? A bunch of Christian/church books. I just started The Seven Deadly Sins of Small Group Ministry by Bill Hybels and Russ Robinson. Also, I have two books called It and Pop Goes The Church. However, you can bet that by the time I get though those, I'll have read a few others as well. Of course there are all the other magazines, news websites, and work material I need to read too. Something really fun I am starting to read at work is VIISta Product Line Advanced Ion Beam Optimization Techniques. Yeah, if you can't sleep at night, I'll loan it to you. It's more powerful than a whole box of Lunesta.....

The Diamondheads

2008-12-09T03:23:00.000-08:00

Went to see Neil Diamond last night in Charlottesville. It was a great show and all I can say is that when I start qualifying for senior citizen discounts, I only hope to be in as good of shape as that guy.

I am not one of those freaky Neil Diamond fans (a Diamondhead). I like Neil the same way as I like Jimmy Buffett. I like him and I can sing along to a few of his greatest hits, but I don't own all of his CD's and I wouldn't go far out of my way to go to see a show of his.

However, when I heard on the radio that he was going to be playing in Charlottesville, I remembered that Daleen, my mom, and my sister Carla really like him a lot and would love to go see him perform. When I mentioned the show to Daleen, she got all excited and immediately asked if we could go. So, the morning the tickets went on sale, we were on our computer, ready to go, and bought three tickets. One for each of us and one for my mom. My sister already knew about the show and was getting tickets to go with some of her friends.

Daleen, my mom, and I headed for Charlottesville yesterday at around 3:30. Carla came later with her friends after she got off from work. The show started at 8:00, but there is a great restaurant in Charlottesville we wanted to hit for dinner. We went to The Shabeen, which serves traditional South African food. The food there is amazing, the service is great, and it's as close as you're going to get to the real deal without having to take an eighteen hour plane ride. I had the South African farm sausage (boerewors) and a type of corn meal mash which is not unlike grits (pap). Daleen had a steak pie that was awesome and my mom had lamb kebabs (sosaties). We had an excellent bottle of wine and finished everything off with ice cream and a twisty, honey-soaked, sort of doughnut thing (koeksister). I'm serious, the next time you're in Charlottesville, you should check them out. They're right across the street from the end of the pedestrian mall in downtown.

After dinner, we headed over to the John Paul Jones arena for the show. We got there just a little over an hour early and had a short wait till they opened the doors. While waiting, we talked to some other folks in line. The ladies standing behind us had seen Neil sixteen times previously. They were trying to guess which sequined shirt he was going to be wearing that evening... the black one... or the white one... By the way, the John Paul Jones arena is a great place to see a show. It's not all that large on the inside and the event staff definitely have their act together.

Once inside the arena, we got our seats transferred. They had closed off the area where we were originally supposed to sit, but they gave us new seats... behind the stage. When we realized we'd be looking a the back of Neil's head, we went back and they gladly changed us to seats where we could see the front of him. (During the show, several times, he did go around and sang to those folks sitting behind him.)

The show itself was great. His band was terrific. Like I said, Neil Diamond is in incredibly good shape for someone who has been performing for longer than I have been alive. He played some songs off his new CD and he played a bunch of old favorites. The audience, as you can imagine, consisted of mostly older folks. The crowd seemed somewhat subdued in the beginning of the show, but basically everyone was on their feet by the end. At the beginning of the show, they announced Neil would play for the entire show and there would be no intermission. At this announcement, we wondered how long the band would play. It ended up being two solid hours....amazing.

When I told a friend at work we were going to see Neil Diamond, he said, "I thought that guy died." "Oh no", I replied. "He is alive and well and selling lots of extremely expensive tickets for his shows. He is definitely doing something right." Overall, the show really was a good time and we had a great evening. Daleen, my mom, and my sister Carla all really enjoyed it. I can report that Neil Diamond is alive and well and has the kind of energy most folks his age would probably love to have. His best songs are just as good as they ever were and seeing them done live was a lot of fun. One thing you can tell though... he has been performing for over three decades, and he knows his audience. He knows what they like and has mastered the art of showmanship in regards to the folks that go and see him regularly.

So would I go see him again? When I bought the tickets for the show last night back in October, I was thinking this would be a once in a lifetime thing. Something we at least wanted to do one time. I have no doubt he'll be coming back for years to come and if the mood strikes us, we'd definitely get some tickets again..........

Don't Forget....

2008-12-07T13:15:00.000-08:00

Today is December 7th.......remember?.... it's Pearl Harbor Day!

See...There is a reason a bunch of channels are for some reason showing old World War II movies like Tora!Tora!Tora! today...

So here's your history lesson for today:

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Japanese navy against the US at the naval base of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on the morning of Sunday, December 7, 1941. This attack later resulted in the United States becoming militarily involved in World War II. It was originally intended as a preventive action to keep the U.S. from influencing the war Japan was planning to wage in Southeast Asia. The attack consisted of two aerial attack waves totaling 353 aircraft, launched from six Japanese aircraft carriers.
The attack sank four U.S. Navy battleships (two of which were raised and returned to service late in the war) and damaged four more. The Japanese also sank or damaged three cruisers, three destroyers, and one minelayer, destroyed 188 aircraft, and caused personnel losses of 2,402 killed and 1,282 wounded. Japanese losses were minimal, at 29 aircraft and five submarines, with 65 servicemen killed or wounded.
The strike was intended to neutralize the U.S. Pacific Fleet, and hence protect Japan's advance into Malaysia and the Dutch East Indies, where Japan sought access to natural resources such as oil and rubber.

In 1940, the U.S. halted shipments of airplanes, parts, machine tools, and aviation gasoline, which was perceived by Japan as an unfriendly act. The U.S. did not stop oil exports to Japan at that time in part because prevailing sentiment in Washington was that such an action would be an extreme step, given Japanese dependence on U.S. oil, and likely to be considered a provocation by Japan.
Following Japanese expansion into French Indochina after the fall of France, the U.S. ceased oil exports to Japan in the Summer of 1941, in part because of new American restrictions on domestic oil consumption. As the Japanese high command was certain any attack on the United Kingdom's Southeast Asian colonies would bring the U.S. into the war, a preventive strike appeared to be the only way for Japan to avoid U.S. naval interference.

The attack was an important engagement of World War II. Unintentionally occurring before a formal declaration of war (which had been scheduled to be delivered shortly prior to the attack beginning), it pushed U.S. public opinion from isolationism to the acceptance of participation in the war being unavoidable. The lack of warning led President Roosevelt to call it "a date which will live in infamy".

The bottom line is, we got caught by surprise and the Japanese beat us up pretty badly. At the time, the Empire of Japan had quite a large war machine and they decided to use it on us. The result that day for us was disastrous.

However, many in the Japanese navy at the time knew this would undoubtedly bring the U.S. into the war against them and predicted their ultimate demise. Japanese Admiral Yamamoto upon learning the fact that America did not receive the declaration of war until 55 minutes after the attack started, noted that nothing would infuriate the Americans more. He is quoted as saying "I fear that all we have done is awakened a sleeping giant, and filled him with a terrible resolve." Later, Admiral Hara Tadaichi summed up the Japanese result by saying, "We won a great tactical victory at Pearl Harbor and thereby lost the war."

We should remember Pearl Harbor Day. There is a lesson to be learned here and we could be in trouble if we forget it. The attack was the 9/11 of its day. We have to be vigilant and prepared. Most importantly, we should remember those men and women who, without any warning, were killed just for being American and for defending our freedom. Occasionally, I'll see a guy wearing a shirt or hat that says Pearl Harbor Survivor. You used to see it on some licence plates but I doubt even very few of those people are still driving. However, when I do see it, I think about what kind of hell that day must have been and how that one single day changed those people's lives forever. It could happen again... I hope it doesn't.

Home At Last

2008-12-07T11:14:00.000-08:00

My family is finally home.

I leaped out of bed at 3:00AM last Thursday morning to head to Dulles Airport in Washington D.C. to pick up Daleen and Colin from their four-week trip to visit her parents who live in South Africa. I headed out the door of our very clean and well-organized (yes, I finished cleaning and putting everything away in time) house at 3:45 and headed north. Of course, I-95 is just one big 24-hour traffic jam anymore and naturally, I got stuck in traffic as I approached Northern Virginia. However, I managed to get to the airport at 6:15. Their flight was scheduled to arrive at 6:00, so between immigration, baggage claim, and customs inspection, I thought I had plenty of time. I didn't have to wait long though. Their plane actually arrived at 5:30 and they came out shortly after I arrived. We had a great reunion. There were lots of hugs and Colin was very excited to show me his new toy excavator. There was no traffic on the ride home. Colin slept the entire trip in the car and Daleen dozed off after we talked a while. (18 hours is a LONG time to spend on a plane and anyone is wiped out after making that flight.)

We got home and promptly unpacked the suitcases. This was a lot fun where Daleen and Colin showed me all the nice stuff they brought back with them. This time those items included: an awesome curio for my sister for Christmas, mayonnaise, chutney, dried fruit, two bottles of the best wine on the face of this planet, Indian spices, books, chocolates, and household cleaner (Handy Andy - this stuff will clean anything off of anything!).

That evening, I had arranged a small surprise welcome home party. Just a few friends over for dinner. It ended up not being much of a surprise though as I was being cryptic about what we were doing for dinner, and I kept running around the house putting things away and cleaning. My doing those things automatically made her suspicious enough to ask if people were coming over, as that is not what I normally do at our house.

During our get-together that evening, I downloaded the photos from her camera and we had a little slide show. I picked a couple for your enjoyment as well. The first set are from the vacation resort Daleen and Colin stayed at with her parents. Daleen's dad absolutely loves golf so of course, Colin got to play too.

The View From Their Chalet

Grandpa Teaching Colin The Finer Points Of Golf Colin Watching His Grandpa Play With Keen Interest Colin Retrieving His Grandpa's Golf Ball (nice view eh?) Colin Saddling Up For A RideThe majority of the trip was spent at Daleen's parents house. They recently sold their farm and moved into a smaller house. Daleen said she was sad to not be going back to the house she grew up in, but the new house is very nice. She said it was close to the Tzaneen Dam, but from the photos, the dam is right across the street.

The In-Laws New House

The View Of The Tzaneen Dam From Their Driveway (banana farm off in the distance)

Since they've been home, we have been just trying to relax and reconnect. We got all of our Christmas decorations and tree up. (Colin has only managed to break one ornament so far.) Then on Saturday, we went to the Richmond Christmas Parade, which I think Colin really liked, although he said it was too cold for him, even though he had on a large insulated coat and was covered up in a large blanket. I think he's still used to being in shorts and a t-shirt. His internal clock is still off as well. Saturday morning he was up around 3:30AM. Then this morning, he woke up at 5:30. He has some more adjusting to do but he'll be fine.

We've had a great couple of days together as a family since their return. Distance certainly makes the heart grow fonder. I'm glad they had such a great trip, but I'm even more glad they're home safely. We're all getting back into the swing of things and Colin will be heading back to school on Tuesday. It is hard to have such a great family that lives so far away and going to see them is getting more and more expensive. My brother-in-law set up a Skype account when Daleen was over, and we can now use our online video/voice connection to keep up, which will help, but it's still not the same as being there.

We already had a trip to go in June and we're still going over again then. Even if Daleen just saw her folks, I still want to go and see them too and just be over there. Most of you have heard me say before that South Africa really is the most beautiful place on Earth. There is just something about the land and the people that are addictive and we still talk about moving there. That was actually the original plan when we got married. Unfortunately, the country is still in a large state of change and nobody really knows where things are going to end up. Daleen has kept her SA citizenship though, so we can at least keep that option open. In the short term, our visits will have to do. Daleen and Colin had a good trip (except for Colin getting sick), but they and I are glad they're home at last.

Oh, and by the way, Daleen was totally stunned when she walked into our newly renovated laundry room when she got home....Score!

In The Final Stretch

2008-12-01T16:45:00.001-08:00

Daleen and Colin are going to be home on Thursday morning and man, I have a lot of work to do.

Things are looking good though and I think I might be able to finish everything I wanted to do with time to spare. The laundry room project is in it's final phases of construction. The room itself is painted and the new tile floor is down and it really looks amazing. I have the new cabinets painted as well and those are installed along with the trim. All I have to do now is install the new countertop, deep sink, and faucet and tidy everything up. It has been quite an odyssey though. I made such a mess of our house that I'm glad Daleen wasn't here for it.

Here is our kitchen and dining room when I was putting the floor in (all the stuff in the laundry room had to go somewhere). It too bad you can't really make out the washer, dryer, and the hot water heater in the lower left corner of the first picture. Those took up a lot of space:

Here is the old laundry room floor:

And then here is the floor with the ceramic tiles glued down (I still have the tile spacers in and the grout hadn't been laid down yet, but you get the idea):

The worst part of the whole project was tiling the floor. It is a very slow and tedious process. It wasn't so much the work that was the biggest problem. What was my problem was that I had to turn off my water and take out my hot water heater (because it resides in the laundry room.) Not having running water for a few days wasn't a very festive experience. I went to my parents house every day to shower and fill up my gallon jug of water so I could brush my teeth in the morning (somewhat important) and make coffee (extremely important). Needless to say I am very happy to have my water turned on again.

So, now that the project is coming to an end, the next phase of my time alone is beginning. I am now turning into my own Dept. of Sanitation and it's time to get the house cleaned. While the paint was drying today, I started on the bathrooms. The burning in my eyes from all the Tilex and bleach fumes is just now finally starting to subside. I can tell you there is not a single microorganism alive in any bathroom in my house. Ever been to an indoor swimming pool where they use enough bleach to kill the bacteria and all the swimmers? Yeah, its like that....nice and sterilized.

Now that I have my water turned on and have my washer and dryer back in place, I have also started back in on the pile of laundry that has been building up. Luckily, I have a bit of ironing to do and have already been thinking about what movies I want to watch while I tackle that.

Once the house is clean, I still want to change out the water filter for the house and I need to replace my heat pump filter. Also, all those leaves I got up the other week? Well, all their little buddies have now leapt onto my lawn and it looks like I didn't do anything. If I have time, I'm going to try and do something about them.....well, actually I think the leaves are just going to have to wait. I doubt Daleen will be dissappointed if I don't get them up.

I went out yesterday and got Colin a little welcome home gift and I still need to run over and get Daleen some flowers before Thursay morning arrives. When they get back, I want everything to be just right so they can simply come home and relax. I told her on the phone that people were worried about me cooking while she was away, and that there is a popular belief that I'm sitting at home, in the dark, in front of the TV, subsisting on Hungry Man TV dinners. I then joked that I was going to get some of those TV dinners, and when she gets back we'll have to lay low one night in the dark in front of the TV, so I can at least see what I missed out on. She replied that she would rather I go and pick up some Allen's Chinese instead..... good idea.

So wish me luck on getting everything done in time. I'm off from work tomorrow so I should be ok. I'm actually hoping to be done early tomorrow so I can have one night to just relax and go to bed early. I have to work Wednesday and I have a work function that evening so really tomorrow is going to be it for me.

I've said it before but the past four week have just flown by. I knew they would. Daleen said her time with her family has gone by quickly too. Colin is doing much better now and is almost completely over his illness. When we spoke today, I could hear him in the background going to town on my brother-in-law's piano (do you think there is some musical talent there??) Daleen says they're ready to come home now and I'm definitely ready for that too.

I would like to say thanks to all my friends and family who have helped me out over the past month. I had enough invites to dinner that I probably never needed to buy groceries. Thanks for the help with my home projects, for hunting trips, and for being around to talk to. Thanks to my sister who put on Thanksgiving at her house this year. I can honestly say, I don't think I felt lonely for even a moment while my family has been away and that has really been the best help anyone could give.....

Powhatan Five-0

2008-11-30T11:45:00.000-08:00

Coming to Powhatan, VA? Better slow down, cause the fuzz is everywhere.

When driving home from my sister's place on the night of Thanksgiving, I couldn't help but notice there were three different speed traps set up on Rt. 60 which is the central highway running though our county. For those of you who don't know, until recently, one speed trap in our county would be considered a lot, and three in one night is pretty much unheard of. Now that I think of it, I have noticed more police set up on the sides of Rt. 60 trying to catch speeders. This begs the question: What are the authorities up to? Is there some new law enforcement initiative designed to crack down on incidents of speeding to increase public safety? Is there a shortfall on tax income and the government is looking to make some of that up through fines? Is government threatening to pull funding from police departments unless they show they are doing enough police work to justify the money they receive?

Many of you who know me know I have mixed feelings about our local sherriff's office. Our deputies seem professional and well trained and equipped. And, crime isn't running rampant in our county, so they must be doing something right. However, every encounter I have ever had with our sherrifs deputies has sort of left me questioning what they are doing with my tax dollars.

