Fishing at the Duckworth's

If you haven't been out to the Duckworth pond lately, you are really missing out. They have done a wonderful job of setting things up for family fun. We were fortunate enough to get a chance to take the girls out there this past Friday evening for some fishing, four-wheeling, hot dogs, and s'mores. The girls had a blast! Enjoy photos below.

All four girls got a chance to "drive" the four-wheeler. All we really did was make a little circle around the lake house, but they each thought it was the best thing in the world. Of course, I must admit that on my way back to Uncle Rowland's, the bike died. I couldn't get it go anymore. Uncle Rowland said that it's probably not a big deal; I hope he's right and that I didn't kill the four-wheeler in a single evening.




We all also got a turn fishing from the boat. We even had Logan out there with us for a while. We didn't get a pic of Emma Joi or Sydney in the boat, but they did have a high time floating around the pond. Emma Joi even took her "Taz" pole out with us and caught her purple fish (just a weight) about a hundred times. She casts really well, so she would throw it out, and then when it was about halfway back to the boat, she would say, "I think I got something," or, "ooh, there it is!!" And then she would "fight" the fish into the boat all proud to have caught another purple fish. What fun!






Now, I don't know what Abbie's been up to in the next few pics, but take a close look at her face and I think you'll agree that it was not something she wanted recorded in a picture. :)


And I guess she needed to go to the bathroom, too!


Finally, we did catch a few fish. I caught this little bream that the kids just had to have a picture of, and I caught a little bass that Emma Joi got to reel in and land. Reagan also caught a little bass that we didn't get a picture of and I caught a baby bass out in the middle of the pond that also didn't make the highlight reel.

Closing Ceremonies

Closing ceremonies for the softball league were last Thursday. Reagan's team did not finish high enough to get trophies, and most of her team could not make the event, so her coach declined to have the team participate. Abbie's team all got trophies for participation, and Abbie was super excited that she now has her first trophy. She more than proud of that! Enjoy some pics below.

This is Abbie with some of her teammates. You can see her coach in the background.

Here's another with her coach in a little better pose, but still with closed eyes.

Of course, Emma Joi and Sydney couldn't stand not having their pics taken.

And Sydney had to model her new sunglasses.

Finally, Abbie got her trophy and we were headed off to the pizza party!

Sachse in the Kitchen

What a treat! Reagan and Abbie are quite inventive and creative children. They woke us yesterday announcing the grand opening of "Sachse in the Kitchen." The two of them had cooked up (pun intended) their own little restaurant for the rest of the family complete with a fancy name and menus. I missed out on breakfast because I wasn't hungry, but Leah, Emma Joi, Sydney, and I all got to enjoy lunch together.

Abbie was our server, and she did a great job of bringing us to our table.

Then she took our drink and appetizer orders and served everyone. She did really great and did not spill a single drop.






And our appetizer of sour cream and onion chips was perfectly prepared.

Emma and Sydney really enjoyed the whole deal and begged me to take their pictures at the restaurant.



After we ordered, the chef went to work preparing our meal. We had a great lunch of mac & cheese, sandwiches, and pork & beans with mayo (sounds gross, but it's really tasty).





As soon as our food was complete, Abbie reappeared and served each of us our plates. They did a really great job, and I was very impressed with the inventiveness of their idea.

Lake Bonham State Park

It's taken a while to get this post together, but we went camping last weekend at Bonham State Park. This is one of the nicer parks that we've been to in TX. It's not very big and in completely encloses a small lake where the kids were able to swim and fish. Anyway, I took a few pics for you to enjoy. You can see that we took two tents since we've got so many kiddos. :)

The plan was for Leah and I to sleep in one, and all of the kids would sleep in the other. They all started that way. Crammed into the smaller tent (by their choice), flashlight in hand, they started to try and get some rest. A couple of hours later, it was becoming obvious that they were going to be up half the night talking, so Leah and I moved the little ones (Emma Joi and Sydney) into our tent with us.

Now, before we left, I told Leah that I wanted to bring a hammock to relax in, and she wasn't really on board. As a matter of fact, she was convinced that there would be no where to put it and that it would not be worth putting up even if there were a place for it. As it turned out, though, there was a place to hang it, and all of my girls, including Leah, spent much more time in the hammock, than Dad. No big thing, though, as long as they are happy. :) And I guess bringing a hammock, tieing it between two trees, and letting Leah kick back and read some Nora Roberts makes her very happy.


