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.

The Girls of Summer

Just a quick post for today. Softball season officially started last night with Reagan and Abbie both playing their first games, and we're all pretty tired this morning.

Abbie's team, TNT, won their game (3-2), but there was a little confusion toward the end. The games are timed, and they have a rule at her age about not starting another inning within 5 minutes of the time running out or something like that. So even though we were ahead, when the home team finished their last at bat with 4 minutes left on the clock, the game was called. All of our girls got ready to go shake hands with the other team when our coach was called to the mound for a conference with the other coach and the ump. Shortly after our girls took the field again.

When the coach came back over, I asked what had just happened. I thought we had just one the game. She said that the other coach recognized that we had won, but hadn't been able to bat her whole lineup during the game, so she wanted to use the last few minutes to let them have a chance at the plate. "So, we're just being nice?" I asked, and the response is why all of us Templins would love this coach: "I'm not really all that nice when it comes to winning, but I didn't want to hear her whine about this all season."

Reagan's game was a little more exciting. Her team is the Reds, and for her first game out they got to play the Pink Flamingoes (at least that's what I'm calling them). The interesting thing is that most of the opposing team was the girls from Reagan's cheer squad. The other wild card for the night is that we discovered that the girls can steal bases at this age. No lead offs, but they can steal after the pitches releases the ball. Now, I don't know if our coach knew that or not, but I can tell you that we didn't practice for it, Reagan didn't know, and none of the parents knew until the first kid from the Flamingoes got on first and stole second. Uh oh!

They walked and stole their way around for 5 runs in the first inning and that ended that half-inning with the 5 run rule. Our team came out with a better hitting lineup, and pounded the ball back to them to bring around a few runs ourselves.

Next inning we changed out pitchers and had started having success with strike outs, and pretty soon our team really started coming together. It was 9-9 with less than a minute to play, and at this age they keep starting innings until the time runs out (and of course home team, which was us, always gets last bat). We went ahead and took a third out to get another inning of play and brought the Flamingoes back to the plate. They managed 3 runs and then we were up again. It didn't work out so well for us. We brought a couple of girls around to 2nd and 3rd, but we couldn't bring anyone home. Final score: 12-9.

A New Fashion Trend?

Perhaps inspired by Peyton's fun with Photoshop, Sydney decided to do a little makeover of her own today. Just thought you would all like to see what I got to come home to today.

BTW, that's Sharpie ink, so it'll be with us a for a while.

Advanced 6th Graders

Nearly every day Reagan or Abbie asks if they can get on the computer. Generally, they spend their time browsing the Barbie website and imaging new outfits, hairdos, love notes, or whatever else Barbie enjoys, but sometimes they want to make something all their own. Reagan does this more than Abbie, and Reagan loves to make things in PowerPoint. Now I'm a pretty computer savvy guy, and I can tell you that I am impressed when I see some of the things Reagan "makes up" on the computer. She'll have moving images timed to music dancing around the screen telling us how much she loves something. It's all girly, but it's also impressive.

Now keeping that in mind, imagine my frustration when a grown man can't figure out how to type a simple message in a blog comment. How hard could this really be? And no, I'm not talking about Jeffrey.

After reading yesterday's toothpaste entry, Dad wanted to post a comment. He went right in and typed everything up, hit publish, and was told that my blog doesn't allow anonymous comments. Of course he got me on AIM immediately to see what was the deal, and I explained that he needed a login.

He went through the process and got his login setup, and after checking on whether or not this was like a "CB" he chose "Mike" as his display name. After I racked my memory and recalled that CB's were the cell phones of the 70s, I suggested that he make his display name "double nickels" (that's CB lingo for "55mph" if you're in Megan's cousins age group) and it could double as his age in a couple of years. He didn't think that was nearly as funny as most of you do right now. :)

On with the story, though. So he gets his username setup and goes back to my blog where he retypes his comment. Then he tells me to go read it. Remember that I'm at work during all of this, so I didn't go out there immediately, I just figured I'd read it when the system emailed it to me, and shortly after I got an email notification of a comment. It was Melissa, though, not Dad. I started thinking something was amiss, so I actually went out to my blog to check. There was no comment there from Dad either, but he had asked me to read about five minutes earlier.