A week before the first Christmas Daleen and I lived in Powhatan, our house was broken into. I came home from work and noticed a bunch of closets were open and several drawers in our rooms had been pulled out and dumped. I'll admit I'm a little slow and didn't realize right away what had happened. All I could think of was, "I wonder what Daleen was looking for and why was she in such a hurry that she couldn't clean up after herself?" Daleen arrived home shortly after me and when I asked her, she replied, "I didn't do that!" I immediately had this sinking feeling when I realized we had been broken into. If you've never had someone break into your house and steal your things, it is a rather unsavory feeling.
We took a quick inventory of what was missing. Mostly cash and jewelry. We had gifts under the tree but those were untouched which I thought was strange. Next, I called the police.....and then we waited... and waited.....and waited.
I can't remember how long we waited, but it was a long time. Finally, one of the deputies arrived and asked us a couple of questions. He then called the "investigator" who also took a considerable amount of time to arrive. The deputy was in his uniform, the investigator was in jeans and a sweatshirt, wearing some kind of camo ballcap. The investigator guy had a camera and he took a few photos, looked the whole house over, and asked us a few questions. Standard stuff I thought. And then.... then he then went into a long discussion about how hard it was going to be to find out who broke in and that they probably weren't going to figure out who did it. When I heard this I started wondering, "Am I in the twilight zone?" It wasn't what I really wanted to hear. Also, from the tone of his voice, I was guessing he wasn't probably going to try very hard to figure it out. The deputy notified us they would be phoning us in the next day or two to give us an update on the case and give us the case report number for our insurance. And that is the last time we ever heard from the sherriff's department. They never came back by. They never called. It was as if they had left and promptly forgot all about us. Let's just say I was a little dissappointed by the whole experience and even now, when Christmas approaches, I start to get a little nevous and wonder if this is the year we'll get broken into again. I wasn't expecting a lot. I wasn't waiting for David Caruso and the CSI team to show up and start inspecting my house for footprints and "mysterious fibers". But I did want to feel like the people who I pay through my taxes to at least make a serious effort. Dissappointing....

Then there is the curve in the road near my house. People come flying down my road and hit this curve and go into the ditch. It's not a weather factor. People have wiped out there in the middle of the day on a dry road. While no one, since we've lived there, has ever been seriously injured, I have never been able to question one of these folks to see what they were doing when they had their accident. Although I'm certain the answers would all be the same (going too fast and not paying attention to the road.) There is a set of mailboxes they normally take out. Although there is a power pole they've hit along with a neighbors fence and my culvert pipe. We usually see three or four accidents a year at this spot. Usually when I am out cutting the grass by the road in front of my house and a car comes, I can't help but remind myself if the oncoming car goes out of control, I probably wouldn't be able to get out of the way in time. Why doesn't the sherriffs office do something about that instead of sitting out on a straight stretch of highway like Rt. 60? I would think my neighbors are getting tired of having to replace their mailboxes.

We've had an increase of crime this year. From what I can tell, the sherriff's office has handled it fairly adequately and like I said, it's not like we are cowering behind locked doors while criminals are out running wild in our county. I generally feel safe where we live and I know our local law enforcement has a lot to do with that. As our community grows, we are sure to see a corresponding increase in crime. I want to feel good about our local cops and the tax dollars we use to pay their salaries. I want to feel they are working as safely as they can while responding to the needs of the community and helping to provide a safe place for my family to live and play.

So whatever you do, be sure you slow down when you come out to Powhatan. You never know where the Five-O might be parked, ticket books in-hand, waiting on you to come flying down the road.

Croup, Not Malaria

2008-11-25T06:35:00.000-08:00

Daleen phoned this morning from her parents house where she and my son are visiting. Colin is sick. He has croup, accompanied by a pretty bad fever. While I feel bad for my boy and want him to be well, I was a little relieved to hear this. Since yesterday, I'd been concerned he might have malaria.

I phoned Daleen yesterday and she told me he felt very warm. She took his temperature while we were talking and confirmed he had a fever. No big deal I thought. He frequently gets minor fevers or small colds, as do all kids his age. She asked if I thought she should take him to see a pediatrician. I asked if she had given him anything yet and she said no. So, I suggested she try giving him some children's Tylenol which usually does the trick and then, if that didn't work, she should think about taking him to see a doctor. She then mentioned he had a couple of mosquito bites but that was probably unrelated.

After we hung up, I started to worry.... a little. Tzaneen, the town where Daleen's parents live is also home to the Malaria Institute of South Africa. It is in the far northern region of the country, not far from the border with Zimbabwe and Mozambique. People in that part of the country do get malaria, although is is more prevalent in the rural areas than in the suburbs where my family is. When I first started going down there, I used to pop Mefloquine tablets (an anti-malarial drug) like they were candy and I used to almost bathe in bug spray. However, in recent years, I haven't taken anything and usually forget to put on the Off and I've been completely fine.

The mosquito bites and fever bothered me. While I have never had malaria, I have been with someone who did get it. My friend Matt and I were working in Dakar, Senegal when he got it and it was pretty bad. We were teaching a training class and by the end of my talk, he was laying on a couch with a severely high fever and he was shivering and complaining he was freezing to death. Now that scared me because I had no idea what it was and I certainly didn't want to get whatever kind of Ebola Virus that I was sure he had. It really hit him quickly and bad and he was in rough shape for the whole week we were there.

What I didn't remember, until this morning when Daleen phoned, was that Matt had actually gotten it during a previous trip to Cameroon and that it had taken two weeks to incubate before the symptoms showed. I somehow doubt Colin had gotten bit by a malarial mosquito in November in Powhatan before they left on their trip. (I wished I'd remembered that yesterday.)

So Daleen took Colin to the pediatrician in Tzaneen. South African doctors, by the way, are definitely some of the best on the planet. (Did you know it was a South African doctor who performed the first heart transplant?) After a night of fever and coughing, Colin was diagnosed with croup. They gave him some antibiotics and he is getting a nebulizer breathing treatment. Daleen says trying to keep a nebulizer mask on a two year old is slightly more frustrating than trying to herd cats.

I feel terrible that my little guy is so sick. I know he's going to be fine and Daleen and her folks are taking great care of him, but it's just my automatic Dad response. I can't help but want to go over there to be with him. I'm sorry this is happening on his vacation with his grandparents as well. I know he'll be fine and I'm looking forward to seeing him a week from Thursday, when he comes home to me well.

Man On Fire

2008-11-24T06:48:00.000-08:00

It's been five days since my last posting and man, have I been busy. I've been totally on fire and have been burning through my to-do list with unbelievable rapidity. It feels great and it definitely is what makes it easier to handle Daleen and Colin being gone for the past two and a half weeks. (See, I told you their month-long visit to her parents would go by quickly.) I'm doing a lot now, but when they get home, everything will be done, and all I will have to do is relax and enjoy their company.

This past weekend was especially crazy though.

Friday:
Up at 4:00AM and off to go hunting with my friend Russ. (Hey, I said I was busy. I never said it was all work....) On our trip I had three bucks and eight does walk out in front of me and I let them all walk away. Too small. To be honest, that's the best kind of hunting in my book. The deer come in, so you know you've done it right, and then afterwards you get to go home without a lot of extra work.

After I got home, I made some lunch and then got to work on painting some new cabinets for our laundry room project. In between coats, while the paint was drying, I went out and worked on getting up the 5 tons of leaves covering my lawn. Every year, I promise myself I am going to keep up with the leaves and not let them get all crazy. Then I promptly break that promise and let them pile up.

After the leaves/painting, it was time for dinner (grilled steak, brussels sprouts (love the sprouts), and a salad. Dinner was followed by dish duty and then on to the main event for the evening: laundry and ironing. Like the leaves, I had let the clothes pile up too. I like ironing in front of the TV though. My friend Chad loaned me his "John Adams" DVD. (It's an HBO miniseries.). Two episodes, three hours, more than enough time to finish with the clothes. I thought it was very well done and I can't wait to see the other DVD's in the series.

In bed at 11:45PM. A long day.

Saturday:
Slept in until 6:30 (that's sleeping in for me usually). No hunting this morning. It was around 20 degrees out and I am simply not that crazy.
Spent the morning finishing up painting the new wall cabinets for the laundry room. They are a very handsome avocado green color now. I also managed to get the kitchen cleaned up from Friday night. Late morning and the entire afternoon was devoted to getting up the last of the leaves. I burned some of the leaves along with some brush I had piled up, but this ended when the breeze started kicking up. The rest of the leaves went into the woods. Thank goodness that job is FINALLY OVER!

At 4:30 I headed out the door to head to my next function. Our church had it's annual membership meeting Saturday evening. This is the one time of the year where we come together to vote on church business items which require the members approval. We also have dinner together, followed by some music and reflection on what we've managed to accomplish in the past year and what we have to look forward to. It was really nice. The business meeting part was VERY short as usual and the food was excellent.

Unfortunately, I couldn't stay very long after dinner as I was then off again to a work function. Our night shift guy, Joe, was going to be relocated to our NY office. He didn't really want to make that move so he found a new job in NC, close to his wife's family. Anyhow, we had his Hail and Farewell party Saturday evening. Joe was a great coworker and he will be missed, but everyone feels good when they see someone who makes a job or career move, not for themselves, but for their family. I made it home by 10:30 and watched 2001: A Space Odyssey on Netfilx Online. It's a great movie which I had seen before, but man, Stanley Kubrick was whacked!

Sunday:
Up at 5:00AM. Ran the lights at church Sunday morning. Our church is in the process of building our permanent home, but in the meantime we are mobile. I like to think we are nomadic, but we really go to the same place every week. Every Sunday, the trailers carrying all the stuff needed to run a church are transported to Powhatan High School and are unloaded. We do church. Then everything goes back into the trailers and is driven away until next Sunday. In between the unloading and reloading, something really amazing happens. If you attend Powhatan Community Church, you know what I'm talking about. If you don't... well... I'm not going to tell you. You'll just have to come and check it out for yourself.

As I mentioned I ran the lights for the service rehersal and two services. The Tech Team to which I belong also is tasked with setting up and tearing down our stage setup, which is fairly complex. Running the tech gear during the rehersal and two services is generally fun. However, as you can guess, tragedy does occasionally strike, but somehow, the problems always get fixed and we move on. No matter how crazy things get, my friend Beth always says "It'll be fine!!", and it always is.

I almost lament our moving into our new building. I hate to think my son is never going to know what it's like to be a part of a mobile church. Right now, when you say PCC, people think of this awesome group of people doing amazing things. After we get our building, when you mention PCC, people will think of our building. We're going to be able to do what we do so much better when we get moved in, but we're going to lose a little something too. I think we should, one Sunday a year, fill our trailers up and take them somewhere and play a bunch of old photos and DVD's to remind ourselves of where we came from. I know it sounds crazy but it would be good to remind ourselves the building we are moving into is just another tool for us to use to do what we do.

After the second church service, it was time for the first rehersal of the Christmas play I am in. Believe it or not, I actually pretty much have all of my lines memorized. The rehersal was fun and it was cool to start to visualize how we are going to pull this thing off. My friend Chad and I have the two big speaking parts and we got a chance to ham it up for the rest of the cast. They all laughed when they were supposed to which was encouraging.

After rehersal, I got back home, loaded up my truck and took all of our trash to the dump. Once that was finished, I fired up my lawnmower and cut the grass, then spread out the last application of fall lawn fertilizer. I then sprayed roundup on some trouble areas around my driveway, put everything away, and headed indoors. It was dark then anyway.

Once inside I cooked dinner (baked salmon, more brussels sprouts, and a salad), did the dishes, and washed some more laundry while watching the beginning of the movie "2010", which is not nearly as wierd as "2001". I like Roy Scheider and I think Helen Mirren is just awesome.
I had a glass of wine with dinner and that's all it took to finish off my weekend. I was in bed at 7:30.

Unfortunately, my alarm went off early at 4:00 this morning. Time to get ready for work. I feel rested, and good this morning. This is going to be a busy week for me, but I am ready for it. I am a man on fire.

What Comes Around, Goes Around

2008-11-19T07:26:00.000-08:00

What comes around, goes around.

This is one of my favorite phrases, and it is so true. The TV show, "My Name is Earl" is centered around this concept. I try not to watch a whole lot of TV, but I do find the show is funny and I like this idea that in the end, people always get what's coming to them.

Wikipedia describes the show by saying, "Jason Lee stars in the title role as "Earl J. Hickey", a petty crook with occasional run-ins with the law, whose newly won $100,000 lottery ticket is lost when he is hit by a car. While lying in his hospital bed after the accident, he develops a belief in the concept of karma when he hears about it during an episode of Last Call with Carson Daly. He decides he wants to turn his life around and makes a list of all the bad things he's ever done. After doing his first good deed, he finds his $100,000 lottery ticket. He sees this as a sign and, with his new lucky money, he proceeds to cross items off the list, one-by-one, by doing good deeds to atone for them."

I don't know if I'd call it karma, but I like that the character Earl is the epitome of the concept of what comes around, goes around. I also like the fact that he also organizes his time and energy around a list that he has made. (As you know, I too am a list maker...) However, over the past couple of weeks I, yet again, have experienced this idea of what comes around, goes around for myself.

The other week, one of my friend's phoned me in the early evening and told me about a lady who goes to our church who was having a problem with her well. My friend couldn't make it over to her place that night to look at her system and was concerned that the problem could make her well pump fail. When asked if I could go have a look, I said yes and headed over. In the end, there really wasn't anything wrong with the well. However, after I looked at the well pump and pressure tank, I was invited to stay for dinner, which happened to be spaghetti with probably the best sauce I have ever tried. See? I felt rewarded for doing the right thing.

The next day, I went on a hunting trip. That morning, sitting out in the woods, as the sun was just starting to appear, I said a little prayer like I always do for a successful hunt. This time I did add a little something like, "Ok God, I cheerfully did what you wanted. So perhaps if it isn't too much trouble, maybe you could somehow see your way towards sending me a nice deer?" Fifteen minutes later, I was standing over the largest deer I had gotten in the past three years. See what I mean?

Of course, this idea also works the other way for me as well. I was out in my truck on Monday and I got caught behind another truck with a hunting dog box on the back. They must have been looking for one of their hunting dogs because they were only going 10-15 mph. The bad part was, we were on a narrow road, and they were driving in the middle, and for some reason, wouldn't let me by. We continued on with me right on their rear for about a mile to the next intersection. I tried to remain calm and I didn't honk, yell, wave frantically, or use the incorrect finger to tell them I thought they were "Number One!". However, my blood was starting to boil and I didn't know what their problem was. I just wanted them to get out of my way.

We got to the intersection and they turned on their indicator to turn left. There was enough room on the right to come along side of them and make my turn. I didn't look at them when I came to their side, I just turned on my indicator, looked for any cars, and then punched it. I was actually pretty surprised at how the rear wheels on my truck peeled out with a really impressive squealing sound. This was completely unintentional and unexpected, but for me, it was the icing on the cake. In my mind I was like, "Yesss... I showed those guys!" They knew I was angry with them because they were just bad, slow, inconsiderate drivers. I mean I really showed them. The only thing that would have made my moment more rednecky is if I had a horn that played "Dixie" as I peeled out of there.

And then it happened. On my way back to Powhatan, I felt like my steering was out of alignment. "Strange", I thought. "I'll have to get that checked out." Another few miles down the road and I noticed the steering alignment was worse. And then the thudding noise started coming from the right front tire. "What is that?", I wondered. I pulled into a gas station and sure enough, I had a flat tire. Specifically, I had blown out the belt on my tire.

One hundred and forty dollars later, I asked myself, "Was that worth it?" Why hadn't I just been a little more patient? I probably could have just honked at them to get them to let me by. Who knows? My little moment of anger cost me. A lot. I didn't have to show those guys. If they were being jerks, then they would eventually get what was coming to them. I learned my lesson yet again.

What comes around, most definitely goes around.....

On To Tzaneen

2008-11-16T06:16:00.000-08:00

Spoke with Daleen on the phone today. They finished up their week-long holiday up in the mountains and headed on to Tzaneen to her parents house. The resort where they stayed was apparently very nice. My father-in-law got to play a lot of golf which he loves to do. Colin got to take some pony rides and they had a big children's play area where they had a trampoline for him to jump around on. (He loves trampolines.... although he doesn't know to stay away from the edge which is always a little unnerving for us.) The resort was up in the mountains so it didn't get too hot and it rained, but usually for just a little while in the evenings. They left early this morning to make the seven hour journey home.

Tzaneen is a large town in Limpopo Province, which is situated in the northeast corner of South Africa. It is centered in the Tzaneen Valley and has a sub-tropical climate. The name Tzaneen is derived from the Sotho language and the main industry in the area is citrus farming (bananas, oranges, mangoes, avocados, etc). The town itself is very hilly and contains a downtown with a large shopping area (they even have a mall) surrounded by many suburban style neighborhoods. However, the neighborhoods drop off quickly into farmland. The Limpopo river runs through the town and they have a real hippo crossing sign by the river which I think is pretty cool. (By the way, Hippos are extremely dangerous and injure more people in Africa than all the other animals combined. Consequently, the churches do not do river baptisms there!)

Daleen grew up in Tzaneen. Until last year, her parents owned and ran a small fruit farm. They grew avocados, mangoes, and litchis (a small, red, and very sweet fruit which I love). Her dad bought the property when it was just wild land. He built their house and grew all the trees in their orchards while working full time for the railroad driving trains. After his retirement from the railroad, he took on the farming operations full time until he and my mother-in-law were really ready to retire.

My father-in-law was concerned about going fully into retirement. He once told me he had worked so hard, for so long, that he had no idea what he was going to do with his time. I didn't think it would take him very long to figure it out. He did spend a couple of weeks relaxing and reading Louis L'Amour books which were his favorite when he was working on the railroad. Now they've moved into a house that is a real fixer-upper and dad has happily gone back to work. He's basically his own general contractor for the house which is keeping him busy although just like here, many of the contractors he is dealing with frustrate him to no end.