Before we left, Reagan decided that she wanted the job of washing the dishes for the entire weekend. I think she just wanted to play in the water, but she still did a great job keeping our plates, cups, and utensils clean. Abbie got the thankless job of clearing the table and giving Reagan the dirty dishes. She spent all of that time wishing that she were washing dishes. Again, I think she just wanted to play in the water.




Overall, we had a great time just kicking back and getting out of the city and spending time with just our family.




Oh, and if you're wondering about this last picture, Reagan and Abbie found tons of little mussles along the shores of the lake. They spent a lot of their spare time cleaning them and trying to get them open. It didn't quite get it, but it was better than listening to them fight. :)

How Bad Could It Be?

By now I'm sure that you have the story of viewers at Cannes laughing audibly at the film (and not in the funny parts), and I'm sure that some of you have seen the movie. I had a chance to screen it with the staff from our church on Monday, and I'd like to share my critique of the film so as to spare many of you the pain of seeing this yourself.

It's BAD! Apart from the whole controversy over historical inaccuracy and such, the film itself, as a movie, is one of the worst that I've ever seen. There is no doubt anymore about why this movie was not pre-screened by critics - Ron Howard wanted to maxmize his opening weekend numbers. He knew that after people starting seeing it, the word would get out, and the film would tank.

There are too many laughable scenes with just plain bad acting to go through here, so let's talk about the plot holes. This may contain spoilers so highlight to read:

• A guy at the Louvre gets shot. I hear that this next part is a little different in the book, but in the movie the characters follow a clue written in invisible ink beside the body to a painting on the other side of the museum where the find a bloody hand print and more invisible writing that leads them to the other end of the museum another bloody hand print and yet more invisible writing. I've been to the Louvre, and that place is huge. We're talking 10 minutes or more to walk a straight line from one end to the other on a single floor, and they want me to believe that a critically wounded man wandered around this museum (without leaving a bloody trail other than his hand print in specific places), wrote coded notes in invisible ink, wandered back to the place where he was shot, wrote another coded note, drew all over himself, then croaked in a very specific position. Get real!
• A guy at the Louvre pulls a painting off the wall and one gate comes crashing down, and the guy that chasing gets away. Don't you think that if you pulled any painting off the wall in the Louvre that the place would lock down tighter than Fort Knox? I mean they have some of the world's oldest treasure. Nobody gets out of that place after a painting is pulled off the wall, and certainly more than one gate would crash closed.
• Don't get offended lady friends, but a car chase with the lead car, driven by a lady, going top speed, in reverse, through the twisty crowded streets of Paris. Maybe Danica Patrick could pull that off.....maybe. For that matter, I'm not sure I know any guys good enough to handle that, but the scene is pretty cool. Great stunt driver.
• As many of you know the idea is that Mary Magdeleine was supposed to be the church's true leader, and that this "girl power" was passed down through the centuries by way of a line of daughters. Is it just mean or does it seem a little inconsistent that this secret is entrusted to a bunch of men? I thought men were the problem and that's why Mary Magdeleine went into hiding in the first place.
• And on the whole Mary Magdeleine deal. Who cares? Let's say that Mary Magdeleine really did go into hiding and that she really did have a daughter. What's the big deal about finding her body to prove that a certain contemporary person is her descendant? It wouldn't prove anything about Mary's spouse, and it wouldn't be any earth shattering news to find out that someone 2,000 years ago had a kid and their bloodline is still alive.
• And another thing. I don't believe that Jesus had a kid, but what if He had a wife? Would that really be a shock to the world? It would fit perfectly with His being man and being a part of the culture of His time, and it wouldn't change anything about His divinity, mission, or salvation. The Bible isn't a history book and it doesn't say one way or the other. It just doesn't matter.
• Back to plot holes. How about the way they found a clue in a safety deposit that hadn't been accessed in over 50 years (according to the bank manager), but the clue is revealed to show a location that's only been in existence for less than 20 (17 to be exact). Either I.M. Pei was commissioned to build the Louvre pyramids to speicifically fit the clue or the bank manager was incorrect. I think it's just a huge plot hole!
• Further, when our protagonist finds a supposed location of Mary Magdeleine's body (but the body's been moved) there's a rose in it's place. Do these people keep going back to the old locations and setting out roses just in case someone else comes along? That seems kind of risky if you're trying to not be identified as a member of this secret society. Or does Mary's spirit give the roses an unnaturally long life so that they don't wither?
• Finally, having been to several different European countries and tons of churches in these countries, I can tell that one consistent thing across them all is that they don't let you just wander around in them. They are all taken very seriously in terms of reverence and historical significance. The protagonist wandering around these churches like he owns the place is simply unrealistic.

