mother's day

My mother only knew how to play one song on the piano. It was part ragtime with hints of a church hymn mixed in. I find myself still humming that tune even though she passed on nearly 13 years ago.

There are other memories which tend to surface around Mother’s Day ... like how my mother would carry one of those old Panasonic cassette recorders to bluegrass festivals and record her favorite groups. You could never hear the actual music because mom would start singing along and forget about the recording.

Or my mom’s love of flowers and her affection for cats.

Now that I can no longer pick up the phone and talk with mom, I wish I had paid more attention to Mother’s Day. When you’re young (and often stupid!), special days seem more burdensome than blessed.

There isn’t anything I wouldn’t give to sit next to my mom one more time in church or to hear her play that old ragtime tune. I’d even be willing to eat her meatloaf again if it meant 15 more minutes of conversation.

So let me encourage you to give your mom a big hug this Sunday. It’s the least we can do.

writing

As some of you know (especially my Facebook friends), I have finished writing my first novel. I began writing last fall, after I started commuting to work on the trolley. Every morning and evening I spend about 45 minutes each way on the trolley. I began reading novels to help pass the time and started ripping through them. San Diego's Central Library is only three blocks from my office and I would walk there on lunch and swap out books.

After a few months of reading other people's writing, I decided to write my own. Most of the novel was written on my Sprint smartphone(s) -- the latest being an HTC Touch Pro. It has a slide-out, full QWERY keyboard with both function and CTRL keys. I did do some writing on my laptop, but the majority of the book was written with my thumbs and an occasional finger.

The novel is currently being read by three potential literary agents. Of course, there were many more rejection letters/emails than acceptance letters/emails. But I am very encouraged by the number who wanted to see the manuscript -- and how quickly. Now, I am in the active waiting period.

So ... I started a second novel. This one has been written exclusively on my HTC Touch Pro. It's about a travelling evangelist who knowingly rips people off. Quite fun to write.

I always knew my thumbs would amount to something.

pilates, not pilate

I'm now into my third week of morning workouts. While grazing the aisles at Costco, I came across the "3-in-1 Exercise Ball" in a box. It's an inflatable exercise ball and three DVDs -- with an elastic band and a web that wraps around the ball. One morning I'll do Pilates and the next day I'll do cardio and strength training. Although I'm beginning to miss my belly, I am feeling better with each day.

roasting coffee beans at home

In my life with coffee, there have been several significant hinge moments. The first was being given my very own Mister Coffee maker when I went away to college (thanks to my brother, Rod). I could brew my own coffee in the convenience of my dorm room. Thankfully the water from the sink wasn't toxic. The second hinge moment came when I discovered a coffee grinder and began grinding my own beans - first with the aforementioned Mister Coffee and then with a Krupps machine. The next hinge moment in my coffee story was the birth of the coffee shop and espresso drinks.

Thanks to a friend of mine (Tina), the most recent improvement in my quest for the perfect cup of coffee has been the use of a french press. She came to a Bible study at our house for LifePoint and nearly fainted when she saw me using a regular coffee maker. The next week she brought over her french press and I've not used a coffee maker at home since.

So ... today I'm reading our local paper and there is a story about local coffee roasters. I've been to one -- Caffe Calabria. But what caught my eye was the mentioning of a man who has developed a home roasting machine. It's the Behmor 1600 and it was invented by a local San Diego guy. You can roast up to a pound of coffee at one time.

Now all I need is $300 and a way to find green coffee beans ...

hulu dot com

OK, maybe I'm a bit slow but I finally visited hulu.com today after our drummer at church told me that's where he watched episodes of shows he missed at their regular schedule. Last Monday we flew back from Denver and I was a bit wiped out ... hence, I fell asleep before 24 came on. No worries -- I watched the entire show (and only about 2 minutes of commercials) this afternoon on my laptop. The sound and video were excellent. Next step? Buying an S video cable to run from the laptop to the HDTV. I may be hooked on hulu.