I haven't seen their new house yet. I think the next time I go I will be disappointed to not be going back to their farm. While I won't miss getting up at the crack of dawn to pick fruit (yes, they put us to work when we go over to visit), I will miss all the open space and I'll definitely miss their swimming pool. (Did I mention it's subtropical there...as in Africa-hot subtropical.)

Tzaneen is really a wonderful place. I always enjoy going to visit, and I know why Daleen gets so homesick. There is just something about the town. They have this strange mixture of people and cultures. On one side, there is this high level of civility. It's the British influence that includes specific times for meals, tea, and afternoon coffee. There is a mall, nice neighborhoods, beautiful houses and golf courses. There are blue laws, and Sunday afternoon barbecues. When we go in the summer, it is Cricket season, so watching sports on TV includes watching guys in white uniforms play a gentleman's game that stops for lunch and tea breaks. The shops and stores there understand real customer service where they know how to smooch up to you and there is an unbelievable level of politeness. It's civilized.

However, there is also a side of the town which counters the civilized British influence. There are numerous Africans who work on the farms in the valley. Many of these people don't have cars and simply walk everywhere. You can see the poverty. Often, their homes consist of corrugated metal shacks or brick with thatched roofs, and they cook their meals outside over wood fires. They usually don't have toilets or running water. Donald, one of my father-in-law's employees, has a home in the nearby town of Modjadji, where the "Rain Queen" lives. The Rain Queen is sort of a tribal religious figure who supposedly has the ability to control the clouds and rainfall. It's really wild to see these people who are carrying on with very ancient traditions and ways of life, meshing with a modern civilization. I think it's hard for many of these people to get beyond the past and move into the future towards what we would consider a better life for them and their families. There are many circumstances and cultural and educational obstacles that need to be overcome. They're moving forward, but it's slow progress.

Daleen and Colin are going to be with her folks for another two weeks. She's got family and old friends to visit. There are several safari animal parks nearby so Colin will have plenty of opportunities to see some lions, zebras, and elephants. I have no doubt they are going to have a great time. I miss them, but am glad they are spending time with her family. I just hope they don't run into any hippos.....

Last Will And Testament

2008-11-14T11:08:00.000-08:00

It's open enrollment season at my work. This is the one time during the year I can make corrections to my employee benefits such as health insurance, life insurance, dental, etc. This year, we added a flexible spending account so we can use tax free money to pay for various medical and dental visits and prescriptions. It's a pretty sweet deal.

I was reviewing my information prior to deciding on any changes and what struck me was all the various financial accounts Daleen and I have. Between insurance policies, bank accounts, investment accounts, a 401K plan that is severely devalued, and various vehicles of credit, I realized we manage quite a lot. But what has really struck me recently is, what would happen to all this if I were to suddenly pass away?

Daleen's sister died very unexpectedly just over a year ago. She didn't have a will. At least she didn't have a will in the U.S. that was legally binding here, even though she lived in Florida. However, she had most of her account information fairly well organized. But even with her somewhat organized account information, Daleen has run in circles for the past year trying to close up her sister's estate. Without a will, it ain't easy. I mean it really ain't easy. Without a will, because of privacy policies and identity protection, nobody would even talk to her. Daleen had to get a lawyer so she could be appointed as the executor of her sister's estate. Then there has been the forms. An entire mountain of forms. To compound this, the people from the various insurance and banking companies that are supposed to be helping us are for the most part, extremely inefficient or simply not adequately trained for their jobs. Sometimes I think they are either trying very hard not to part with Naomi's assets or claim money, or all of their other clients are like Methuselah and no one has ever died, and they just don't know what to do.

Her having a will would have helped us immensely. At the time, we didn't have a will. We definitely have one now.

Now, lately I have been looking into all these accounts and policies we have and feel like I need to get this all organized. Right now, if something were to happen to me, I don't think Daleen would know who to contact to get the ball rolling. So here's my plan. I'm going to compile a list all of my accounts and policies. All the policy and account numbers, values, and contact information. I'm even planning on including a letter stating exactly what I would like to have for my funeral, what to do with my remains, and who to make phone calls to.

Daleen has been fighting for over a year to finalize her sister's estate and she still has a long way to go. I don't want that for anyone who does the same for me someday. My hope is that whoever needs this information someday will find it comprehensive and it will make their job easy. They're going to have all the information they need and they'll have my will to provide them with the authority to execute my wishes.

I know this all seems a little grim, but since witnessing first hand how having a will and organized documents could have made a difficult time a lot easier, I am passionate about this. My sister-in-law had a nice funeral. Daleen and I then transported her remains to South Africa where we had another memorial service and saw her to her final resting place. Through all of that, and all the subsequent things that have needed to be done, we have tried to carry on with her affairs the way we think she would have wanted, but we're still only guessing.

When I pass on, those who carry out my final wishes and finalize my affairs won't have to guess. I plan to make sure they know and that gives me real peace of mind.

Ons Klein Meneer

2008-11-12T18:26:00.000-08:00

Recently a couple of my friends have had their pets pass away. It's strange because they have all occurred in a single week. I am so sorry for their loss. It's easy to see how our pets become integral members of our families and it can be painful when they are no longer with us. Sometimes, when the family has young children, it can be especially hard because there could be some difficult questions and conversations to deal with. Thinking about my friends and their pets got me to thinking about the pets I share my home with.

Daleen and I have this pack of nutty cats that more or less live with us. (However, we are NOT crazy cat people... It's not like we have thirty of them living in our house.) I say more or less because we have only one cat that actually "lives" with us. Then we have a stray that has lived under our shed for the past few years, and there are a couple of other strays that wander by from time to time for an easy meal.

I'll start with the strays. We have, for some reason, this female cat that lives under our shed. She had a litter of kittens once, so we named her "Momma Cat". Momma Cat hates us. She doesn't let us pet her or even come near her. The only time she wants to have anything to do with us is when she wants to be fed. So we give her some dry food every day. In return, she is a member of an extremely efficient lawn mole killing force. So, she lives outside year-round and likes to kill small animals. She is definitely the toughest member of our lineup.

After Momma Cat, we have "Visiting Kitty" who was our first stray. Then we have "Skinny Cat", so named because.... well, because he's skinny. Visiting Kitty and Skinny Cat are both males so they don't stick around. They do come back from time to time and we are always happy to see them.

And then there is Tazz. Tazz is our house cat. He technically belongs to Daleen and came with her when she moved from South Africa. He is what you would call "ons klein meneer" in Afrikaans which is Daleen's primary language. It basically translates as "our little gentleman". He is an integral part of our family and I honestly believe Daleen would have to be hospitalized if anything were to happen to him.

Daleen got Tazz before we stared dating. She says he was the ugliest kitten she had ever seen. I have to say I agree with her... I've seen the pictures. He first came to live with her in her apartment when she lived in Pretoria, the capitol city of South Africa. Even at an early age, he was adventurous. He would routinely sneak out of her apartment window to go visit other residents in her building. She would come home to find him gone and would immediately have a heart attack. But eventually, the guy he usually went to see would bring him back.

When Daleen made her decision to move to the US, there wasn't even a question about Tazz. He was coming too. So we learned a lot about importing pets into the states. It's actually pretty easy. We put him in a pet export kennel in South Africa for a while before he flew to get his shots and go through a short quarantine. While we flew back to the states directly on South African Airways, Tazz got to fly on KLM. He flew to Amsterdam where he had a day-long layover. They let him out to walk around but I doubt he made it into the city to check things out. When he arrived in Boston, he cleared customs without any issues and when I went to the KLM cargo office to pick him up, he was out of his box and the employees were all lined up to play with him. He was in his little kitty-glory.

When he flew over, the pet export folks built him this ultimate, IATA approved, animal shipment crate. We never got around to getting him a regular cat carrier, so when we have to take him to the vet, we use his crate. We always get these strange looks when we bring in the crate. It looks like there could be some crazy wild animal in it. I think there is always some disappointment in the waiting room when we open the crate and this little white cat comes out.

Tazz's Shipping Crate (very sturdy, don't you think?):

Tazz's Crate Shipping Label ("1 Live Cat"):

When Daleen moved to Boston, Tazz was the only other living creature she knew there besides me. Shortly after she moved, I got sent to France for a month-long assignment. It was February and we had a huge blizzard while I was gone. Daleen had never seen snow before she moved to the US, so she was trapped in our apartment, for a month, with no friends or family around. But she did have Tazz with her and I think if it wasn't for him, she would have gone home to SA.

Tazz took the move to Powhatan really well. He is happy here. He's a lot older now, so his play is much more subdued. He's even starting to get arthritis in his back legs which has cut back on his running and jumping and he sleeps a lot. However, in Powhatan, Tazz is living his dream of being an outdoor cat. He had always lived in apartments before, so Daleen would never let him out. Here in Powhatan, he spends most of his time outside, prowling about our yard, following his feline instincts. He has even managed to assist Momma Cat in taking care of our mole problem. But he lives the life of leisure, spending his days outdoors and sleeping at the foot of our bed every night.

Tazz is a great pet. He is really good with Colin and shows a great deal of patience with him. He's low maintenance but very affectionate. For the four weeks while Daleen and Colin are in South Africa, he is the only other member of our family at home with me. His just being around makes it much easier to deal with my wife and son being away for such a long time. Daleen thinks we should get another kitten so Tazz will have a playmate. I don't like this because I think he would get jealous and it would make people think we really are crazy cat people.

Tazz has been a good companion to Daleen over the years and she truly loves him. He is getting older but he still has a few years left on this earth and he has aged gracefully. He stopped being that ugly kitten years ago and has lived a extraordinary life as far as cats go. He's lived in two large cities, flown internationally, and now spends his days chasing moles while taking naps on our bed. As far as cats go, he is a true gentleman..... n' klein meneer....

Having A Blast With Friends

2008-11-10T03:14:00.001-08:00

Since Daleen has been out of town, I have been running around like a madman.

She and Colin have already been gone a week but it feels like they only left yesterday. I now have three more weeks until they return and I am already getting concerned I won't be able to finish all the projects I am working on before they get back.

However, I realized in order to keep going and be expeditious and efficient with my work, I needed to take a break; a day of rest if you will. So yesterday I took off to go do some clay pidgeon shooting with a couple of friends.

I am a member of Cavalier Rifle and Pistol Club in Montpelier, VA. As you can guess, it is a club devoted to the shooting sports. We have various rifle ranges, pistol ranges, and sporting clay and trap ranges. In addition to the shooting activites, we have other ammenties such as a campground and two fishing lakes. One of the things I really like is that the club doesn't allow shooting after 3:00PM on Sundays so members can have cookouts, go fishing, take nature walks, etc.

So yesterday I took my friends Rob and Josh to the club. Our first event was shooting clay pidgeons. There is a manual clay launcher on our trap range and I like to go when they're not running the automated system. The reason is when the automated trap range isn't operating, there aren't any other shooters there, so we can just relax and have some fun. If we miss a bunch of times (which usually happens) there isn't anyone there to roll their eyes at us.

Now, shooting a little clay disk flying through the air isn't terribly hard, but it isn't all that easy either. The problem is most folks use their shotguns for hunting big game animals, where you point, aim, and shoot. When shooting clays, the process is completely different and most people have to break some serious habits, which is what generally provides the most difficulty. My biggest problem is instead of swinging through the target, I stop when aimed at the clay, which is bad because as I mentioned, the target is continuing to move. Everyone had a lot of fun on the clay range though. Josh was on fire and I had a much better day than I have seen in a long time. It had been a long time since Rob had shot clays, so he had a bit of a learning curve at the beginning, but was doing really well in the end. Isn't that how it always goes with any sport?

After the clays, we headed over to the pistol range where I was reminded of how good a shot my friend Josh is. Remember in the first Lethal Weapon movie when Mel Gibson and Danny Glover are at the police pistol range and Mel shoots a smiley face in a target at some ridiculous range? Yeah, my boy Josh can do that. Rob and I on the other hand.... not as good. But we still had a lot of fun getting our bit of practice in.

Our final stop was the 100yd rifle range. Everyone brought a couple of rifles to sight in. I brought two myself. One that is easy on the shoulder and my Africa rifle which is somewhat of a bruiser. I proved again that all my stuff was dialed in and any innaccuracy was definitely caused by me alone.

All three of us needed a day off to go out and act like guys. Everyone needs a break from time to time so they can recharge their batteries. I especially needed this as I am looking at the lack of empty spaces on my calendar for the next three weeks until Daleen and Colin come home.

Cavalier is one of my favorite places to unwind. And contrary to what you may think, it's not a bunch of redneck guys standing around plinking cans with daddy's shotgun. A large percentage of our members are female (they're typically the better shooters by the way... more patience). We have every type of age and income group you can imagine. I think it is the variety of people at every skill level I like the best about our club. I love seeing one of the "good ole boys" in a ratty pair of overalls with a ratty old hand-me-down shooting iron sitting next to a real blueblood in brand new crispy safari wear, sporting a polished new custom-made rifle, chatting away as if they were next-door neighbors.

I feel better this morning and I am definitely well rested. After we left the club yesterday, I did some grocery shopping and headed home where two Netflix were waiting on me. I can't remember the last time I just sacked out in front of the TV for an evening, but it was nice; the end of a great day. But the best part though was spending some guy time with my friends Rob and Josh. It was a real blast....

3rd Annual Small Groups Olympiad

2008-11-08T17:47:00.000-08:00

I belong to a church that plays well together.

We work really well together too, but for some reason, games, and competition always brings out the best in everyone.

Tonight was our church's third annual Small Group Olympics. In a previous posting, I talked a little about the small groups at our church, their function, and how they generally operate. Well, the Olympics is more or less a celebration to mark the end of our annual fall series where there has been a large emphasis on folks joining small groups and new groups starting up.

There are actually two parts to the Olympics event. The first is the chili cook-off and the second is a series of games and there is a winner from each part.

The chili cook-off was pretty amazing. Each group brings a crock pot of chili and everyone votes on a favorite. In addition to the chili, my friend Cathy cooked enough hot dogs and hamburgers to feed an army, and the small groups brought desserts and lots of cornbread. I am telling you that the people I go to church with can cook! As I am sitting at home writing this, I am asking myself if I really needed to sample all of that chili and cornbread. At the time, I really felt it was my duty to be as objective as I could in my voting and give as many chilli's a chance as I could. (There was a particular chicken/white bean one that was unbelievably good..) However, I am just hoping now that the Tums will work quickly and I think I can feel my double-chin has grown.

Naturally, after everyone was nice and full on chili, cornbread, and desserts, it was time to gird ourselves for pain and athleticism.... Well, not exactly, but there was some fierce competition in the games. Some of the "sports" included a relay race that involved carrying a clothespin between the knees and dropping it into a cup, charades, a word association game, and hula-hooping. Yeah ok, so it's not like we're doing the decathlon, but you would be surprised at the competitiveness our small groups displayed. On the word association and charades games, some people were shouting out answers as loud as they could and our group huddled and strategized about how we could effectively carry clothespins between our knees. Just like the regular Olympics.... we had the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

Our group didn't win the chili cook-off. And we didn't win the games either (although we did win three out of the five events we competed in). But we really had a good time tonight with a lot of laughs and I can tell we made a quantum leap forward in our relationships with one another and with other small groups in our church. We are much tighter as a group, more like a family now, than we have ever been, which is really what this entire event is about.

So while we didn't actually win the games tonight, our time together as a small group was a win, the new level of our relationships is a win, and the competition tonight made all that possible. We are true champions in that respect.

Now we just need to spend the next twelve months working on our game so next year we can take home some medals......

Under Pressure Pt. 2

2008-11-06T10:19:00.000-08:00

Ok, so now I don't have high blood pressure.

As I stated in a previous posting, I had a very high blood pressure reading during a health screen for a program my work has. I was fairly nervous about it and decided not to wait before making an appointment to see my doctor.

I got to the office and the nurse took my blood pressure. Normal. Then my doctor came in and took my pressure reading. Also normal, even slightly lower than the first one at 114/74. Needless to say, I was a bit perplexed by the significantly lower reading, but happy when she stated that I most certainly don't have hypertension. (But I do most likely have pre-hypertension.....yay!)

We spent some time reviewing my blood work and measurements. I really appreciated my doctor taking the time to listen to the endless questions I had. In the end though, the prescription remained unchanged. I have to eat better, lose weight, and exercise more. I have already started using my gym membership more frequently than I was, which wasn't very hard to to. (It has been nice to see some of you there.) Then, this morning I downloaded a ton of info on a diabetic diet my doctor recommended as my blood sugar was slightly elevated and she wants me to better control that.

My doctor reminded me of some unfortunate things I have going for me in the way of family history. As I said before, my mom has been on blood pressure medication forever and my dad has already had quadruple bypass surgery and is a diabetic. So I potentially have all that to look forward to no matter what I do. My doctor told me that because of my history, even with the right diet and exercise, she wouldn't be surprised if she had to put me on blood pressure meds within the next five years.

I'm still optimistic about the diet and exercise bit though. I'm just getting started with this and I already feel better. And I'm not worried about what's going to happen with my health in the future. Life really is too short to spend a lot of time worrying. I'm going to work with my doctor to monitor this stuff, we're going to catch any problems early, and I'm going to make the lifestyle changes I need to make.

My next appointment is in six months. I'll let you know how it goes....

Shopping for One

2008-11-05T06:29:00.000-08:00

Daleen and Colin left me yesterday, and now I am all alone....