Overall, I give the movie 1.5 out of 5 stars, but that mostly because it got me out of the office for an afternoon. View it at your own risk, but don't worry about this movie starting any kind of uprising against Christianity; there's no way it could be taken that serioulsy.

Leonardo's Conspiracy

At the risk of being reviled by my family, I have to bring up this national debate and weigh in with some thoughts of my own. The DaVinci Code movie premieres later this week and brings a huge debate along with it. I must admit before I go any further that I have not read the book; I only have an idea of what is about based on news articles that I have read over the past several years. So now for my semi-informed, but highly intelligent analysis of the situation (if Dr. Phil can be a real doc, then I can be a subject matter expert on a book I haven't read).

The first thing that struck me as odd about this book is that Dan Brown was sued by the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail when his book The DaVinci Code became a hot item. Now, why is this odd? Well...he was being sued basically for plagiarism. Ultimately the courts ruled that it could not be plagiarism since Holy Blood, Holy Grail is supposed to be a factual account of history and The DaVinci Code just builds a story around those historical facts. It would be like writing a biography on Lincoln and then suing someone for making the assisination of Lincoln an element of their story. Nobody can steal that idea....it an historical fact. So, if the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail really believed that their writing was historical fact, why sue Dan Brown for writing a fictional story around those historical events?

Next up, the conspiracy theory. Like I said before, I haven't read the book, so I don't know the details of the conspiracy that's revealed by the story, but doesn't this seem like our generation's Kennedy assasination or Elvis abduction? Americans (maybe just people) love a good conspiracy theory. Despite the fact that a good conspiracy never really holds together (e.g. Nixon and Watergate), somebody will crack and the whole thing will fall apart. For whatever reason, though, we want to believe that it is possible that a conspiracy spanning hundreds of years has pulled the wool over the eyes of millions of people and only just recently have we been granted access to the secret by Mr. Brown.

If you haven't been in a bookstore lately, you should drop by your local Barnes and Noble to get an idea of our love for a good conspiracy. At the one by my house, they have several tables covered with books on the truth about Jesus, the realy Bible, the secret life of the early church, etc. Several tables. People are eating this stuff up, but is anyone asking the first question that came to my mind? Some of these books say Jesus is really a myth, some say He was just a normal guy that had a wife and kids, some say He was sort of the Son of God, etc. My question is, how can all of these different opinions be the revelation of a conspiracy covered up by the church?

And don't even get me started on the history of the church. We all know that the Roman Catholic church has its share of dark history. The Crusades. The Inquisition. And as a result of those incidents there have been plenty of uprising against the church with the Reformation being the most famous. Are any of these conspiracy theorists really going to try and convince us that no one was able to uncover this grisly conspiracy at a time when a huge popluation of Europe was looking for ammunition against the church, but that they've been able to uncover it in a time when the cover up should be a million times easier to accomplish?

I could go on and on, but for now let the comments roll in....

Fireside Chat

This weekend, we are taking the kids camping. While Reagan and Abbie have been camping many times, Emma and Sydney have not. Just about the time Emma got old enough, we had Sydney, so we’ve not had many opportunities to take them. We did take one trip last fall with them, and Emma kind of freaked out about being dirty. She’s got a little OCD.

After spending nearly every night for the past two months out at the ballpark, I think Emma is cured of her dirt issues, so we hope that we’re ready to go. We’ll be headed up to Bonham State Park for the weekend to do some hiking, biking, and fishing. Of course, the kids are excited about staying in a tent, roasting marshmallows (some of you know my thoughts on marshmallows), and getting to spend a ton of time outside. I’m excited about getting a break. As my previous posts have noted, our lives have been extremely busy lately, so this will be a welcome break.

Jet Lag

Sorry, no pics yet. I just haven't had a chance to download from the camera, but I can still tell my tale. I'll add the pics later.