In the spirit of Guy Kawasaki ... I may become a hulu.com evangelist.

wild, random updates

It's been about a week or so since I've last posted anything so I thought I would fire wild and random updates at all of you. Tonya and I went to Denver for the weekend and I was the guest speaker at Mountainview Community Christian Church in Highlands Ranch. You can find a podcast of my sermon on their website (you'll even see a small mugshot of when I had glasses). I preached at all four of their weekend services -- once on Saturday and three times on Sunday morning. Each sermon was a bit different ... I'm never quite sure what's going to come out until it comes out.

Mountainview is a church plant that began in the 1990's and has grown to well over 1,000 people. The founding pastor, Jim Phillips, is still there and the church continues to move forward in reaching people for Jesus.

While in town, we ventured up to downtown Denver and took a few pictures of Coor's field (the home of the Colorado Rockies). Since it was closed, all we could do was take pictures of the outside of the building. Downtown Denver has a lot of public art on display. It's a pretty downtown.

On Sunday night I was able to meet up with an old high school buddy that I hadn't seen since graduation (1987). He's bald now but by choice. We had a good time remembering old times and talking about our lives since high school. We played on the high school basketball team together and our dads would sit next to each other and talk. It was good to be together.

Tonya's parents came out to watch the girls while we were gone. Hannah spent Friday night at the junior high CIY (Christ in Youth) conference in Anaheim. That meant Hope got Nana and Grandpa all to herself, which she thoroughly enjoyed.

I'm going to post a few pictures below that I snapped with my phone. I might post a picture or two of Coors field if I gather the emotional courage to do so.

a bit melancholy

Back when my father died, we divided up dad's belongings among myself and my four brothers. This included dad's coin and silver collection. Since 2000, my share of the coins and silver has traveled with us from San Francisco to Atlanta to San Diego. Every now and then I would take it out, look up information on the Internet (because everything you find on the Internet is true), and update a spreadsheet I had started years ago.

Yesterday as I was reading the newspaper, I noticed a three page ad for a traveling coin and jewelry show. I had been considering selling part of the collection -- having just looked up local coin dealers last weekend. So I packed up my collection in an old camcorder bag and went to the show. The buyer quoted prices for the different pieces and then asked me what I wanted to sell.

I hadn't told him where the coins had come from. I sat there for a few moments and then decided to sell less than half of what I had brought. Even then, I was extremely torn. As I left the show, I felt bad for selling what I had saved for so long and had hoped to pass down to my own daughters. I know dad's intentions were to benefit his children and he saved what he had in order to bless his family. Even still, it was a time of mixed emotions. I think I drove home on auto-pilot because my mind was elsewhere.

I was thinking about my dad and my children. I was thinking about the relatively small worth of the coins and silver compared to the immeasurable worth of the memories they carried. I allowed myself a few moments of sentimentality -- or maybe I'm just getting old and weepy. Either way, or a little of both, I'm thankful for memories and traditions and legacies. And a bit sad, too.

man versus food

How do you get a job traveling the country and eating food? That's what I'm wondering as I'm sitting here watching Adam on "Man v. Food" on the Travel Channel. This has become one of our family's favorite shows.

vote for this dorrito's commercial

My buddy Bobby from Opportunity Camp is in one of the last four commercials competing for the Dorrito's spot during the Super Bowl. Go to www.crashthesuperbowl.com and VOTE for "too delicious." He is the one who winks.

softball draft

Went last night to the softball draft for the 8 and unders for Navajo softball. It was pretty laid back -- no wheeling and dealing. As far as I could tell, no cash was passed under the table and swearing was kept to a minimum. A certain redhead was drafted pretty high, too.

wednesday thoughts

These are rough times for a lot of people. Companies are down-sizing. Those that are left behind are picking up more of the slack. I left the house this morning with thoughts of paying the rent, bills, tuition, and trying to do the math in my head. Although we've thought of cutting the kids back to one meal a day, we haven't done so (yet). Even though I'm a pastor, I still need to remind myself that God is in control and doesn't need a government bailout. And he has also created us with freewill -- the ability to make choices. Even when life seems bleak, we still have a choice. I stopped doing the math long enough to remind myself of that. I can choose to let God be in control. As ironic as it may sound, that is a most liberating of thoughts!

wii elbow

I think I'm developing Wii elbow.

hannah writes my sermon

Hannah sat down this afternoon and said she would write my sermon for tomorrow. Here is what she came up with:

Today’s sermon is about Christmas. Christmas is a time of joy, happiness, love, compassion, and many other virtues that lots of people forget. For those people in our towns, cities, states, and even our own personal lives, it’s not even about those virtues. The typical, non-Christian person’s idea of Christmas is a long morning full of unwrapping gifts and drinking hot cocoa next to a fire set ablaze.