As many of you know, Daleen is an alien, living among us (a legal alien that is). She is actually a citizen of the Republic of South Africa. Her mom, dad, and family are there and while we try and get back there as often as we can, she goes for long periods of time without seeing them. As you can imagine, there are times when she gets extremely homesick, sometimes to the point where I just wish she would buy a plane ticket and go home. Going home however, is an expensive proposition. So when South African Airways ran a special, basically cutting the airfare in half, her parents decided to buy us all tickets to come and visit. Unfortunately, by the time I was able to get my work situation straight, the tickets for the special had ran out. Luckily, Daleen and Colin both got tickets and left yesterday for a four-week vacation.

They're spending a few days at Daleen's sister's house in a town called Centurion, which is a suburb, half-way between Johannesburg and the capitol city of Pretoria. Then they're going on holiday for a week at a golf resort in the Drakensberg mountains, followed by a couple of weeks at her parents house in the town of Tzaneen (pronounced "Zaneen"), which is in the northeast tip of the country. It's summertime there now (southern hemisphere), which means it will be "Africa-Hot" when she gets to her parents place.

Packing for such a trip really takes us a long time. Now, the South Africans basically have all the stuff we do in America. They have shopping malls, bad traffic, urban sprawl, regular grocery stores, etc. It really is more like the U.S. than any other place outside of the U.S. However, there are a few small things you can't get there and that's why packing our bags takes so long. When it comes time to go, we basically turn into overladen human pack animals. Here are just a few things we usually take with us besides clothes: Duncan Hines Cake Mix, Folgers Coffee, Vidalia Onion Salad Dressing, Russell Stover Chocolates, Crime Novels, Grated Parmesan Cheese (I am not kidding), CD's, DVD's, etc... Basically, we pack all of our clothes into one suitcase and we finish filling that one and a whole other suitcase with non-clothing items. They payoff is, when we come back from visiting, we use all that space to mule back everything we like but can't get here. Those items include: wine, mayonnaise (this is Daleen's, I think personally it is the nastiest stuff I have ever tasted), household cleaner, chocolate, more chocolate, Indian curry spice, Peach Chutney (Mrs. Balls brand... it's to die for) , salad dressing, and all the handicrafts we end up buying while we're there. Let's put it this way, we use a scale when packing and go right to the limit of our weight allowance.

Yesterday, I drove Daleen and Colin to Dulles Airport to catch their flight. Daleen seemed really upbeat and we had a cheerful goodbye. Although I didn't envy her sitting on the nonstop 15 hour flight with a fidgety two-year old. We finally said our goodbyes and I waited till they cleared security.

I now have four weeks completely to myself. A vacation you ask? Hardly. I sat down the other night and tried to plan out all that I want to do while they are away. I have found there just isn't going to be enough time to do it all. Four weeks, I feel, is going to slip by quickly and it already feels like they are going to be returning tomorrow. I should take the opportunity to relax, but when I'm alone, I like to work and run around like a crazy person. It's just how I'm wired.

I know some of you are worried about me actually cooking and keeping up my house while Daleen is away. I can assure you that I will be quite fine with this. I lived for quite some time on my own and can find my away around the kitchen. I even know how our vacuum cleaner works. I've also already started cleaning the house from top to bottom. Luckily for me, we have a new Trader Joe's in town. We had one where I used to live, and I like the fact that they sell awesome foods in single-person sized packages. Shopping for one? No problem.

I just got off the phone with Daleen. They had a great flight and Colin was perfectly fine. After take off, they watched Finding Nemo and WALL-E and then Colin lay down and slept until breakfast was served, two hours before the plane landed. They made it to her sister's place and as we were talking, my brother-in-law and niece just arrived home from getting dinner. They got McDonalds for my niece and Nandos for everyone else. Nandos is like Chik-Fil-A, except its about ten times better. She said it was nice and warm there, and from hill my sister-in-laws house sits on, they could see the clouds carrying a lightning storm roll across the savanna.

Wish I was there....

Boating in the Election

2008-11-05T06:09:00.000-08:00

I took my two-year-old to go vote yesterday.

Luckily the line was pretty short and we only had to wait ten minutes or so. Colin of course, took the time to ham it up and get everyone in the line laughing.

I kept telling him we were voting (with a 'V"), but all he heard was that we were going to Boat. He couldn't understand why we were going into a building, but figured the boat must be in there. He asked lots of questions about the boat, which got some of the folks in line smiling.

By the time I got him to say the word "President", everyone was laughing. Someone then asked him what his name was and he said "President!". When asked how old he was, he held up two fingers and said "Three!" (We're going to have to work on that one.)

Making a two-year-old wait in a line to vote is like trying to herd cats. It's hard, (he did like the touch screen voting machine though). But I'm glad he came with me and saw people exercising their rights and engaging in their civic duty. A lot of people have died so we can have this right and I think it very important our children don't become complacent when it comes to voting.

We have a new president-elect as of this morning. My guy didn't win, but I'm looking forward to seeing what Obama is going to do. He's got a lot looking him in the face. No matter what, I can tell with all certainty that with the amount of voter turnout yesterday, the democratic system in this country is alive and well, and I feel great about that.....

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T07:11:00.000-07:00

I really don't like Halloween.

This was not always the case growing up (what kid doesn't like free candy?), but this changed in 1998 when I moved to Salem, MA. Most folks know Salem as the "Witch City" due to the history surrounding the infamous Salem Witch Trials. Just for the record, all that stuff actually happened in Salem Village which is now in the town of Danvers, MA. The current City of Salem, MA was originally Salem Town, which is a completely different place. But we got the name and the reputation that goes along with it.

The history surrounding the witch trials is pervasive throughout the city. There are all these cheesy witch trial museums and tourist traps. The police cars even have a silhouette of a witch on their sides. To their credit, the city has tried to maintain a balance with this and promotes the historic waterfront as well. There is actually a national park in the city at the waterfront, as Salem, in its heyday, was the largest commercial shipping port in the country. The first American missionaries to travel abroad left from that same shore. There is also the Peabody-Essex museum which is rated among the top 10 historical museums in America. Finally, among a heap of other historical places, is the famous House of Seven Gables that Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote about, which was right down the street from my apartment. So there is a lot of stuff besides the witch thing, but that is the one part most folks get hung up on.

It is unfortunate that Salem, because of its history, is also a major center for cult activity on the east coast. To say there are quite a few freaky folks running around there is an understatement. Now, all the ones I ever met seemed to be nice people, and they would simply say they had alternative religious beliefs. However, when talking to some folks who somehow managed to get out of these cults after being in them for some time, you realize there are some serious real-life horror stories going on there.

I really enjoyed living in Salem though.... most of the time. I lived right in downtown and I only needed my car to drive to work. Everything else I walked to. There was a commuter rail station nearby for when I wanted to go into Boston and I could simply ride my bike to the beach. There were plenty of awesome restaurants in town and I really did have some great neighbors. They were a little crazy but great nonetheless.

Eleven months out of the year, Salem is just wonderful..... until October arrives. With all the witchcraft identity the city has, it's no surprise that it's also the Halloween capitol of America. For the entire month of October, the streets become mobbed with people and it culminates in a big Halloween night bash where they close off all the streets to traffic and people pretty much just get drunk and over-the-top crazy. I think that's pretty much what I remember most about Halloween..... drunk people beating each other up, getting sick, and throwing bottles and trash everywhere. If you live there, it's not a fun place to be during that time of year.

The first Halloween I lived there, we had a party. I was excited. However, when I asked my neighbors what they were doing for Halloween, I was surprised they all had plans to be somewhere else. Some were going to Cape Cod and others were going up to New Hampshire or Maine. They all told me that I would have my one Halloween and the next year I'd be leading the charge out of town. They were correct. For the last Halloween that Daleen and I spent in Salem, I picked up a pizza on the way home early from work and we just put out all the lights and laid low in front of the TV, hoping some drunken idiot wouldn't throw an empty bottle at our car.

In fact, the whole month of October there was bad. Just throngs of people everywhere, walking around in the middle of the road with total disregard to the people who live there. My friend Judy lived right across the street from the House of Seven Gables and came home one time to find a group of older middle-aged people sitting in her yard on her patio furniture. She politely asked them to leave and was appalled to find the incident turning into a serious argument.

This year Colin has already been to a couple of Halloween things. He has a zebra costume and he looks so funny in it with the ears and tail. He definitely likes the candy. Halloween where we live now is so much more muted than where I used to live that I hardly recognize it is going on. Maybe I'm still a little shell-shocked when it comes to Halloween and someday I may warm back up to it. Only time will tell.

But Happy Halloween to you all. This year I have decided once again to go as myself.... which is scary enough....

Under Pressure

2008-10-30T14:21:00.000-07:00

I got a sort of disturbing letter yesterday. We had to do a health screen for this new program where I work and the letter contained the results. Apparently I have high blood pressure. Hypertension as them medical type folks would call it. It feels strange because I have always regarded myself as being fairly active and healthy.

But the letter has the results there in black and white. It's the upper number of my pressure reading that is the big problem. It's 140 and that is exactly where the High Risk category begins. Everything else on the screen looked pretty much ok. The report said I could stand to lose some weight, my blood sugar was on the upper side of normal, but my cholesterol count is unbelievably low. I have always had super low cholesterol counts. It's in my genes, as is the high blood pressure I am finding out about. My mom has been on high blood pressure medication for a long time now. She was diagnosed at an early age and manages it fine with her meds.

Naturally after receiving my report, I went to WebM.D. which is where I love to go to scare myself with all the possible things that could be going wrong with me. On WebM.D. they have this thing where you can give your symptom (a paper cut for example) and they return with the list of possible maladies (usually something severe like brain cancer). So I looked anyway and found out that I am at the lowest end of Stage 1 Hypertension. (There is a Stage 2 by the way that I hope I never need to look up.)

So just before dinner, I read all about Stage 1 Hypertension which made it seem like I am going to die tomorrow from it. Needless to say, Daleen said I seemed a little depressed over dinner. She asked if I wanted to talk about it and I just sulked and murmured, "no" while I sat and wondered if I was going to get a casket or be cremated. I have said in the past I wanted to be cremated and had even told Daleen the list of places to scatter me: Powhatan, South Africa, White Mountains of New Hampshire, Blue Ridge Mountains in VA, and at the beach at First Landing State Park (also in VA.)

Later I did some more research and found that I really am not going to die anytime soon from this, but if I let it go, it can cause me some serious problems. Luckily, the most common treatments are.... ta-da! losing weight, exercise and eating healthy! And it just so happens that those are three things I have really been wanting to do but just haven't gotten around to it yet. Well, now I suppose I have a good reason not to procrastinate any further.

So here is my plan. I'm making an appointment to go see my doctor and get her opinion on this. Since I am not completely rotund and I am fairly active, she may decide that losing weight and exercising more may not be enough to overcome my family history and go ahead and put me on meds. I hope to not have to do this and really want to give this healthy eating, losing weight, exercise thing a whirl. For some strange reason I am now feeling particularly motivated to the point that killing myself on a treadmill, tofu, and soy milk are starting to look really good.

I'm not as bummed out now as I was earlier. I think I can beat this and get my numbers down to normal. Luckily, the side effects of this will be: I'll need thinner clothes, I'll probably feel better, I'll improve on my time in the next Ukrop's 10K race, and I'll save money by not buying those ultra-tasty honey buns from the vending machine at my office (I will miss those a lot). As for those of you who belong to the same gym as me, I reckon we'll be seeing a lot more of each other. When you see me, don't forget to cheer me on; and when I ask if you've had your blood pressure checked recently, the correct answer should be "yes".

My Inner Cowboy

2008-10-29T18:21:00.000-07:00

I grew up in the suburbs of Richmond, VA. I live in a more rural area of VA now, but it is really just a distant suburb of Richmond. Where I live used to be considered "the country", but that has been quickly dissappearing for some time. I have never actually lived in the country, nor did I ever really have any sort of exposure to farm life growing up. Even now, I have just a regular old house and a regular old job at a factory. I am thankful for both, but I am somewhat envious of people who own and run farming operations. I know it's a lot of hard work, but some days I long to be able to work outside and wonder if it's not something I was made to do.

A few years ago, a good friend of mine bought an old cattle farm a couple of counties away from where I live. He didn't know a lot about cows at the time, but he always wanted to have some land and get some cows. He just had a dream and one day decided to follow it. Even before he moved out to his new property, we sort of made a deal. He would give me exclusive permission to hunt his land and I would help him work around his farm. Now, we are really great friends. He would let me come and hunt even if I didn't help him out and I would come and help him even if he didn't allow me to hunt there.

I really like going out there, getting lots of fresh air and just working with my hands. I tell people I love going there because it allows me to get in touch with my "inner cowboy". Since going up there, I have learned about all kinds of livestock, chickens, fencing, hay, and the network of farming families and associated businesses which keep Virginia farms going.

Today was a work day on the farm. My friend and I were directed by his wife to construct a chicken house. We sat down over a cup of coffee this morning after I arrived and drew up our plan. We then headed out and got to work. It was cold out today and very windy. However, we managed to finish up our project in the late afternoon. I have to say, it really looked great and we had a lot of time today to talk while we were working. We hadn't spent a day like that in a while and we never ran out of things to talk about. That was one of the best parts of the day, besides admiring our work at the end.

Today it was building a chicken house. Next time it will be something different like building a pig pen or herding cattle. Whatever it is, I know already how much I will enjoy doing the work and the great company. Do you have an "inner cowboy"? Do you have some sort of thing that you are really into which is totally different from your normal life? Is there something you like doing which is a total escape from everyday life? For me it's heading out to the farm, where my cell phone doesn't work and there is plenty of chores to be done. See you out on the range Pilgrim!

Fortune Cookies

2008-10-29T04:35:00.000-07:00

I found the fortunes I kept from the cookies we got at Allen's chinese restaurant the other night. It was the first fortune cookie Colin opened on his own.

For those of you who don't know, Allen's makes the BEST chinese food in the greater Richmond area. Believe me, we have tried many other places. I agree Allen's is a wierd name for a Chinese restaurant but I can assure you they are staffed by all Chinese people. I love Chinese food. I have Chinese friends who frown when I tell them this and they say, "That is not real Chinese food." But I watch them eat "real" Chinese food that consists of seaweed, raw eggs, and parts of fish that were not meant to be eaten. I'll stick with my version.

Anyhow, here were our fortunes:

Daleen - "You display the wonderful traits of charm and courtesy." (How true!)

Me - "You are going to take a vacation." (I Am?? Hopefully not a permanent one from my current job.)

Colin - "You love sports, horses, and gambling but not to excess." (I have tried talking with my 2-year old about this but he just looks at me strange when I bring it up. I think he's hiding something.....)

The Leaf Peepers

2008-10-27T05:12:00.000-07:00

Took the family leaf peeping yesterday.

Last year Daleen sort of inherited a SUV from her sister. It had been sitting in our driveway for quite a long time and she was finally able to get the paperwork straightened out so we could re-title it and get it registered. After we got it all registered and it passed inspection, I decided what the car needed was a nice, long road trip to give it a good shakedown. With the leaves changing, we figured a trip up to the mountains would be a great way to break the car in and check out the fall foliage.

We used to go leaf peeping when we lived in New England. Every fall, we would head north from Boston on Interstate 93 to Franconia Notch State Park in New Hampshire. From there, we would turn east onto the Kancamagus Highway which runs across the White Mountains to the town of North Conway, which is a big ski and vacation resort town. The foliage up there has always just been completely unbelievable. From North Conway, we would then take Rt 16 south to Portsmouth, NH where we would catch interstate 95 south back to Mass. It's a good trip. If you're ever up that way, you should check it out.

Yesterday, we didn't really have a pre-planned route figured out, but we ended up taking Rt 250 (Broad Street) from Richmond all the way out to Charlottesville, VA. It was a nice ride, very scenic, but sort of slow at times due to all the other cars out on the road filled with folks doing the same thing we were.

Once in Charlottesville, we picked up Interstate 64 west and headed up to Afton Mountain where we got onto the Blue Ridge Parkway going south. There was some good leaf coloring on the ride up. However, there was still a lot of green on the trees until we got up onto the mountain. If you have never been on the Blue Ridge Parkway, it is a FUN road to drive on. The speed limit is 45 MPH, but in a lot of places, it would be suicide to try and even drive that fast. It's a very windy road and there are several places where the road pretty much just drops off on one side and you can see right down into the Shenandoah Valley. The fact there really aren't many guardrails makes the drive even more exciting. The leaves up on the parkway were excellent. Loads of color there, although I think in another week or two, it will be even more spectacular.

I wished we had taken a faster and more agile car than the SUV we were in. A convertible would have been even better as it was still nice and fairly warm out. Daleen was a great sport on the trip. She gets horrible car sickness, but she seemed ok until we were coming down the mountain. We decided to take Rt 60 all the way home. It intersects with the Parkway so that ended up being an easy choice. However, the trip back down was like driving on a downhill slalom course. I could tell Daleen was turning a little green on us, but the survived and recovered quickly once the road straightened back out.

Our plan was to stop for dinner on the way back home. However, I can tell you that Rt 60 between the parkway and Powhatan is pretty bleak and we ended up coming all the way back to have dinner at Allen's chinese restaurant..... Colin loves the lo-mein noodles and this chinese donut thingy they give you at the end. It was a great way to end the trip.

If you have some time in the next week or so, I would recommend taking a ride up to the mountains and see this display of color. (Gas is certainly cheap enough right now.) It's a good activity for the family and there are plenty of places to stop and view the scenery or just walk around. Packing a picnic lunch would also really be a great idea.