This past Sunday I set out an adventure to the West Coast. This was to be my first time in California and my first time to see the Pacific Ocean, so it was a little exciting. I was travelling alone, though, so it was also a little disappointing. I think this trip could've been much more fun with a spouse or friend. As it was, I know no one in California and I didn't meet anyone that I wanted to know. I was looking for some of those "California Girls" mentioned in a few of The Beach Boys' songs, but I think they've all moved to Texas. Looks don't pay the rent in Cali, and if you try to go down that road the you're a whole different kind of girl.

Sorry, I got off track a little. Back to the story. So, I got on the plane at DFW on Sunday afternoon. After being seated for about 10 minutes, the plane was nearly completely boarded and the pilot's voice came over the intercom, "Uh...I just got here, so I've got to do my pre-flight check before we can pull away from the gate. It'll be at least twenty minutes."

So, where was he for the last 30 minutes? I just thought, "I remember this episode of 'LAX' [the short-lived TV series]," and I hoped that I was not living that out because where that pilot had been was not in the best interest of the passengers. Can anyone say breathalyzer??

It was more like 40 minutes until we pulled away, and after waiting for a while on the tarmac we were able to takeoff. The pilot was obviously innocent of any negative charges as he provided a quick, smooth flight to LAX while I watched Gladiator again. I love that movie.

I went straight to the hotel that night, ate dinner there, and stayed in until I left for my class the next morning. Here's where things really got interesting. After my class was over on Monday, I decided that I didn't want to eat at the hotel. "Surely there's a Chili's, Applebees, Outback, something familiar somewhere in this city," I thought, "and after living in a big city for a while, surely I can find it fairly easily."

WRONG!!

I was about a block over from the freeway, so I figured I'd get on there and head into the main part of town. The only problem is that I couldn't find an entrance ramp for the freeway. I drove all the way to downtown on city streets trying to figure out how to get on the freeway. No kidding! It was a 2 hour drive, and I'm not exaggerating.

Along the way I saw lots of interesting things: gun store, liquor store, gun store, liquor store, bail bondsman, liquor store, gun store, and lot's of guys wearing blue. Thankfully I had on a blue shirt that day, so I just leaned back my seat, cranked up some bass and drove on like I knew what was going on. Okay, so I didn't really crank up the bass. I didn't want to draw attention, but the rest is true, and all of these stores had metal bars over the windows and doors. Never a good sign! It reminded me of Dave Chapelle's comedy when talked about being taken to the ghetto without being warned. The only thing missing was the baby selling crack, but I might have just not noticed.

Once I got to downtown, I saw an entrance ramp for the freeway, but then I had a new problem. There are no exits from the freeway either. Either way, I never saw any place to eat that I recognized, and I was afraid that if I got off the freeway, I wouldn't be able to get back on, so I just went back to the hotel and ate there again.

The next afternoon, after my class was over, I had a plan. I had located a Chili's off of Sunset Blvd, near UCLA. I figured that I could drive that way and if I saw another more interesting place along the way, great, if not at least I could eat at Chili's. I had a little trouble again getting on the freeway, but I managed to get on a little sooner and was soon cruising off to Sunset Blvd.

I started on the east end of this famous road and headed west. What an interesting drive. The first part is a really run down looking part of town like most of what I had driven through the day before, and then suddenly it becomes a more modern, more hip area with just a lot of questionable businesses. I mean questionable like tattoo parlors, piercing parlors, and tons of XXX live nude girls bars.

Now one thing that I was really surprised by was the number of XXX bars, adult bookstores, adult movie stores, etc in this town. They were all over. When driving through town I saw at least one every quarter of a mile or so at least. Given that, it makes a little more sense to me now in an LAPD detective movie they always have to make at least one trip to a XXX bar in order to solve the case. Of course, I've still got the question of why they can't do it before they hand in their badge, but that's another post.

Back to the story, after the seedy and then sultry part of town, I came into Hollywood. While there was still plenty of seedy and sultry, the atmosphere was a little more like home with some recognizable stores. Just for fun, I actually jumped a couple of blocks north to see the famous Hollywood and Vine intersection.

This was not a place where I was comfortable getting out of the car. There were at least 6 XXX bars right there and all manner of other adult businesses. The only thing that kept me from getting back to Sunset faster was the old homeless woman trying to cross the street while holding her breath and making a slight swimming motion. Apparently she thought that we were under the ocean or something.