The Christian’s idea of a Christmas scene is a Nativity manger under a shack-looking thing with shepherds and wise men huddled around the newborn baby Jesus and his earthly parents, Mary and Joseph. How different is that from the other’s view who don’t see it like that? It might be identical. The wise men brought gifts, so do we need to automatically assume that we are to offer gifts, and expect some in return? Others that see the Christmas scene as a Christmas tree with glowing lights around it and presents underneath it will see it the same way too. They give presents and also expect some. They expect Ones with their name on it written in someone else’s handwriting. Why are they looking if they already have one? Jesus’ present to us was that He died, with our name on it.

Why, then, do you ask, that they are still not content with their ultimate present? Maybe, they have not met their wise men. The wise men traveled from afar to get to the baby Jesus, the King. Some researchers found out it could have even taken 2 years to get to them. Never once did they give up, either. They kept on going throughout circumstances we are not even aware of. They came, and never gave up on getting to Jesus.

Why aren’t we like that? We should be their wise men. Travel to them, no matter what the circumstances are, and what they might be. Know that they, too, received that present, the ultimate present of eternal life that they don’t have to pay for. The one with their name on it.

Think about all those people that you may know, or you may not. Think about all of them, the ones that don’t know that they have eternal life under their Christmas tree. Be their wise man. Their wise man that will travel far to get them to their King and their Savior. Be a wise man.

christmas in san diego

Last Friday we took the girls and two of their friends to "December Nights", the big Christmas production at Balboa Park. Balboa Park is the crown jewel of San Diego and it was beautifully decorated for the holidays. All of the museums were open and offered free admission. There was food from across the globe and three stages with live music. They estimated nearly 300,000 people attended during the two-night event.

As it would happen, I saw four people I knew within the matter of two minutes. Two were from LifePoint and the others were Hannah's soccer coach and his family. Even in San Diego, it can be a really small world sometimes.

i'm inverting

A little more than a week ago, I bought an inversion table on sale at Big 5 for $99. It may turn out to be the best $99 bucks I've ever spent, besides the $99+ bucks it cost me to get married or to feed my children on a weekly basis. For the past ten days I've been hanging upside down one or two times a day, 15 minutes at a time. I've been amazed at how much better my back feels. I'll have to upload a picture of me inverted (with my shirt tucked in so you won't freak out at my belly).

bobby shoots a video

My buddy Bob Brindley from Opportunity Camp has shot a video for the Doritos Super Bowl contest. It's pretty funny. Click here to watch it. He's the guy sitting at the table next the lady.

39 isn't much different than 38

A personal note for those of you keeping score: I turned 39 this past Thursday (November 6). Truth be told, it doesn't feel much different than 38.

hannah for president, the video

hannah for president

Since President George W. Bush is often referred to as "W", it looks like we may have to call her "G." Hannah decided to run for president of her school so we made posters, printed stickers (one featured Sponge Bob and said "All Krusty Krabs vote for Hannah"), and she had to give a speech on Friday. Well ... drum roll please ... she won! Below are a few pictures and then I'll post the video of her speech.

it's been a while

One day here, a few weeks there, and I realized this morning I hadn't posted anything since early October. This time of year -- every four years -- tends to grab my attention. Things have been busy at LifePoint and Blue Haven as well. And we still have kids ... and soccer, volleyball, girls scouts, birthday parties.

All said, we're doing very well. Both girls are enjoying their new teachers at Southwestern. Tonya has a good class. And me? I've decided to grow my goatee back in spite of the fact that it now has gray hair in it. I've gone from looking like a professor to a distinguished professor.