We really had a great time together. I think we're going to try and make this an annual event. When Colin gets a little older, I even see us turning this into a fall foliage hiking/camping trip. Breaking up the trip would definitely make it easier on Daleen's car sickness, so I think it will be an easy sell..... and besides, who doesn't like camping?

Where Does Your Food Come From?

2008-10-26T18:18:00.001-07:00

Like a lot of folks who live around me, I hunt.

I pretty much enjoy every aspect of hunting. As you know, I am a very outdoorsy guy. So any excuse to get outside is good for me. I like the time alone with my thoughts, the camaraderie I share with other hunters, being a part of solid game management and conservation, trips to Bass Pro Shops and spending all that money on hunting gear, you name it. One of my favorite parts is even to just sit outside, under a tree in the early fall, and take a nice nap in the afternoon. When is the last time you did that?

I mean, don't get me wrong, there is nothing like the thrill of the hunt and the adrenalin rush that occurs when everything comes together to make a hunt successful. I get the dreaded "buck fever" worse than most people. There have been times when I have not been able to consider taking a shot because I was shaking so bad and my blood ran cold like it is icewater due to my adrenal glands dumping the truck into my system.

However, sometimes I get lucky and everything comes together and I harvest an animal. After the shot is taken and I collect my deer, there is usually a time where I like to just admire the creature. The whitetail deer in Virginia are really some magnificent animals. It never ceases to amaze me how so many animals of such size can simply live among us. Unfortunately, after this short pause, reality sets in and I realize it's time to get to work.

I have butchered and processed every animal I have ever harvested. My feeling is that if I am willing to end the life of this animal, I had better be willing to clean it, process it, and eat it. There have been times where I have let deer walk by, just because I simply didn't feel like I wanted to do all the work that begins the moment that trigger is pulled. Now, there are some places that will process your animal for you. These folks do great work and it is done at a reasonable price. You get professional results and I don't fault anyone for going that route. But for me, I decided to learn to do the work myself, to become proficient at producing good cuts of meat, and learn to enjoy and appreciate ALL the aspects of hunting.

Since the current hunting season has started, I have brought two deer home. Daleen and I just finished processing the first one today and we'll start on the second one tomorrow. By the end of the season, we hope to have a freezer full and will have given a substantial part of the meat away to others.

I heard a message today by my friends Brian and Beth on being conscious of the things you buy and the effect your purchases have on those who produce those goods. Basically, it was a very good, and very convincing appeal to try to shop for items that are classified as "Fair-Trade". This means the people who produce these items are receiving a fair, living-wage, for the products they make, and that your money is not going to support some third-world sweat-shop. I think we can all get behind that idea and perhaps make a more concerted effort to think about what we are spending money on. Places such as Trader Joe's (food) and Ten Thousand Villages (not food) are a couple of local places in the Richmond area that carry such items. Ten Thousand Villages only carries Fair-Trade items and I think with Trader Joe's, you have to look at the label. My friend Beth found in her research that the products these places carry are really not much more expensive that what you would find at a regular grocery or department store.

Anyhow, this concept of being conscious of what we are buying has made me think about all the groceries and food in my house. Beth mentioned today that the most common Fair-Trade items are coffee, sugar, tea, and chocolate. But what about the rest of the food in your pantry? Where does your food come from?

I know the venison Daleen and I just finishing processing is good ole' Virginia whitetail that has been reared on only grass and acorns. We have also bought a cow from a friend from our church to supply our beef. In the end, it came out substantially cheaper than buying it from a supermarket, it was cut the exact way we wanted (someone else processed it), and we know it was only fed grass..... not steroids..... not antibiotics..... not hormones..... not the leftover parts of other animals..... just regular green grass. We later bought a lamb from his neighbor that was equally as good. Then, we have our vegetable garden from the spring through early fall which usually produces more than we can eat and we usually give a lot of that away. We know where those veggies come from because we grow them ourselves. Another thing we like is to visit farmer's markets to buy produce. Usually you can get a better deal, know what you're getting, and often meet the people who grew the stuff!

Now don't get me wrong. I love mass produced hot dogs, Pringles, Ramen Noodles, and a vast array of extruded food products. I think Chef Boyardee should have his own show on the Food Network. And I am not saying people shouldn't shop at Wal-Mart. Quite frankly, I love Wal-Mart. They sell things people can afford, employ hordes of people, and right or wrong, they know how capitalism and the free-market system works.

(Now climbing onto my soap-box with my pointy-finger...) The point I'm trying to make is, we should all make a little effort to try and understand where the stuff we buy or consume comes from. The answer should be easy, most of it comes from China! But if something costs so little that you can't figure out how it could be made so cheaply, ask yourself if you are supporting something with your money that you shouldn't. When it comes to your food, why not try to buy something that was grown or made where you live? For myself, I know that buying Virginia meat and produce means I am supporting local farmers and their families. I know I'm getting it fresh and can find out how it was produced. But when it comes down to really the best food in my house, I have found the most satisfying way to go is to either grow it or hunt it myself...... or just to run over to Allen's and get chinese take-out.

My Big Break

2008-10-25T07:21:00.000-07:00

I'm a thespian! Time to break a leg! Where is my SAG application?!

Well, not yet, but I'm getting my "big break" in our church's upcoming Christmas play. Did you know the term Thespian is not actually derived from the Greek city-state of Thespiae but rather is comes from Thespis of Icaria who, Greek legend has it, was the first actor? The production we are doing is called "Imagine Christmas" and I have been asked to play one of the main characters who is an angel (ok, you can stop laughing now....).

My friend Beth asked me to do it and handed me a script and a DVD to check out. Of course, as I mentioned in a previous post, I have this very agreeable component to my personality which had me screaming "YES!, I'LL DO IT!" before I even read the part. I have no idea why she and my friend Chad think I might be the right person for this part. Although the part is supposed to be funny and I can do funny. However, the only acting I have ever done was in a short drama also done in church where I only had five or six short (but funny) lines.

The DVD I was given was pretty much like what I had been told by some others in the production. It is completely over the top, but really, really good. It was over the top as in let Cirque' Du Soleil do your church's Christmas play. I am not making this up. There were people sliding down and climbing up ropes, swinging from the ceiling, people flying around on wires, lots of dancing, and crazy lighting. There is lots of video parts and even narration. They even have tons of snow flying across the stage! However, I watched it, and what struck me was how amazing the basic story was and that you don't even need any of the special effects to really pull this off successfully. I mean, I'll bet anything that our folks will put everything they have into this and we are going to pull off a little magic of our own, but whatever we do will be icing on the cake as long as we can pull off our lines and get our parts right. Although I can't stop thinking about that episode on the Brady Bunch when they were making their own movie about the history of Thanksgiving and they used Alice's laundry soap flakes as snow. They had all these boxes of soap and when the time came, they screwed it up and it came out more looking like a blizzard. I think we'll at least be able to do better than that.

It's funny, when we lived in Salem, Mass., several of my friends were real actors. My friend Michael even showed me his SAG card once. He had to join the union so he could be in a TV documentary on the the history of Massachusetts. He played a priest, which if you know Michael, is more funny than the thought of me playing an angel. When I first met Michael, he was a bartender. His signature drink was the "Masochist", which he lovingly called "a fruity rum drink", but from what I could tell from others drinking it, it was more like, as Douglas Adams would put it "the alcoholic equivalent to a mugging: expensive and bad for the head." While living there, I had another friend who ran a theater production company, and yet another who worked for a company that makes movie sets. So, I am no stranger to actors or theater, but I am a total stranger to actually "acting" itself.

I really don't have a problem getting up in front of lots of people and talking. The way they do the lights, I actually have a hard time seeing a lot of the people in the audience. It's remembering all my lines that I have a problem with. Luckily, I have plenty of time to learn my lines, but there are a lot of them. I have some pretty bad memory, so this will be stretching the limit for me, and I think I am really going to have work hard at it. Besides having a memory problem, I have this teeny-tiny little bad habit which I am seriously trying to break, which is when I am really under a lot of stress..... I kind-of-sort-of curse..... but just a little. Hey, I was in the Navy for six years and some old habits die hard. I finally decided to tell my friend Chad about this little issue just moments before we went on for the last drama we did. His eyes got wide after I told him, as we were going out in front of the whole church. But I reassured him and there wasn't a problem. I had my lines completely memorized and we were great.

So I am pretty excited about doing this. It is still a long time between now and Christmas so there are going to be plenty of opportunities for some laughs and to make some new friendships. I am also looking forward to learning more about acting. I like getting involved in new stuff that I know almost nothing about. I just hope nobody takes this play so seriously that the fun is taken out of it. I know we will all want to do our best to make this show the best it can be, but I also want to enjoy the whole process.

Besides the Brady Bunch episode I mentioned, I also can't stop thinking about the movie "Waiting for Guffman". If you've never seen it, Wikipedia gives the following plot overview: "The movie is a loving parody of community theater set in the small town of Blaine, Missouri. It chronicles the trials and tribulations of a handful of utterly delusional residents as they prepare to put on a community theater production. The show, a musical chronicling the town's history, titled Red, White and Blaine, is to be performed as part of the town's 150th anniversary celebration. Corky, the director, has presumably used connections gained from his "off-off-off-off" Broadway past to invite Mort Guffman, a Broadway producer, to critique "Red, White and Blaine". Corky leads the cast to believe that a positive review from Guffman could mean that the group can take their show all the way to Broadway." As you can imagine, when the characters begin to believe their show could possibly to to Broadway, the production becomes unbelievably funny.

I doubt anybody in our production thinks we're going to Broadway with this, but we're going to give it our best. And I know it's going to be awesome. The show is going to be at Powhatan Community Church on Christmas Eve and there's going to be two shows. Don't worry, I'll keep you up to date on our progress as Christmas approaches and invite you again before the time comes. You won't be able to miss me, I'll be one of the two angels. Just be sure to tell me to "Break A Leg." I want to make sure I get the whole experience.

The A-Team

2008-10-22T11:55:00.000-07:00

In 1972, a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. These men and women promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the Powhatan underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire... The A-Team.

Do you belong to a successful team? I do.

I belong to a group called the Small Group Leadership Team, which works to assist my friend Sammy with the Small Groups program at Powhatan Community Church where Daleen and I attend. As a rule, I am a sucker for a good cause and unless I stop myself, I will pretty much always say yes when asked to volunteer for something. So, when Sammy asked me to help him, I don't think I even paused for a second before saying, "Well of course, I'd love to be on your team!"

For those of you who don't know, Small Groups is, in my opinion, where our church resides during the week in-between Sundays. Ours is such a large church, there is no way the church staff can work with everyone on an individual basis, and there is no way people can really form meaningful relationships on just Sunday mornings. Also, in my opinion, there is just not enough time for an in-depth discussion on some pretty deep topics in a one hour service, one morning a week. So, Small Groups were formed to bridge that gap. They are small groups of folks who usually get together during the week to just talk, eat, keep tabs on one another, and help each other out when needed. Of course, these small communities also do studies on the bible as well as other topics such as financial management, relationships, etc. Basically they do what I believe can't be done in an hour on Sunday mornings... build relationships/community, and have more in-depth discussions in a safe, comfortable environment.

So, the Small Groups Leadership Team is responsible for helping my friend Sammy with planning activities for the small groups community, providing training for small group leaders, finding new people to lead and host new groups, and get people who are interested plugged into a group that will suit them.

As a team, I would say like all teams, we have had our high points and low points. There have been times where I think we have been on our game, and times where I've felt like we're spinning our wheels and not going anywhere. We are friends, but there have been times of conflict. But the whole time, I have felt good about the people on the team. Everyone is committed to moving this thing forward and making it grow. I have no doubt about that.

Last Monday evening, Sammy and I met up and talked for a couple of hours. We're both some pretty busy guys and it had been a while since we just sat down and talked. We were both very honest in our discussions about our team and and we talked about what we had done well and what could be done to strengthen our team. And then, like many discussions we had before, our talk shifted into a more upbeat tone as we began to talk about what we could do to make the Small Groups program at our church grow and improve. This is the part when I think our team is at its best, when we start brainstorming ideas about possibilities. Everyone on our team is kind of a dreamer and I think everyone begins to smile a little more when the ideas begin to flow (I know I do). The best part is, nobody on out team is all that negative when it comes to the pouring out of ideas. We are a bunch that instead of asking "Why?" always asks "Why not?".

On Monday night, we exchanged several ideas which I think were great. I know others on the team have also met with Sammy and I'll bet they have also contributed some good stuff. The bottom line is that after thinking for a couple of days since our meeting, I am now a lot more energized and positive about our team and what we are doing than I think I have ever been, and it feels great. In fact, now I feel like I'm the one not doing enough and I need to catch up. It really feels awesome.

I am excited about this team I am on and I think we are going to make some pretty amazing things happen in the next year. In fact I know we will and I'll definitely be telling you about it here. I'm just thankful to be on a team with people who are willing to work together as a small community, a small group if you will, to build up something that involves people and relationships in such a positive way. I think when it comes to what we do, we are definitely the A-Team. However, I am still working up the courage to get a mohawk, a bunch of gold chains, and start saying "I pity the fool...."

Home Improvement

2008-10-17T05:44:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't written in a while. I've been busy.....cutting holes in my house.

Daleen and I bought a home that was what we would call a fixer-upper. But one that we could live in while we did it. What we didn't realize at the time was that our ideas of what we wanted our home to be like would require a substantial amount of work, and money. Take our kitchen for example. I live with a woman who can cook. Yet we have a kitchen from the early 80's that has original appliances (except for the refrigerator which we had to buy). It pains me to see her trying to work her magic in this space with these tools.

In addition to the kitchen, there are the floors. You can't sneak up on anybody in this house. Our sneaky 5 pound cat can't even walk around without making a racket. I went under the house and checked out the subfloor and it is thinner than the floor in my toolshed. So now someday I have to fix the flooring. And then there is the siding that has vinyl replacement written all over it... again, someday.

We have done a lot so far though to our home. In the past four years we have:
- Rewired the upstairs and installed ceiling fans in all the bedrooms
- Installed gutters
- Ran electricity to the shed
- Completely renovated two bathrooms
- Renovated two bedrooms and the dining room (except for the floors)
- Painted the living room
- Painted all the windows (those are also slated for vinyl replacement)
- Installed a dry well and drainage system for our lawn and downspouts
- Installed a french drain in the backyard
- Added two dump truck loads of dirt and regraded the yard
- Installed a lawn sprinkler system
- Installed several brick-enclosed flower beds and tree rings
- Renovated our front and side porches (new railings, paint, lighting, etc)

So we've been busy. Now we have started with our new fall project, the mud room.

I started in earnest last Wednesday with the first part of the project, which is the wiring upgrade. I am one of those people who, when doing a project, will go into total overkill mode. We are installing new cabinets and a deep sink on one side of the room and I noticed that one of the outlets was going to be covered up. I was concerned about losing the outlet, so I decided to put a new outlet in over where the new countertop would be. Simple, right? Well, then I remembered that I was thinking about how nice it would look to have some small recessed lights over the deep sink, with a dimmer. You know, mood lighting.... So after cutting several holes in my drywall and doing some work with my drill, the new outlet is in and man, do those new lights look great!

Then I turned my attention to the other side of the room. Daleen's pantry had a cheesy, cheap light fixture which is really just a lightbulb with a pull string. I have always hated this and decided she deserved a proper light fixture with a switch to operate it. Then of course I expanded on this and realized that the new cabinets that are going over the washer and dryer needed one of those cool xenon light fixtures under it. Those fixtures run off a plug which means I needed another outlet with a switch to operate that. All this work involved cutting even more holes in the drywall and doing some more drilling.

Daleen was out of town Friday night and Saturday at a women's retreat for our church. So I was at home alone with Colin during a lot of this work. I will say that he is quite the helper (for a 2 1/2 year-old). After he got over being scared of the drill noise, he was more than happy to fetch me some screws, throw away small bits of drywall, and he even helped pull some wire I was trying to fish through the wall. He really likes to help with projects and I know it will not always be this way. Someday it won't be cool anymore for him to hang out with his daddy and help, so I'm taking advantage if this while I can.

Needless to say, I think Daleen was a bit surprised by all the holes in the mudroom walls when she got home. I don't think she was as impressed as me with the new mood lighting. She is not always riding the same wave as me when it comes to projects and usually there are a few details of the project that don't come out as she had "envisioned". This often leads to some arguing and hurt feelings (usually mine). However, this time she said it looked nice and wasn't going to say anything else. I found out one of the focus points of the retreat she went on was to cut back on being negative and I'm pretty sure this worked in my favor!

The next phase is going to be fixing the drywall to prepare to paint. My little helper buddy has already shown an interest in the mesh drywall tape, although I'm going to have to schedule a day where he will be gone to do the sanding so he won't be around all that dust. Daleen has a job too. She has to pick out the paint colors and verify the cabinets, countertop, and deep sink are what she wants. Daleen and Colin are going to visit her parents soon, so I am hoping we can get to painting before they leave. Daleen is great with doing the room painting.

I'll keep you posted on our progress with the mudroom. I have to say that I really like turning off my phone, putting on the radio, and just working on my house. It's very therapeutic. This time I am going to get my family more involved as well. It's another thing we can do together, have some fun with, and get one step closer to the house we want. Plus we can enjoy the new mood lighting as we work.......