Continuing on down Sunset, I found an In-N-Out Burger joint. I had heard about this place from some of my friends that used to live in California, so I pulled in to have a bite. It was pretty good, and after I finished I headed west again.

Pretty soon I was in Beverly Hills. The shops here were really pretty interesting, but I nearly wrecked my car when I saw two things one right after the other. The first was a Guess billboard that would not have been out of place in France, but seemed a little odd in the USA. Regardless, I really want a pair of Guess jeans now. The second was the Hustler store. I didn't stop or go in, but this place was about the size of a Wal-Mart with many different mannequins in the windows in a variety of poses; none of which required clothing and some of which may be physically impossible to achieve.

Next up, Bel Air. I couldn't really see the houses because they were all hidden by high gates, shrubs, fences, guards, etc, but it was still kind of fun to drive through. Then I move on along to the ocean. There was really no one on the beach and the beach itself was not all that impressive, but I drove south along the coast for a while until I cut back around LAX to get to my hotel. All in all a much better experience than the day before.

Finally, I was ready to go back to DFW. Our flight left LAX on time, and landed at DFW a little early. Backups in the gate, though, prevented us from being able to get off the tarmac, and poor Leah had to wait out front for an hour or so while we sat on our plane waiting to taxi to our gate, get connected to the jetway, and de-board.

I'm glad to be back in the Central Time Zone now, and I will try to get some pics added here soon. In the meantime, enjoy my story!

The City of Angels

In other news, I am prepping for a trip to Los Angeles. I'll be flying out of DFW Sunday afternoon returning Wednesday afternoon.

There's a training class out there that I am going to be in on Monday and Tuesday. I wonder if any of you fellow bloggers have ever been there and could give me some tips on places to go or see. My class will be over by 5pm both days, so I'll have some daylight left to do sightseeing.

And, of course, I'll be thinking of you all while I am enjoying the sunny Southern California weather.

Laptop + Hard Floor = Problems

I'm still working on that "Remember When..." post that I was telling you about. I'm going to need some props, and I'm considering waiting until Jeffrey gets here so that he can help me with it.

Anyway, last night I was working at the kitchen table trying to help a coworker resolve an issue at the office. The next thing I new, it was 6:50pm. Since softball practice had been cancelled, I had agreed to watch NCIS with Leah at 7:00pm. I had to move upstairs.

I grabbed the laptop, cords, bag, etc. and headed up the stairs. All was well until I got to the top. I found a toy that had been left out, and my laptop slipped from my hand. The world seemed to move in slow motion as I watched the machine tumble through the air to the ground. Really, it only fell the 2 feet from my hand to the floor not all the way back to the first floor, but it must've landed just right (or wrong depending on your perspective) and the screen got busted.

Here's a pic I just took with my phone.

I know that it's not as a great of a photo as what you can do, Mel, but I'm working with a cell phone, so cut me some slack. :) Anyway, you can see in the top left of the screen that some of the icons are still visible, but the rest of it is gone. Dell is supposed to replace it tomorrow or the next day, so until then, I'm running on a separate monitor.

Now that I'm over being sad, it kind of reminds me of that sandscape (I guess that's what it was called) deal that we used to play with at Maw-Maw's. Does anyone else remember that? It was two oval shaped pieces of plastic with colored sand and some sort of liquid between them. You could flip it and rotate it to make all sorts of crazy images. I can't find anything that looks exactly like the one Maw-Maw had, but this is close enough to maybe jog your memory.

Let me know if you remember playing with this thing, and of course, please send "get well soon" cards to the XPS. :)

Busy, Busy, Busy

I know it's been a while since my last post. I've been terribly busy, but I'm working on a new "Remember when..." post that you are all going to love.

Anyway, what's been going on in Sachse?

We're gone almost every night to the church or the ballpark. When Reagan is not practicing, Abbie is, and they are both playing games all the time. Kris, Abbie's coach, has been half-heartedly trying to talk me into coaching or joining the board. At the very least she's encouraging me to go to umpire school. I think she figures that if I can learn all of the rules I'll be more interested in coaching. I'm really considering it, but my big hang-up is how to handle multiple children in softball at different age levels. I can't coach them all, and I don't want any of them to feel left out. One of my friends only coaches one of his kids because he's the only one that's interested in having Dad as a coach; maybe the same thing will work out for my girls. Of couse, Kris, on the other hand, coaches 3 different teams, so if my work schedule could slow down, maybe I would go that direction. Who knows?