I got back on AIM and told him that I couldn't see a post from him. Was he sure that he had posted one? He wrote back...."do I have to push the publish button for you to see it?" Now didn't he already do that once back at the beginning of this story? Regardless, he finally got his comment posted, but the story doesn't end there. And I'm not even going into the "<lol>" issue, but I'm sure Dad's wondering how I got that to print.

Anyway, since he now had a login, he decided that he wanted to go ahead and have his own blog. He went through the whole process, and then contacted me on AIM again. "How do I put a link to your page on my blog?"

I asked if he had any sample links on his page and he started talking some crazy stuff about link colors. I said, "Just go to your blog site and tell me if you have a sample link to Google." Same crazy talk in response.

"Okay, let's do this a different way. Go to your dashboard."

"My dashboard? Don't I need to be at my computer to do this? I can't do it from the car."

"Yes, you need to be at your computer. Go to your blog dashboard." It took a bit, but he finally found it. I told him next to click on settings (the gear icon) and then to go to the template tab. He missed the part about the template tab and clicked settings and then the settings tab. We went round and round for several minutes about there not being any HTML code on the page when I finally told him to just call me on the phone.

We got this figured out, and he made it to the template tab. Now I just had to help him find his sample links that may or may not exist since we still hadn't see his actual blog. We found them. He complained about how "normal" people couldn't do this correctly. I quietly agreed that it took at least an Advanced 6th Grader.

He added our links, we published the blog, he got an error. What had gone wrong?? Something had been deleted during his changing of the sample links. How hard can it be to cut and paste? Apparently, it can be pretty difficult.

Finally, we got the links piece taken care of, and it was time for me to head home. We'd been at this for nearly an hour. On my way home, I called Caci to see how things were going. She asked me to hang on for a sec while finished talking with Dad. When she got back on the line she told me that she had just been trying (with little success) to help him fill out his profile information for his blog. Perhaps she'll post the details of that event for us all to enjoy.

Last thing: Before you even post a comment, Dad, I know that I may not have recalled some of the details exactly right, but as you always say, "My version is better."

Are My Teeth Clean?

After reading the recent posts on A. Patti's blog and on Windy's blog, I just have to bring back a memory for my childhood. While their's are stories of accidental mixtures, mine is a tale of evil genius. Well, maybe the genius part is a little generous. Decide for yourselves....

It all happened back when I was about 9 years old. That would mean Caci was probably 8, and Jeffrey was 5. Back then, Caci, Jeffrey, and I all shared the same bathroom, and we were all responsible for helping to keep it clean; maybe that was the motive. Who knows. Anyway, on the evening in question, Caci and I were instructed to go brush our teeth before bed. Just like any other night, we obeyed without question or talking back (we were the "good" kids).

As we started brushing, we both thought that the toothpaste tasted a little funny. What made it even stranger was that the tube appeared to be brand new. And of course, the suds were insane. This new toothpaste was really not going to work.

We started trying to complain to Mom who happened to also be in the room, and she just said, "Keep brushing. Your teeth can't be clean yet. The suds just means it's working."

Holding back our gag reflex we continued on. Suds like crazy. Terrible taste. What was the deal? Mom finally clued in that something was amiss when the foaming around our mouths approached levels normally only seen among rabid animals, and what do you think she did?

Of course! She asked Caci and I what we did to the toothpaste! What we did? Was she serious? Maybe we intentionally sabotaged the toothpaste so that we'd never have to brush our teeth again, and to make her feel bad we decided to use the poison on ourselves. Surely she could get us to the emergency room quickly enough to keep us from danger. Yes, our plan had been foiled. NOT!!

Caci and I were not fooled by the circumstances. It was not the first time that strange events had occurred since that little imp had been born. We blamed it on Jeffrey!

Jeffrey just smiled and explained to Mom that the toothpaste tube was really dirty. So he washed it. With soap. And then he had noticed that it was getting a little empty. So he refilled it. You guessed it. With soap from that handy-dandy refiller (the hand soap container). He just stuck the end in the tube and squirted until it was full.