Good Times and Fast Cars

2008-10-13T09:37:00.000-07:00

Is there something you like to do with your dad? Something that is just for the two of you?

As I have mentioned in previous postings, for some reason my birthday usually ends up being a string of various events that runs over the better part of a week. However, for the past couple of years, the week has been finished off with a father/son trip to the NHRA Nationals Drag Race at Virginia Motorsports Park. We made our annual trip yesterday and it was a great time.

My father and I are pretty different. He is really into Civil War history and I am not. I am really into doing outdoorsy stuff and he is not. Like most dads and their sons, we're different. But going to this race is something we both look forward to going to. Now, my dad loves drag racing a lot more than I do. He follows it all year and knows all the drivers and where they stand in the points bracket and who has the most to win or lose at any given race. He even likes going to races at other tracks.

I guess he has always loved cars. When I was young, my dad was the original backyard mechanic. He was always working on our cars. Unfortunately, he is also a total night-owl and would want to start working on the car after dinner and would go well into the night with it. So I would have to stay up late on school nights, holding the flashlight or fetching tools. Unfortunately, I would always be in trouble for not holding the light so my dad could see what he was doing (although I could always see just fine) and when he sent me to get a particular tool, I couldn't ever seem to find it in the four toolboxes and several buckets that he stored his tools in. Because of this, I think my dad's favorite phrase was that I, "couldn't find my ass with both hands." It was this experience that makes me cringe at the very thought of having to work on a car myself. I can do it, but I'd really rather just pay someone else to take care of whatever needs to be done.

We used to go to Richmond Dragway when I was young though, and I have always loved drag racing. I guess I like that the cars are really fast and loud and you don't have to watch the cars go round and round for hours before there is a winner. Its simple. Two cars, and whoever gets to the end first, wins. Instant closure. I like that.

The race at Virginia Motorsports Park is a major stop on the annual NHRA drag racing national tour. This race is where you can go to see the major teams in the sport and some legendary drivers. The one thing I really do like about the NHRA event, and drag racing in general, is that it is very fan-friendly. When you go to the race, everyone has the opportunity to walk around the pit area and see the cars up close. The racing teams work right there in the open and they are always happy to talk to the fans and explain what they are doing. Often the drivers are there as well to talk to the race fans, sign autographs, and get their pictures taken. You instantly realize these guys truly value the people who come to see them and they do their best not to dissappoint.

Another thing I like about the NHRA event is that the teams all seem to form a well-knit community. They are all competing, but you can tell the way they interract that there is a bond there as well. There is a type of sportsmanship that is often missing in other sports. You see the drivers and other teams cheering each other on, and when there is an accident, they are all affected. I suppose this is due to the fact that while they are competing against one another, there is a common enemy in the form of run time. All of the teams are working their hardest to make it down the track faster to get a lower time. When two cars are racing, even though one has to lose, everyone cheers for a new lowest time. I believe it is this common goal that prevents any sort of petty rivalry.

Besides the drivers, the fans are pretty amazing. I will say that a lot of folks you see at the race are some pretty hard looking people. I can tell you from our trip yesterday that certain hairstyles such as the rat-tail and the mullet are still quite alive. There are also lots of bikers and many-many tattoos. Hard looking people, but probably some of the nicest people you'll ever meet. I saw lots of people cheering on their favorite drivers and any car that would turn a good run time. I didn't see anyone get over the top drunk, out of control, or any fighting. I did see groups of people you would never expect to get along having a great time together.

My dad and I had great seats right over the starting line. When the nitrous-fueled drag cars would take off, our noses a and eyes would burn from the fumes. The racing was great, there were no accidents, and we spent the entire afternoon sitting out in the sun, cheering and trying to talk in between runs. I couldn't think of many better ways to spend a fall day.

I really love my dad and I feel lucky I have one that thinks enough of me to take me to this race every year. We had some time to just talk without all the other interferences that usually get in the way and re-cemented our relationship for another year. Sure, we'll see each other plenty in the next twelve months and we'll talk a lot and go do things together, but we'll both be ready to sneak off to the race again next year, just the two of us.

The NHRA Nationals race is held at Virginia Motorsports Park in Dinwiddie county every year, usually right around Columbus Day. As I mentioned, it is extremely fan friendly and they put on a show that pretty much anyone would like. (By the way, drag racing is REALLY good for ADD types....) I have never had a bad time and it is another one of those things that is a definite event on my calendar. I really would like to invite you to come with me next year, but unfortunately my group of two is full, and I'll just have to hope to run into you there. I'll be sitting next to my dad. We'll look like we're crying, but its just from the nitro fumes. You can tell from our smiles....

Hell On Earth... but not for me

2008-10-12T18:33:00.000-07:00

Do you believe in hell on earth? My wife Daleen does. She believes it's called Bass Pro Shops.

My birthday was last week. For some reason, every year my birthday ends up being a week-long string of activities. One night it was a birthday dinner at our house. Then one night it was birthday cake with our small group from church. Tonight it was a dinner at my parents house and now I am at home with a leftover piece of my birthday cake (homemade carrot cake if you must know.) I know I'm getting fat from this, but hey, it's my birthday. Anyway, we usually also try and do a date night during the birthday week where I get to decide where I want to go. This year I chose Bass Pro Shops.

This fall Bass Pro Shops opened a gigantic store called "Outdoor World" just north of Richmond. It has everything for any kind of outdoor sporting activity: fishing, hunting, camping, boating, you name it. The also have some specialized parts such as a food store and NASCAR area with merchandising and auto racing video games. And this store is absolutely mind-boggling in its size. Inside they have huge fish-tanks with a waterfall, an archery range, and a boat dealership.

As many of you know, I am into just about everything having to do with the great outdoors. If it involves being in the woods or away from civilization, I am probably severely into it. Daleen did not really know this about me when we met, sort of started figuring it out when we lived in Boston, and then really found out when we moved back to VA and I reconnected with old friends. What I'm getting at here is, Bass Pro Shops is huge and it doesn't have anything I do not want.

But you are probably wondering how going to BPS can be like going on a "date". Ah-ha, because like IKEA, they have a restaurant at the store. They even have a restaurant Daleen likes going to. The Islamorada Fish Company. Daleen's sister used to live in Ft. Lauderdale and took us to the one at her BPS. We both liked the food, so going there was an easy sell for me.

On the drive over from our house, I said I figured we probably wouldn't have to wait very long at the restaurant. This was after Daleen tells me she is starving. My reasoning was that I was certain there wouldn't be hordes of people going to a restaurant at a sporting goods store for a Friday night date. I mean, who does that? Then after we were told there was an hour and forty-five minute wait, I then understood..... lots of people do that.

I will say that I am a good guy and gave her the option to go to dinner elsewhere. But I have to confess, I was extremely happy when in a quiet voice she said, "no we can just go look around first until our table is ready". What a woman!

We spent an hour walking around the store. BPS has racks of outdoorsy junk food such as trail mix, pork rinds, and beef jerky. Daleen was starting to look faint so I suggested several times that we just buy some to snack on. She repeatedly said no as she didn't want to ruin her appetite. Meanwhile, we looked at everything from boats to crossbows. From boots to binoculars. I mean everything.

The best part of the trip though was the people watching. There was the widest variety of people I have ever seen there. By the fishing rods, there were guys in very expensive suits standing next to guys who looked like hobos in bib overalls. Then, you know the kind of moms who go over the top and try and look more trendy than their high-school kids? There was one of those checking out a big bag of deer corn feed with her teenage daughter. Wierd... Then I was over in the gun section when I overheard this sort of older ex-hippie lady talking to the guy behind the counter about handguns. She had a ton of questions about which one would be best for her and she was very animated and overwhelmed by all of the choices and options. The best one of the night though was a man and his young son, dressed from head to toe in camoflauge (store tags still attached) just walking through the store like they were heading to the fishing section. I couldn't help but wonder where were they going, and where on earth were the clothes they came to the store in?

By the end of the hour, Daleen was sagging and dragging her feet and looked like I do when going clothing shopping with her. She had been through enough torture. Our table still wasn't ready (they really meant an hour and a half), so we were able to get a chair at the bar and after a cold drink and a plate of loaded potato chips (think a plate of loaded nachos but with chips), she quickly recovered.

In the end, dinner was good... not great. The clam chowder was dissappointing (it was a VERY thick grey-brown substance), the calamari was insanely spicy, and our server was continuously apologising for every little thing. We had to repeatedly tell her she was fine and she shouldn't worry. The tuna was excellent though and everything was reasonably priced.

Daleen survived the evening and has since fully recovered. She's not ready to go back anytime soon and I'm ok with that. I did eventually find out why the wait was so long that evening. The restaurant itself is very small. There just aren't a lot of tables. The reason? After the novelty wears off, who would go to a sporting goods store on a Friday night date?

Can I Get Some Fries With That?

2008-10-08T14:07:00.000-07:00

My 401K account was battered again today, but at least now it is extra crispy. Hopefully, there will be a spicy aftertaste.

When the Wall St. news folks say over and over again that "stocks have been battered in another day of trading", I can't help but picture a bunch of fat country guys sitting around a deep fryer, taking my savings, dipping them in egg and rolling them in some flour before chucking them in. But then, I go to my account online every day, as now I am almost obsessed with it, and notice more of it is just gone. "It was there just yesterday.", I think. Then, when I am not looking, an evil computer somewhere accesses my account and changes the balance number yet again, in the negative direction.

I was out the other night and a person I had met was telling me that her dad, who just recently retired, now has to un-retire and get a job. I have also heard of people who were ready to finally stop working after all their years of labor, and are unable to because of the economic times we are in. That to me is a tragedy.

But who are we to be angry with? The government? They waste untold millions of our money already, have been for decades, and then bail out businesses who made bad decisions and are continuing to make even more bad decisions. In the news this morning, I learned AIG, the insurance giant who the American taxpayers now own a huge chunk of, just sent all of their top folks on a half-million dollar business retreat. I would almost rather they let me keep all that money, cut my taxes substantially, and tell big business to get their own act together. But on the other hand, they are (with our tax money) trying to prop up the big business that helps provide the investment income my retirement is supposed to grow on.

Should we be angry with the corporations and banks? They run off greed and profit. Ahhh, good old capitalism. I do love it so. I fault these guys for running themselves out so thin and risking my investment money. However, by doing so they create higher dividends and returns for me and other stockholders which I do like. You really can't blame them. When in trouble, they ran to Uncle Sam with an open hand and he almost automatically pulled out the piggybank. It's so much easier to take big risks with a giant safety net under you.

In the end though, I blame myself. I live in a country where I am ultimately the decider of where I want to work, live, go to church, and where I keep my retirement money. I pay money to the businesses I choose to buy from. I decide on the causes I want to donate my money to. Also, I choose to bank with a big business and have another big business handle my insurance needs, and yet another to handle my mortgage. No one comes to me and tells me where to put my retirement money. On top of this, I decide who I get to vote on for the government. I just wish I could vote for someone who would let me keep a lot more of what I make and agree to cut government spending back to a reasonable level, but that probably isn't going to happen anytime soon. One of my friends did suggest a write-in campaign for the upcoming presidential election, which in light of the current campaign rhetoric, is starting to sound like a good idea.

Through all of this, I have decided to remain optimistic. I really don't think the sky is falling and hope I'm right. I have always put my retirement in fairly high risk vehicles because I am still fairly young (I think), and time is on my side. Later on, I will decide to begin decreasing my risk and move my money to safer and safer havens. I have a friend who moved all of his retirement out of the stock market and is not even in the negative right now. While a lot of people out there are depressed and feel they are getting clobbered, I feel like although my retirement balance is dropping, right now I am buying extra shares and building my retirement on the cheap. I just hope it works out. My only real fear is that those shares will continue getting battered and fried and there won't be any ketchup to go with it.

An Evening With David Sedaris

2008-10-07T18:13:00.000-07:00

Was hanging out with David Sedaris last night in downtown Richmond.

Well, he was talking from the stage at the Landmark Theater in downtown Richmond, while I was about as far as you could be from the stage and still be in the building. But we were in the same room for an hour and a half....

For those of you who don't know, David Sedaris is a writer. In my opinion, a great writer who primarily writes some very humorous essays. Some are memoir, and many just capture the normally unnoticed details of ordinary people's personalities and lives. Often he and his characters are in normal situations where they react badly, or they are in impossible situations and do the best they can. Either way, its always a great read. In addition to his books, he is a frequent contributor to the radio show "This American Life" on NPR.

My sister Carla took me to the show last night for my birthday. I didn't even know he was going to be in town, but she has seen him a few times and wouldn't miss it. We ended up going with a few of Carla's friends and it was a fun group. The crowd at the show was really great and although we were really in the nosebleed section, there isn't a bad seat at the Landmark.

When David Sedaris walked out, the first thing I noticed was how short he is. Carla warned me ahead of time about this. But he carried a simple green folder out to a podium and pulled a pencil out of his shirt pocket. "What's the pencil for?", I wondered. Then he opened the show with a funny talk about what it is like to be out on a book tour, nearly going blind from having his picture taken all the time, and what it is like to sit at a book signing table at a Costco in Canada for two hours. He didn't sign or sell a single book, people just walked by looking at him funny, and he had a large sign off to the side of him which said, "Please Do Not Take Pictures".

The majority of his show was spent reading to us. He read some things he was working on and some things he had written but hadn't published or used on the NPR show. It was all funny. The pencil he carried, I found, was to write notes on his material after he read it. He explained later that he often tried out different things in his essays at different shows to try and settle on what would work best. I would guess that is a pretty good way to improve on your material.

He concluded his last reading by bringing the house lights up and fielding questions from the audience. There were some great questions. One of the best was the question, "What do you think of politically when you hear the word, Change?" He simply said the only real change that he paid attention to was the change he got when he paid for something, and that he would like to reverse his current trend of getting less back. He was recently in Europe and said many people there are of the opinion that Americans are not ready to elect a black man as president. He said he corrected them as saying that was true, but that apparently half of America is ready to elect a half-black man.

I bought his latest book, "When You Are Engulfed in Flames", after the show and am already a quarter of the way through. I was hoping to get it signed but the line was way too long. He said he often has a special category of people he lets cut to the front of the line. One time it was men under 5'6" and women with braces on their teeth. Last night it was people who are fluent in German which wasn't me. So we left and headed over to Mojo's for some drinks and late night snacks. It was funny to be around all these people who are avid NPR listeners. I mentioned that when he started reading his first essay, I closed my eyes as I am just used to hearing him on the radio, and everyone else in the group admitted they did the same.

In the end, there was only bad part of the entire evening and that occurred at Mojo's, where I actually met someone who loved NPR, but didn't like A Prairie Home Companion. How is that possible?.............

A trip to Maymont

2008-10-06T14:14:00.000-07:00

My friend Rob is fairly new to the area and has two sons. One is Colin's age and one is younger, less than two. He was home today with the boys and Daleen needed a break from mommy duty, so Rob and I hatched a plan to take the boys over to Maymont Park. He had never been before and it's a great place for kids to run around like little crazy people.

Maymont Park is in the city of Richmond, right on the James River. It was originally the estate of James Dooley, who was highly influential in the reconstruction of the South, especially the railroads, after the Civil War. The Maymont estate was donated to the City of Richmond and the park is one of the city's true treasures.

The park consists of tree-covered rolling hills, elaborate gardens, a petting zoo, and animal exhibits ranging from white tailed deer to bears, buffalo, and now even bald eagles. The animals in the park have all been rescued and were unable to be returned to the wild. It was seeing these animals that was the primary focus of our journey today.

Needless to say, the boys had a lot of fun. They ran around and we almost had a hard time keeping up. They started with feeding some goats and sheep at the petting area. Well, since they are still a bit young and were a little scared of being too close to the animals, feeding them initially meant sort of throwing handfuls of these seed grains at the animals. Eventually, after we showed them the goats wouldn't bite their fingers off, they relaxed a little and had their new furry friends eating right out of their hands. The only downside to this whole process is the animal food. Maymont prefers you feed the animals this special animal food that they have in vending machines, which are not unlike gumball machines. You pop in a quarter, turn the handle, and the machine dumps out a large handful. The only problem with this is, the vending machine is kind of away from the actual animals. So there I was, with my bag of quarters, dumping these fine grains of food into my hands, then quickly carrying them to the boys, spilling some along the way, spilling more during the transfer into their tiny hands, only to have them initially throwing the food at the ground in front of goat, but just out of it's reach. (Very frustrating to the goats...) The boys would feed their particular animal and then look to me to run for another load as they found another new sheep which looked hungry. Eventually, I'd had enough exercise so I dumped all the quarters into my pocket and used the bag I had them in to contain a large supply of food. However, when I returned with this bag of animal food, they had pretty much lost interest in feeding and were heading off to the next thing. So after telling Colin not to to throw the food to the animals, I ended up throwing the contents of the baggie over the fence.

The feeding frenzy was followed by checking out some elk. The new eagle and raptor exhibit was excellent and the boys were very impressed by these enormous birds which included several types of hawk and owl and a giant, live, bald eagle.

Following the raptors were the famous Maymont bears. There are two and they put on quite a show today. We watched them play and then go for a swim on their pond. After the bears, we strolled over to the Japanese Garden to feed the ton of enormous Koi that reside in another pond.