At the church, we are in the middle of a six-week unit that I am producing and teaching for our 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade kids. For the producer role, I have to be there when my other teacher is on and make sure that things are going well and moving along correctly. Since we keep the kids in one big room for the entire hour, it's important that elements move along quickly to keep their attention. In the teacher role, I am on stage for about half an hour (total, not at once) guiding the kids through the service, and presenting the lesson while I spend the rest of the time trying to do the producer role. I'm working on finding another teacher for my team so that I will only have one role. Anyone interested?

Also, we are preparing for VBX. At most churhces, it's VBS, but we don't like to send the kids to "school" in the summer, so we do Vacation Bible eXtreme. Leah is in charge of this for the 4th year in a row (since she got it reinstated at our church) and her team of workers is preparing for the largest turnout yet. I'll be the emcee for VBX again this year, so I'm helping finish up our drama scripts and we're doing tryouts for the rest of the drama team tomorrow. It's going to be pretty cool. We've even received clearance to take over "big church" the weekend before VBX starts and run the entire service. I volunteered to deliver the sermon, but they decided to go with someone that won't be in a crazy costume. Go figure!

Finally, work is just nuts. We've got some new products in development that we think will really change our industry, and Cade is trying to keep me involved in the up-front sales piece of that. I'm really interested in this because it's totally new, and you all know how much I like to learn. I think it's going to be interesting to go through this entire proces of developing a product, marketing it, generating momentum, getting sales, and finally sustaining clients. Of couse, a part of this is going to require me to be on the road. I just hope that we get to go somewhere more interesting than NE (that was my most frequent trip last year).

I haven't even started in about the stuff we do in our spare time: TV watching, fishing with the girls, golf balls at the range (because I don't have time for a full game right now), etc. Anyway, I know all of this is nothing compared to what a stay-at-home mom that has all day to post comments about my delay in blogging has to go through I mean at least I didn't have to go to the grocery store, too, but maybe it will help you understand a little better why I've been absent for a few days.

P.S. Love ya, Mel! :)

Century Oak

You knew that I was going to figure out a way to get more A&M icons on this site. Just so you all know, the picture in my header now is a shot from under the Century Oak that I'm borrowing from the Texas A&M website. I don't know the person sitting on the bench, but it looks to me like they are pondering some profound bit of wisdom posted on the Michael Musings blog.

Seriously, that is the same bench where Leah sat when I proposed to her. According to tradition, marriages that are started under this tree will last as long as a the tree has. Over ten years later I'd say...so far, so good.

From the Texas A&M website:
"The Century Oak, located in the heart of campus near the Academic Building, is a place many Aggies choose to propose marriage. Well more than 100 years of age, the tree, a live oak, was one of the first trees planted on Texas A&M’s massive 5,200-acre campus. In addition to the historic oak, there are between 25,000 to 30,000 trees on Texas A&M land, which occupies much of Brazos County. They include such types as the Kentucky Coffee, the Jerusalem Thorn, the Western Soapberry, the Kawakami Pear, the Chinese Pistache, the Carolina Laurel and the Afghan Pine. Complementing the trees, some 150,000 plants are grown each year to beautify the campus. "

Stand Here and Don't Move...

If you didn't already know, today is Jeffrey's birthday. I thought it would be cool to do a post in his honor to remember the occasion, so as he would say: Do you remember when....

When we were kids and Papa was still working, we had access to all kinds of cool things that were removed from emergency room guests. We got keychains, patches, rings, knives, and the occasional Chinese throwing star. As a matter of fact, I happened on this picture of one that is a copy of the exact one I got from Papa's stash.

Now, as I posted earlier, pretty much all of the male children born between '74 and '80 wanted to grow up to be ninja. Which ties in nicely with Jeffrey's profile question and explains why we wanted to get to China in the first place. Anyway, after watching tons of Chuck Norris movies, all of the episodes of "The Master", the movie American Ninja, and anything else we could get our hands on, we were pretty good at choreographed fighting. We needed to be ready for the real world, though, and that meant weapons training.