Caci and I are nervous to this day about using any white toothpaste. The only way to be sure, if you ask me, is to get a colored gel.

Meet the Family

I know that most of you have already met the family, but some of you haven't seen us in a while. Here's our most recent family photo. Of course, I'm in the center, the one guy in that sea of females. Reagan (9) is in the top left, Abbie (7) is in the top right, Emma Joi (3) is in the lower left, and Sydney (2 now, but this was just before her b-day) is in Leah's lap.

Reagan and Abbie are both playing fast pitch softball this season. Abbie played in the fall, and Reagan was doing cheerleading at the time. After watching Abbie play, though, Reagan decided that she wanted in, too. It's a little frustrating for me right now because they still want to dodge the ball rather than actually catch it, but they are getting better every day. Their season starts this week, so we're all excited to see how they do in an actual game.

Emma and Sydney still stay at home with Mom. They spend most of their time watching The Wiggles or Dora the Explorer, playing with their baby dolls, and chasing the dog around the house. They are both a load of fun!

Leah is still working at the church. She is the Director of Outreach. Right now we are planning our upcoming VBS week, and I am wondering what kind of crazy outfit they'll want to put on me. I'll be the emcee for the week, and I'm sure that her team will want me wearing something that gets the kids attention. Last year we had a circus theme, so I was a juggling clown. There might be pictures of that floating around somewhere, but you won't be seeing them here anytime soon.

Finally, I'm still at Ecom. Late last year I was talking about leaving here and going into business with some friends of mine, but some issues came up that caused Leah and I to reconsider that choice. It was in the last few days before my actual resignation, so I talked with Cade (Ecom's owner) and they graciously allowed me to retract my resignation letter. I'll probably be here for a little while longer.

Charlie Daniels of the torque wrench

One of the things that I do in my spare time is volunteer with the high school kids at our church. We call the group 180, and I have a small group of about 10 freshmen guys that I'm connected with. It's really one of the few times in my week that I get to act like a boy, so it's great fun.

Last night we decided as a group to walk over the Taco Bell near the church to hang out a little. While there, the freshmen took the conversation to "The Talk," and if you don't know what I mean then a) you've never been around a high school guy or b) you're not old enough to know, and I'm not going to tell you. Anyway, most of these guys have no volume control and although the conversation was not graphic, the one other guy sharing the dining area with us had to know what was going on at our table, so when he walked over most of my group tried to hide under the table assuming that he was going to reprimand them for the subject matter.

In a surprising turn of events, though, he smiled weakly and asked, "Do you have a torque wrench?"

What? You want to borrow my torque wrench? At Taco Bell?

I politely informed him that I did not have one with me. Assuming that it's polite to talk while trying to stifle a laugh.

At this he responded by describing a torque wrench. Like maybe I wasn't sure what he was talking about, and if he just explained it to me I would say, "Oh, one of those. I've got one right here on my key ring for emergencies."

Again I let him know that I was familiar with the tool, and I was sure that I did not have one.

"You can borrow tools from Auto Zone," he said. Did this guy think I needed a torque wrench? Who started this conversation anyway? I just smiled and said that information would be useful the next time I needed a tool.

"It's getting kind of dark outside. It'll be hard to see what you're working on soon." Where's this guy going with the conversation? Is he trying to ask me to do something for him? Does he think we walked to Taco Bell because our vehicle broke down?

No. Nothing that simple, my friends. "Can you tell me how to get to Auto Zone from here?" All of that just to ask directions. You'd be proud of me for not replying, "In a car," I was trying to set an example for high schoolers after all.

The Wait is Over

So, here's my first blog entry. I've enjoyed reading the blogs of my family members so much that I can't let my corner of the family be the only one out of the loop. I'm a technology professional after all. How embarrassing is it that my younger siblings got into this before me?

Just because my brother can't figure out spell check and my sister says she can't find the time is of little comfort when you consider the fact that they were still on here first. Of course, I like to think it's more like the old Heinz commercials: "The best things come to those who wait."

To all of you...my family, my friends, my fans, the relentless paparazzi, and even that weird stalker chic from elementary school (and middle school and high school and the other day at McDonald's)...the wait is over. Michael is here!