The fish feeding was the second main part of our visit. Maymont has an entire pond of these gigantic koi goldfish that will pretty much eat anything. There is a little gazebo-looking hut that sits out over the water and Colin loves to feed the fish from there. Rob was a bit surprised at my preparedness when I produced a bag of quarters at the petting zoo. He was even more surprised when I pulled out an entire bag of stale hamburger buns at the pond. Within fifteen minutes, Colin and his new buddy Luke had the water looking like it was boiling over with all the fish fighting over the scraps of bread.

Colin and Luke ran around some more after feeding the fish and then we headed back to the car. Rob and I both seemed pretty pleased when on the ride home, the children all looked like they had been drugged with Lunesta. "Yesssss", I thought. "They are going to sleep goooood tonight..." Daleen was happy to see us when we got home, and she said she really enjoyed her day off. She needed it and I needed a day to just pal around with Colin. Sometimes I think even Colin needs a little break from Mommy just to change up his routine.

If you live in the Richmond area and you have never been to Maymont, you should go. It really is one of the best things the city has in the way of parks and rec, and it's free, which is in everybody's price range. Besides the animals and large park areas, there is a great visitor center with all sorts of nature exhibits and giant fish tanks showing the various fish that live in different parts of the James River. If you have been to the park, but not recently, you should definitely go again just to see the new eagle/raptor exhibit. Seeing a real bald eagle is something else. Just be sure to bring your walking shoes and plenty of quarters.

The Road To Wellville

2008-10-05T07:09:00.000-07:00

I am happy to report I have finally managed to survive my poison ivy and am almost completely mended.

I can tell you though that I haven't been that miserable in a very long time. I found myself not really wanting to do anything, even writing on this blog. I just wanted to scratch myself to death. I ended up having it everywhere. I suppose this was due to working outside, sweating, and it just got all over me and I am just that allergic to it. At the worst of it, I looked like a beaten up Rocky Balboa with leprosy. I honestly am starting to think when Job was struck down, he was afflicted with poison ivy from head to toe..... just to make him as miserable as possible. (The bible does say he scratched himself after being afflicted you know.....)

Anyhow, I initially started treating it with my usual weapon, an OTC remedy called Ivy Dry. This stuff is great and usually does the trick. It dries the rash out (so dry it turns almost white), and stops the itch. However, I still had a couple of spots that continued to itch, even after drowning them in Ivy Dry. So I took it up a notch and on the advice of my wife, reached for her can of Zambuk. Zambuk is a sort of herbal remedy (it's really just Camphor Oil and Eucalyptus Oil) that comes from South Africa, where Daleen is from. Did you ever see "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"? You know how the dad in the movie uses Windex as a cure-all for everything from cuts to boils, to joint pain? Well, Zambuk is pretty much South African Windex. I have had it put on scrapes, cuts, and even a nasty spider bite one time. It actually seemed to help with those cases, and the can does say it is also an itch remedy, so I tried it. I can tell you, that I now could be the poster child for Zambuk. That stuff worked even better than the Ivy Dry and would temporarily relieve the itching on all my worst spots. Zambuk... it looks like a can of snake-oil, but it works wonders, it smells particularly lovely, and ....it's expeditious!

So I had temporary relief fom the itching, so I wouldn't run around scratching myself silly in public and embarrassing myself, but I still needed something to speed up the removal of the rash. Now, as I stated in my last post, an ivy rash is actually an autoimmune condition. (Apparently, I have a very strong immune system that will basically try to cream anything my body thinks might be a potential invader.) Knowing this to be the case, that my problem was inside my body, I still went back to the drugstore and bought a tube of soapy stuff called Zanfel and a big old box of Benadryl tablets. The cheap box of Benadryl helped a lot with longer term itch relief. The expensive tube of Zanfel soap which advertises it will remove the rash right away didn't seem to do anything.

Finally, after reading the comment that Connie left on my last posting, I shuffled over to my doctor and was hooked up with what I really needed. I guess I never thought the doctor could do anything to help. The doctor seemed pretty amazed by my case, commented on how miserable I was probably feeling, and started my new treatment right away. The treatment consisted of two parts, a shot of some kind of steriod and a prescription for Prednisone. I normally hate needles. I mean I HATE them. But when the nurse came in to stick me this time, I told her that I wanted to hug her and that she could feel free to give me two shots if she wanted. From the look I got, I think she was beginning to believe that I really did need two. But I only got the one and it felt great! Since then, I have been on a steady diet of Prednisone and Benadryl, although I get to start cutting back on both today. A couple of the rashes are still there but they are much smaller and all on my swelling has gone back down. My eyes are also back to normal now.

Thanks for all your prayers and sympathy. And thanks for the tip Connie, I owe you one. I am definitely going to be a lot more careful in the future. Unfortunately though, when cutting my grass the other day, along the edge of our property, I found three new patches of poison ivy that I am going to have to deal with..... someday.

The Fourteen Day Itch

2008-09-30T05:09:00.000-07:00

I currently have a medical condition known as Urushiol-induced contact dermatitis, AKA, a Poison Ivy rash, and I am miserable right now.

We had an older flower bed in our front yard that had sort of grown over and was getting wild and Daleen wanted us to rehab it. The only kicker was that it was infested with poison ivy plants. For those of you who don't know, I am only allergic to one thing in this world and it is the poison ivy plant (known by botanists as "Toxicodendron Radicans"). To say that I am allergic to poison ivy is like saying the Pope is Catholic. It's an understatement. If I get anywhere near the stuff, I get it and I get it bad. Two years ago I brushed a plant with my arm and leg and after five weeks I was considering having both limbs amputated. Actually, the rash was so bad, I thought the limbs we just going to fall off on their own.

Daleen is not allergic to poison ivy so she sprayed the plants down with a brush killer and removed the plants. I envy her. She crawled around in the stuff and sort of got one little itchy spot that went away.

After removing the plants, I figured it was safe and got in the flower bed, tilled the soil, and prepared the flower bed for all the new bulbs Daleen was going to plant. I cut up some roots and raked up some additonal debris and hauled it out back. Nothing was very sinister looking there, but I wore gloves, tried to protect myself, and immediately jumped in the tub and scrubbed myself down. Everything seemed ok and there was no itching.

Then I woke up around midnight the night before last and itched like you wouldn't believe.... all over. Since then I have new rashes on both arms, one leg, my hands, my side, and I must have wiped my eyes at one point, because I even have some irritation and swelling on my eyelids. The eye thing bothers me the most because with the swelling, it looks like I haven't slept in a month.

I looked up my condition this morning and Wikipedia states the following abut my condition, "The toxic effects of urushiol are largely indirect, mediated by an induced autoimmune response. Urushiol chemically reacts with, binds to and changes the shape of integral membrane protiens on exposed skin cells. Affected proteins interfere with the immune system's ability to recognize these cells as normal parts of the body (perhaps causing the immune system to mistake them for invading parasites), causing a T-Cell mediated immune response, attacking the cells as if they were foreign bodies." So the bottom line is, I itch, and it is because my body isn't smart enough to know I only bumped into a plant.

I did find this fact interesting though: "In approximately 15% to 30% of people urushiol does not initiate an immune system response, while at least 25% of people have very strong immune responses resulting in severe symptoms. Since the skin reaction is an allergic one, people may develop progressively stronger reactions after repeated exposures, or show no immune response on their first exposure, but show sensitivity on following exposures.". So it gets worse, every time you are exposed to it. Which means, Daleen is not allergic to it now, but she probably will be one day.

Did you know that mangoes are actually a very close relative to the poison ivy plant and often people who are allergic to the ivy plant can also get a rash from the skin of the mango fruit? I love mangoes and fortunately, I don't have this problem.

As I said, I am in itchy agony. I'm treating it as best I can and scratching myself silly, but it's just going to have to run its course over the next two weeks or so. I will survive, but I can assure you it's not going to be pretty. So when you see me, don't worry, it's not leprosy and it's not contaigious, and I gladly accept all forms of sympathy.

I Love the Smell of Chicken in the Morning......

2008-09-29T06:58:00.000-07:00

My house smells like cooked chicken, and I'm ok with that.

That's because Daleen spent Saturday afternoon and part of Sunday morning cooking and shredding thirty pounds of chicken for barbeque for the 1st annual fall picnic for our church. The picnic was yesterday afternoon and I would definitely say the whole thing was a huge success. Over 350 people showed up, we had great weather, and everyone was well fed and really enjoyed themselves.

It was asked that people bring their own desserts and this really made the afternoon even better. The food tables were pretty much overflowing with about every kind of sweet thing you could imagine. I felt like I needed an insulin shot just looking at it all. Colin even had a hard time deciding on what he wanted, but he eventually settled on a cupcake with sprinkles and two chocolate chip cookies. This of course was to follow up after some of the best homemade barbeque I have ever tasted.

Besides the food, there was every kind of game you could imagine. Our church has some very competetive people as members and the picnic wouldn't have been complete without some team sports. However, there was something for everyone. I discovered that Colin is really improving at kicking the soccer ball around. This was before he spied the kids volleyball net and then spontaneously went into a sort of wierd, screaming, one-man volleyball game with his soccer ball. Hey, he lives in his own little world sometimes.....

One thing I was amazed with is the number of volunteers that showed up to make and serve the food, organize the tables and trash bags, and run the games. This church has a great community of folks who step up every time something needs to be done. They come early to set up and stay late afterwards to tear it all back down. Thanks to everyone who helped out yesterday to make this such a great success.

As I mentioned, this is our 1st annual fall picnic. This year the event is a kickoff for the fall church series called "Awaken" that will run until the beginning of November and will end with a mini-Olympics and chili cook-off (more sports.... I did explain about our competetive members, right?) With the turnout we had, I am certain we will be doing this again next year. There have already been some discussions as to how it all can be done even better.

I have to say, it was strange to see all of those crock-pots sitting in my kitchen, slowly cooking all thirty pounds of chicken. And the smell has subsided quite a bit, but I think we will remember the fun and enjoy the new friendships made long after that chicken smell is gone.

The Hills Are Alive.....

2008-09-28T19:11:00.000-07:00

We took a much needed vacation last week.

We didn't want to go far, so we spent the week at the Woodstone resort at the Massanutten ski area in VA. Overall, I would have to say our time there was great. I never feel like I spend enough time with Daleen and Colin and I was glad we could just get away as a family to do family stuff.

I was really surprised at how close the resort was to Richmond. It's less than two hours away in the Shenandoah Valley. And the trip up over the mountain was very scenic. It had been a long time since I had been up this particular road (Route 33). When my parents were dating, there was this house (more like a shack) just before you go up the mountain where the people living there always had their laundry hanging up on the front porch. When I was young and we went on this road, my parents would point out the house... and the laundry. I was happy to report to my folks that the house is still standing.. and yes, they still have their laundry hanging on the front porch.

The resort itself and the accomodations were really nice. We got a two bedroom condo right off the golf course. The first night, we just relaxed and unwound. We had a spa tub in our condo that would fit about six people, which I sat in until I was severely pruned up but nicely decompressed.

The next day, we decided to head back up the mountain to Shenandoah National Park and Skyline Drive. We headed north to an area called Big Meadows and parked there after making a few stops at some of the scenic overlooks. Colin was excited by all the deer walking around by the parking lot. I was not as excited as this was only due to people feeding them. But I have to admit, they were some plump looking deer, so people must be feeding them well. Anyhow, while there, we discovered there is a nice little trail called the "Story of the Forest Trail", which leaves from the parking lot. It was good because is was fairly flat and there are several markers along the trail which point out the various features of the trees and rocks. That trail then connects with Dark Hollow Falls trail, which we decided to follow so Colin could see a waterfall. The falls were really nice and of course, Colin wanted me to carry him back up from the falls on my shoulders which was good exercise for me. Then as we neared the Big Meadows parking area, there, in the middle of the trail, was a large female Black Bear and two of her cubs. I instantly made the decision that we would not be those idiots you read about in the paper, and sent Colin and Daleen back down the trail to Skyline Drive and figured we would walk back up the drive to the parking lot. Then of course, after they were safe, I became one of those idiots and whipped out my video camera. Sure it was probably a dumb move, but the footage was awesome!

Colin talked endlessly about the bears and how mommy and daddy were scared the rest of the day. I don't know that I was scared, but I definitely didn't feel like trying to find out how tame those bears were. On the other hand, Daleen and I really enjoyed our day in the park. We checked out the Big Meadows campground and Lodge. We are planning on putting a camping trip there on our to-do list.

Day three of our vacation consisted of a trip to Luray Caverns. After you accept the fact that it is a huge tourist trap, I guarantee you'll enjoy it. The formations are pretty unbelievable. It has been at least 20 years since the last time I was there, so it was pretty much like seeing it for the first time again. Daleen and Colin liked it a lot as well. Colin kept asking where the dinosaurs were! The only problem we had was that we took a picnic lunch for after the tour, but there are so many bees there, we basically had to sit in the car and eat. I have a severe problem with bees. So you can just imagine what people were thinking, watching me more or less jumping around, almost like I was doing some kind of interpretive dance, swatting with one hand, and holding a sandwich with the other.

The ride back from Luray was good though. Shenandoah National Park doesn't sell a one-day park pass. You have to buy a one-week pass for $15. Since we already spent the money the day before, we decided to cut back over to the park and go south on Skyline Drive back to the resort. Along the way, we saw another giant Black Bear and some gigantic whitetail bucks.

Day four of our trip was spent in the town of Harrisonburg. When you drive into the town, there is a sign that says they are "The Friendly City". We kind of chuckled when we saw that, but then we found out they mean exactly what they say. Everyone we met that day was so nice. We spent a lot of time at their Childrens Museum, which while small, rivals the massive Children's Museum in Richmond. We also made a trip to the Shenandoah Heritage Market where Daleen bought this huge quilt she's been looking for.

Then day five of our trip was spent at what was supposed to be the highlight of the vacation..... The Massanutten Indoor Water Park. This ended up being the biggest dissappointment of our time there. First of all, it was expensive. $86 for the three of us.... I am not making this up. That wasn't the bad part though. What dissappointed us the most is the people working at the waterpark were extremely unfriendly. Obviously they are not from Harrisonburg. Oh, and although the park is indoors, they must not have paid the heating bill, because we were freezing the entire time. We were going to stay at the resort for dinner, but because the people working there were so unpleasant, we decided to go back to Harrisonburg and get back to some folks that knew a thing or two about being nice. We ended up going to Cici's where everyone seemed happy. Along the way, we got rear-ended at a traffic light by a young girl. Not a scratch on the car and the poor girl was beyond extremely apologetic......... she's from Harrisonburg for sure.

We had a lot of other little adventures on our trip. Overall, it was a really relaxing vacation. Everyone had a great time and we connected as a family like we hadn't in a while. I was surprised at how much there is to do up in the Shenandoah Valley and inside the national park. If you're looking for a close and easy vacation, I would definitely recommend the Woodstone resort. We will be going back again sometime for sure. Just be sure to stay away from the waterpark.

Field Day of the Past Photos

2008-09-27T05:30:00.000-07:00

Finally got a chance to download my camera from the last couple of weeks. Attached are some photos from Field Day of the Past..... enjoy.

Colin and his rubber snake are checking out the tractor pulls...

Plenty of smoke and dust in the tractor pull pit...

I have a pile of dried corn in the backseat of my car.... guess where it came from

Time to get a cow and put Colin to work!

Little boys love heavy equipment and farm machines....

Redneck Heaven....... without the mullet

2008-09-24T17:37:00.000-07:00

And we’re off…. Again.

But this time it’s for an excellent reason. This week we’re away on a much-needed vacation at the Woodstone resort at Massanutten. For those of you who are not from Virginia, Massanutten is a ski area in the Shenandoah Valley (2 hours drive, north-west of Richmond). It’s a really great resort with LOTS of stuff to do. If you are looking for a place to get away that is close to Richmond, this should be on your list. We have had some incredible experiences that I’ll tell you all about when we get back. The reason I’m waiting until we get back is that while Woodstone is all that and a bag of chips, they charge $10 per day for internet access (the only flaw that I can find so far). So while I would love to give you a play-by-play of our trip, it’s just too expensive….

But I did want to tell you about our little excursion last Sunday.

I drove back from where I was working in New York in the early hours of Sunday morning and got back to Powhatan at 10:30AM. This was just in time to unpack my stuff and load up the car to go to Massanutten for the week. Notice, I did not include “taking a nap”. Then we took off for our little pre-vacation stopoff.

Last weekend was an annual Richmond area event called “Field Day of the Past”. This is our second year attending and it is now a definite on our calendar. The Field Day is basically a big farming/heavy equipment show and living history event. In other words….. it is redneck heaven. (Don’t worry, I am NOT growing a mullet and country music still makes my ears hurt.) They have everything though, including tractor pulls, a steam powered sawmill, a steam cotton gin, a bulldozing/excavating demonstration, a rodeo, farm animals, antique cars, basically everything my 2-year old loves more than life itself. It’s like a mini State Fair without all the creepiness. Both this year and last, Colin has spent our hours at the show basically beside himself with excitement. He loves watching the tractors running around and being able to climb around on all the heavy equipment. This year, we spent some time at the section where James River Equipment displays their stuff. They let Colin sit in the cab of a giant excavator and on a bulldozer. After that, he got to climb in the excavator bucket and then this nice girl gave him a balloon. For a little boy, it doesn’t get any better than that. Then we went back over to the tractor pulls for a while and later, he went for a pony ride. After his ride, he learned how to milk a cow and played in a giant tank of dried corn. It has been three days since the event and Colin is still all smiles. The whole thing really is like heaven for young boys.