With my trusty apprentice at my side, I staged a scene for practicing my accuracy with throwing stars. I had already been throwing the thing into the sheetrock in my closet (behind the clothes so Mom wouldn't see) for months. I was ready.

My apprentice took his place. Idiot. And I took my throwing star. Moron. I said, "Jeff, don't move," and I threw the star into the sheetrock beside him. Two wrongs didn't make a right, but at least they didn't make an emergency room visit either.

After all the stupid things that we did together (and that I did to Jeffrey), I'm certainly glad that we can still celebrate his birthday.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, bro!!

NewsGator

I don't know about you, but with so many people online with blogs I've got a lot of pages that I check daily for updates. Of those, a few are sometimes disappointing, but I hate to not check on the chance that Jeffrey or John has posted some new pearl of wisdom. To help with this issue, I started digging around in the Blogger help files and came across NewsGator.

I signed up today for this free service, and it's pretty cool. I've got everyone's blog listed, so now I can just login here and each blog will indicate whether there are new posts or not. Of course, everything was "new" when I first set it up, so I marked everything as read and now any new posts that someone puts out will show here so that I don't have to keep going to Jeff's blog and seeing the same thing over and over again. If you want to get to the actual blog site to post a comment or check comments, the site provides a direct link that opens a new browser window, too. It's very versatile.

If you want to be sure that your site is publishing information about when new posts are made, check under settings/site feed and make sure that "publish site feed" is set to "yes." You'll also see on that page the URL for your publication. Mine is http://michael-musings.blogspot.com/atom.xml, and everyone else's follows the same naming convention. It's this address that you would need to put into NewsGator for it to get publication info.

I hope that you find this helpful. Shoot me an email or post a comment if you have any questions.

Papa Says...

As Jeffrey would say: Do you remember when...

Do you remember when you were still young enough to believe everything Papa said was gospel truth? I sure do, and the older I get and the more children I have the more I realize how much of it really is true. But I've also come to learn that some of it was just made up for his own enjoyment. He could get us to do almost anything as long as we believed every word. And folks, I'm here to tell you that he didn't stop with my generation.

My kids spent a weekend with Mom not too long back while Leah and I enjoyed a break for our 10th wedding anniversary, and I suppose that Emma Joi must have spent some quality time with Papa during that weekend. Apparently, he let her dip into his pool of wisdom while sitting on his "drawing board" (his dinner tray). I don't know why it's taken so long for it to come to her mind, but just this week she's been sharing all of the pearls of wisdom that Papa shared while she was there. Some of them sound like good advice that he would give, some sound like silly advice that he would give, and the best part is that some of them sound like things she just made up and wants us to believe that he said because, obviously, if Papa said it, it must be true. Oh, to be that young and naive again. :)

Anyway, I thought that you would enjoy some of the great things that she has shared with us:

While eating dinner: Papa says that you always stay sitting while eating.

While in the car: Papa says that you never get out of your seat while driving, Momma. (BTW, Leah was not out of her seat; I think Emma just wanted to make sure she knew)

While getting dressed to go play: Papa says that you always wear shoes to play.

While playing: Papa says that you always play until you're tired.

While petting the dog: Papa says that Lucky needs to be nice.

You get the idea.

I think it's fun, but I also think it's awesome for Emma Joi to know her great grandfather so well that she can look up to him in this way, and I hope that she is always young enough to believe every word he says.

Well, maybe not every word...

It's Hard Being Me

I don't know what's going on with the colors in this graphic. It didn't look like this when I opened the file on my desktop. Anyway, you knew I was going to figure out a way to get an Aggie icon on my site at some point, and trust me, there are plenty more in store for the future. That's not the point of this post, though.

You all know me fairly well, so I know that it is going to come as a surprise to you when I tell you that I have a few opinions on how things should be done. And I'm sure that most of you (except Caci) will agree that I don't share my opinion unless I'm relatively sure that I know what I'm talking about. Of course, being like my mother and grandfather and most of the rest of my family, I know that my way is better (I won't even go into the issues that arise when everyone your related is "right"; you all know what that's like), so I also have this issue with sitting around watching things go wrong.