Of course, we didn’t go alone. My folks and sister’s family went. Also our friends Josh and Laura and Rob and Wendy came along with their kids. Everyone seemed to have a great time. It wasn’t too hot out on Sunday, but the sun was particularly intense and I got a nice, minor sunburn that made me look like a raccoon due to my sunglasses.

When I got home from my trip to NY, I was out of it from working and then driving all night. But watching Colin have so much fun gave me a second wind and I forgot about being tired. (I thought I was going to sleep on our way to Massanutten, but I ended up driving us here.) His enthusiasm was definitely infectious and to me, that was the best part of the whole day.

The Field Day of the Past is usually in September and is located off Broad Street just west of Short Pump. It runs over an entire weekend and admission for one day is $10, which in my opinion, is a real bargain compared to what it costs to go to a movie these days. You can take your own chairs, a canopy, coolers (no alcohol), etc. A lot of people bring their wagons to carry in all their stuff and their children. Last year, over 36,000 people attended and I’ll bet there were more than that this year. If you like a safe, fun day for your kids and a nice day of laid-back southern style fun for yourself, check out their website, put it on your calendar, and we’ll see you there.

Marriott Hotel Explosion

2008-09-20T12:56:00.000-07:00

I just looked at CNN.com and found out that there was a large car bombing at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan. I spent a week there a few years ago while on an assignment for my work and remember meeting some really great people who worked there. Seeing pictures showing a place you've been that has been blown up definitely gives you a strange feeling. I still don't know what would possess a person to want to do such a thing......

Big Blue and Me

2008-09-19T12:16:00.001-07:00

Today is my last day working at our IBM office in Fishkill, NY. It has been a great week and it has been wonderful seeing friends I met when I worked at our factory and from previous trips here. I have been working nights, from 6:00PM until 6:00AM. It hasn't been too bad with the day sleeping and I have managed to stay awake all night. As I mentioned in a previous post, the eating schedule is the biggest disruption. Going to a greasy diner at 2:30 in the morning and eating lunch is a bit of a change for me. I like being up here in the mountains though. It has been very chilly here at night. The leaves look like they are just about ready to start changing. I'll bet that in a month, it will be really beautiful here.

The work here at IBM been good. As usual, it hasn' t been too busy and I feel like I have made some contributions to the team as well as learning some new things. One of the best parts of working here is that their cleanroom protocol is not as stringent as my location in VA. It still feels like I'm wearing a trashbag when I have to suit-up, but as least I don't have to wear something over my face or eyes (very stylish). Another great part about this trip was that I got a new IBM photo ID. My old one was pretty much about a hundred times worse than the worst drivers lisence photo you have ever had. Luckily they had to shred my old one. The new badge I got looks pretty good and this one actually is coded to work on all the access doors I have to go through. Their factory is extremely compartmentalized and all the doors are locked. So in the past I have had to either follow people around or stand around, waiting for someone to come along while trying not to look too conspicuous.

Of course, the week has not been without some strange events. There was a coroners/medical investigators conference at the hotel I've been staying at. I was working down in the lounge/bar area yesterday afternoon and met a bunch of these guys. For some reason, they thought I was some new guy attending their little convention which led into some pretty interesting conversation. By the way, most of them do not like the show CSI........

The other really strange thing that happened, occured on my first night at work. My friend Chuck and I decided to head out to Dunkin D for a quick coffee break around midnight. It was my turn to drive and as I pulled out of the parking lot, this young chinese girl comes running across the parking lot, waving her arms frantically. So, we think there is some sort of emergency and I quickly stop the car and jump out. Did I ever mention I love interacting with people from different cultures? This chinese girl comes running over to us and simply tells us in fairly broken english that she called a cab an hour ago and it never came. Then she more or less asks if we can drive her to her hotel and proceeds to get in the back seat before I say ok. Our workplace is in a large gated IBM complex, so we know she is probably there for work as well, but I was still a little nervous about the whole thing. But then we take off for her hotel which was not very close and definitely out of our way. Great conversation though. Chinese people often take on American first names for business reasons. This girl's name was Jessica. She told us her real chinese name but I can't even remember it. I find one of the best conversations with a chinese person is finding out how they decided on their particular American name. She had a good story. But this poor girl had just arrived two days ago from China, had just started her first job out of college, no drivers lisence, etc. and she worked for one of our competetitors! We got her safely to her hotel and she blurted out a thanks and hopped out before we could tell her that flagging people down in America and jumping into a car with two male strangers at midnight is probably a monumentally bad idea.........

So this is my last evening. Luckily I only am working till midnight. Then we're going to dinner at the I-84 diner before I head south. I'll be home in the morning and then we're going to take Colin to a farm/tractor show for the day in Centerville. The show is called "Field Day of the Past". It's really neat and Colin has a thing for tractors and farm equipment, so he will pretty much be beside himself with excitement for a few hours, which is kinda fun to watch. After the show we are heading off on a weeklong vacation up in the mountains. Since I'm driving all night to get home, I expect I will be like a zombie at this point and Daleen is going to get to drive us there. I'm ready for a week away.... again.

Castaway.... VA Beach style

2008-09-19T12:16:00.000-07:00

I'm working in a town up in the Catskills of New York this week. It's kind of warm during the day but is downright chilly at night. We went camping last weekend in VA Beach which was the exact opposite. Camping in early September is just the best.

We stayed at First Landing State Park. If you have never been there, you should. It's actually on the Chesapeake Bay, right where the bay meets the Atlantic. Since it is not right at the oceanfront, it is not crowded.... at all. You have plenty of room to spread out all your stuff on the beach and do all the beach stuff (throwing the frisbee/football, flying a kite, etc) without running anyone over. Also, it is a great beach for kids. There are waves, but they are little kid-sized. At the ocean, I have to hold onto Colin in the water. At First Landing, he can go out in the water by himself and jump the little waves without me. In addition, there is a ton of stuff washed up on the beach for the kids to check out. Last weekend, there was a vast array of clamshells, crab shells, jellyfish, seaweed, and horseshoe crab shells. The best part of this was watching the kids really get interested in all this stuff. They ran around and assembled a huge collection and even organized it into basic categories in front of us. It was interesting to see them, without adult intervention, kind of work as a team to do this. The bad part, was convincing them to leave all this stuff on the beach.

We didn't go on our trip alone. Our friends Josh and Laura and their kids Gabe and Belle went. Also, our friends Russ and Anna brought their children Olivia, R.E., and Joshua. Then my mom, brought my niece Sara down for the day on Saturday. Camping with such a large group is really the way to go. We had this amazing little three-family community going on. We laughed a lot, and learned a lot about each other.

One of the most interesting things I noticed was the different setups each family had. Daleen and I have been going to First Landing for a long time and we still use a tent. Well, its a huge house tent. Then Josh and Laura are on the other end of the spectrum with their enormous camper-zilla, which has everything you could ever want in the way of comfort. Then there was "Lee", Russ and Anna's camper. Russ just got Lee from some guy who had been living in it for a couple of years. Its a pretty small camper, but its nice. Russ had to do a lot of work just to get Lee ready and roadworthy. I learned that Russ is a great improviser when it comes to Lee. He even cut out the back window and installed a window unit air conditioner...... Looks a little funny but it works great.

We had some great weather last weekend. Hot during the day and cool at night. As I mentioned, the beach was great. In the evenings, after dinner and getting the kids to bed, we would make a fire, hang out and talk, and then play some sort of game. It was during this time in the evening, that I think I learned the most about my friends. I learned that Laura is an absolute shark when it comes to cards (total poker face) and Anna likes to set her marshmallows on fire and then eat them after they turn black. I also learned that when playing cards, when Russ has an awesome hand, he starts talking with this funny accent that is a cross between Cheech Marin and Tony Montana (he has no poker face at all). And I think my friends learned a lot about me as well during this trip. They found out that when I go camping at the beach, I go into "castaway" mode, where I pretty much only wear shorts/swimsuit and my flip-flops all day and night, become an expert campfire builder (shouting, "I.... Have Made Fire!), and basically become a complete beach bum. It's just what I do, but I don't think they expected that from me.

The only downside to the whole trip was R.E. came down with this incredible pain in his hip. By Saturday evening, he was limping really bad and Sunday morning, he couldn't walk because it hurt too much. So, Russ and Anna had to leave early to get him to a doctor. We were all really anxious about what could be wrong with him. Luckily, we found out that evening that he had a virus that caused an infection and swelling, but that it was only temporary and would go away on its own after a couple of days.

I know a lot of folks aren't into camping. However, I think when you take some time to give up a few modern conveniences, you gain a lot in the way of experience. (Don't worry, Russ and Anna did bring a TV to watch the Saturday VA Tech game. But the TV ended up staying on all evening as after it got dark out, the bugs were all attracted to it and left us alone.) As I mentioned, we laughed a lot, learned a lot about each other, stayed up late talking, cooked together, did our dishes together, and just created this incredible community we would never experience back in Powhatan. All in all, it was a great weekend and I'm looking forward to going again with them. You should join us the next time.......

Road Trip!

2008-09-17T04:02:00.000-07:00

Heading north this morning.

My company has an office onsite at IBM in Fishkill, NY (about 45 min up the Hudson from NYC). Our contract there provides 24/7 onsite technical support and we are required to keep a certain number of folks at the office at any time. So, when someone is out, that slot has to be backfilled. This time, one of our night shift guys is out on a prolonged injury so everyone is taking turns filling in and this is my week to go.

I'm going to be working nights (6PM to 6AM) tonight through Saturday night. It will most likely be very easy work. The hard part will be staying awake. But I am very much looking forward to seeing my friends who work there. They are truly a great bunch of guys.

The working nights part takes a little getting used to. I'm good with sleeping during the day, but the change in the eating schedule throws me off a little. These guys go out for dinner at midnight to a real greasy spoon diner (The illustrious "I-84 Diner", where they know the waitresses and most of the truck drivers by name) and then they go to Dunkin Donuts at 4:00 AM because that is when the hot donuts come out of the oven. They do this pretty much every night and for some reason thay are all fairly skinny people. Maybe there is something in the water?

I love going on trips. I always have. I think I just like to get away. Daleen and Colin aren't coming this time unfortunately. They went with me the last time and we had fun. As you can imagine, I'll miss them. But we're going away on vacation for a week when I get home on Sunday and I'm looking forward to that.

Yardwork by Moonlight

2008-09-16T09:33:00.000-07:00

Do you ever feel like you don't have enough time to do all the stuff you want to? What do you do about it?

As for myself, I am a continuous list maker, but I am terrible at time management. My lists and the time to complete those items never seem to match up. I have a couple of lists of things I want to do. One is for work, one for home projects, etc. Then I have a planner book that I affectionately refer to as "My Life".

My Life is from South Africa. I get a new one from there every year and my in-laws know that is going to be on my Christmas list. For some reason, the day planners you get in South Africa have so much more interesting stuff in them. My current one is a Financial Freedom planner, which is a day planner, but is full of info and encouragement on getting out of debt and saving. It also has the following: South African public holidays, SA school calendars, phone numbers for universities in SA, lunar phases, eclipses, equinoxes, and solstices, birthstones and appropriate flowers for each month, greetings in eleven of the languages found in SA, and finally gifts for specific wedding anniversaries. Everyone knows that the 50th anniv. is gold and the 75th is diamond, but did you know that your 11th anniv is steel and that the appropriate gift for that year is an appliance? Fascinating.....

But to get back to my point, I make lists. And when I don't get all of the things done on those lists, I get a little anxious about it. Mostly because, I am going to have to reschedule it for some other time and I won't get that satisfaction of crossing it out.

I had "fertilize the lawn" on my list yesterday. Because of my work schedule (going to NY tomorrow) and an upcoming week-long vacation away from home starting on Sunday (when I get home from NY), I couldn't think of when I could reschedule it. And then Daleen reminded of something I had previously committed to doing yesterday evening after work. Meeting with the YAMS which is a great group of our friends. Didn't want to miss that. But, after the meeting when I got home around 8:45, I got that anexiety about my list and fertilizing the lawn. So there, in the cool, bright moonlight, I sprang into action, switched on all my exterior lights, got out my spreader, filled it up with fertilizer, and 40 minutes later...... I took a big sharpie marker and with a big smile and deep sense of satisfaction, put a heavy line across my list....... and then put my list away for the evening.

Same Old Job That I'm Thankful For

2008-09-15T09:17:00.000-07:00

I love my job... all over again.

I work at a computer chip factory owned by Qimonda Memory Products. I don't work for Qimonda though, I work for a company that supplies equipment used for one of their manufacturing processes. Luckily for you, I won't bore you with those details.

There are lots of great things about where I work. I'm fairly paid, I work with a great team, I have unbelievable flexibility with my schedule, and I have the best boss I could ever hope to work for. I think I'm pretty lucky. There are some downsides though. Our equipment is located in a large cleanroom and when my customer needs our assistance, I get to go suit-up which in not unlike putting on a large trashbag which makes you perspire just from walking around in it.

The most unfortunate part of my job, is that with my current position, there is no place for my career to grow within my company. If I wanted to move up, we would have to move back to Massachusetts, and neither Daleen or I are ready to do that right now.

Then a couple of weeks ago, I heard of an opening at my customer's company, in Richmond, that would be a significant jump for my career. It would be a big step up, put me back on Monday through Friday, and would be better pay. So I interviewed and that went well, I even talked to my manager about it in order to not feel like I was hiding anything. This new job was pretty much a done deal and then at the last minute I get the call that the company has now had a global hiring freeze and there will be no new job for me. Needless to say, this was a little dissappointing. Actually, it was vey dissappointing.

However, I was able to go back to my old manager, and we talked and he told me that in his opinion, everything with my job is just like it was before. Whew! Like I said, I have an awesome boss. Actually since all this has happened, it looks as though my customer may be going through some changes which probably wouldn't have been good for me if I was working for them.

So, it's been a bit of a rollercoaster over the last couple of weeks. Everything was lined up perfectly for my job to change and then at the last minute, I feel like I have been pulled back and protected from something that would probably not have been good for me or my family. It's funny how I started out looking for a change in my work, and that is what I got, but never how I expected. Through this process, I learned a lot about my company, a whole lot about my boss, and I have a new appreciation for my job and its relative security in a very shaky industry. I also was able to have a more serious discussion with my employer about my future which probably wouldn't have happened otherwise. Gotta love that......

Why "The Tick"?

2008-09-15T05:28:00.000-07:00

And so it begins....

We got a newer, much faster computer and now with that new speed and fewer internet headaches my wife Daleen has rediscovered the internet. Well, she discovered all the fun stuff on it such as Facebook, blogging, etc. To be honest, I don't like computers. I work at a computer chip factory and spend all day working on my computer and when I get home, I use all that mighty new computing power to play solitaire.

Anyhow..... She has discovered that a lot of our friends have blogs. I have been reading the Powhatan Community Church blog and really like it, and now I have started reading a lot of other blogs and I think I too am hooked. Not so much with sharing what we have going on, but it looks like a great way to decompress a little which is what I really need. So, here we are with a new blog I have affectionately titled "The Tick". Life in our home is generally fairly ordinary, with some very un-ordinary moments thrown in. I'm hoping to capture both here.

So why "The Tick"? I would like to say it is because I thought about Daleen's nightstand clock which I can hear at night and know every tick is a moment in time I am not going to get back and somehow I need to live life to the fullest. But what came to me when thinking of a name is the comic book character, "The Tick". For those who don' t know, The Tick is a deeply flawed superhero. He really wants to do good, but he always screws up the delivery and somehow saves the day, usually by accident. I think I can often identify with this. To further illustrate this is a description from the Tick's article on Wikipedia (Beth B. will like his "Drama Power"): "The Tick is a surreal parody of superheroes. He is high-spirited, frequently obtuse, and prone to quipping odd, dim remarks and "inspirational" speeches filled with bizarre metaphors. His superpowers are nigh-invulnerability, which allows him to crash and bang about without injury (though not necessarily without pain); super strength; and something referred to as "drama power," or basically a tendency for the Tick's powers to increase as the situation becomes more dramatic. He is known for his nonsensical battle cry, "Spoooooon!," which he decided upon one day while eating breakfast (specifically, the cereal Drama Flakes). In the comic book, the Tick got a job at the Weekly World Planet newspaper. He works in the same office as Clark Oppenheimer who is also a superhero called the Caped Wonder. He has all the typical Superman powers including: X-ray vision, super strength, invulnerability, flight, heat-vision, and super hearing. Clark Oppenheimer looks down on the Tick as a lower form of super-hero with limited powers."

The Tick even hangs out with flawed people who are smarter than him and help him with his issues, which I also like. The Wikipedia article goes on by explaining, "Like many superheroes, The Tick has a sidekick: a rather plump former accountant named Arthur, who wears a white moth suit that allows him to fly, although he is often mistaken for a bunny due to the long ear-like antennae of his costume and the fact that his wings are often folded up. The Tick is impulsive, and Arthur serves as a sort of conscience; he also figures out the schemes of villains and formulates plans to stop them. Arthur's "battle cry" (so to speak) is "Not in the face! Not in the face!". In all of his incarnations, The Tick is surrounded by a cast of equally absurd heroes and villains, many of them parodies of popular comic book characters and character types. Few of the "superheroes" in the Tick mythos have powers that would measure up to those of DC or Marvel characters, but their foes are often equally silly and/or weak. "

Thanks for reading that lengthy explanation. I hope to have a lot of fun with this and can produce something you will want to read and keep up with.