Now, one of the things about our family is that we all know how to play baseball and softball. Some of us have great talent for the game and some of us don't; some of us really enjoy playing the game and some of us don't, but we all understand it. We all know the rules from a young age. We've all been drilled on what to do when the ball is hit so many times that we almost feel like we were born with the knowledge, and when we watch our kids practice or play and they're not learning how to play their position correctly we get frustrated. So I'm justified because you would all do the same thing in my shoes.

Reagan's team has some girls that could be really good ball players. They have several great batters and a few really good fielders. So why can't they figure out what to do with the ball when they are playing defense? As I watched their practices, I started to realize that most of the girls have no idea what their position does. They don't know where to stand; they don't know where to move when the ball is hit; they don't know how to work different scenarios; and they don't know how to cover bases to protect against a steal. So, at the last practice, I suggested to the coach that she work with them on these things, and she started to.

In her defense, though, our pitcher really needed some one-on-one work so the coach took her to the side to help with that. The assistant coach was pitching batting practice, and the girls in the field were mostly goofing off. Kind of like that photo of Andy on the Hatcher blog. I just had to help. This was Tuesday, and we're playing one of the best teams of the season tonight. We just can't go out on the field looking like we don't know what's going on, so I grabbed my glove and asked the assistant if he wanted some help shagging balls. He agreed.

Yes! I was on the field. My Templin genes kicked in, and I started moving the girls into their correct positions. We started talking about what to do when the ball was hit: where to move, where to throw, what to do with runners on base, etc. It wasn't enough to teach habits, but it's a start. I'm not sure how we'll do tonight, but I hope that they remember a little bit of what we talked about Tuesday night.

By the way, after practice, the coach, assistant and I all talked about the practice and that it had worked well to have someone else available to help, so don't be picturing me as mean and arrogant. I only do that to Caci. I was just helpful.

Wax On....Wax Off

During 180 (high school group at church) last night we watched a clip of Karate Kid. You all remember the scene where Daniel gets fed up with doing all of Mr. Miyagi's chores and starts yelling about how he's supposed to be learning karate. Then Mr. Miyagi asks Daniel to show him wax on and wax off. At the end of the scene Daniel is left amazed that he's been training his body to do all of these martial arts moves and not realizing it. In case you're concerned, we did tie the clip to a theological point, but that's beside the point of this post.

I only had four guys there last night, and after we broke into small groups, two of them started talking about how they do martial arts and how Karate Kid was all wrong, blah, blah, blah. Now, I know Jeffrey and John are going to agree with me here: Karate Kid and anything with Chuck Norris in it are gospel for young ninjas in training. And these guys were talking smack about wax on, wax off, paint the fence, paint the house, sand the floor, and the crane kick which we all know is unstoppable when done correctly. It was time for them to put their money where their mouth is.

I said, "Hey, if you're a martial arts expert, let's see some moves. We can do a little demo right here." The two who had been talking about their training gladly agreed, but the other two weren't so sure about being the crash dummies. They said something to me along the lines of, "This was your bright idea, you be the punching bag." So, went to the center of the room.

The first guy wanted to show us some Aikido. That's the martial art that Steven Segal mostly uses, if you didn't already know, and it's a combination of hand locks and throws. Anyway, he asked me to grab him from behind with one arm and grab his wrist with the other. I'm still not sure why I wanted to grab his wrist because I'm thinking that in a dark alley I'd rather be grabbing his wallet, but this was a demo so I played along. He got out of the hold and pushed me around the room....sort of. He kind of forgot, actually, how to really do the technique.

Next guy decided that he'd show us a cool throw that he had learned. Now, please note that I had not shared with them my experience with Judo. Again, he staged the scene, I grab his shirt and arm from the front in a classic Judo grip and he executed a poor attempt at a hip throw that left him straining to get me over and left me standing. It was difficult to forget my training, and when he tried again I "accidentally" pivoted on the balls of my feet and turned his momentum into a leg throw in my favor. Whoops! He was on his back.

It was right about this moment that they became suspicious that maybe I had done more than just study under Mr. Miyagi and Master Norris, and I confessed to watching a few Steven Segal and Jackie Chan movies and sneaking in a couple of Big Trouble in Little China viewings: "It's all in the reflexes."

Not really. I told them about my Judo training, and I told them that next time they should let me fight back and we'd see what they were really made of. If they still beat me up, then I'll introduce them to the wrath of my ninja brotherhood, or at least to my two brothers, the Tae Kwon Do masters.