Deep Thoughts by KK

Simple Pleasures

2009-08-24T00:55:00.000-07:00

I have been trying to take joy in the ‘simple pleasures’ recently. Rather than get caught up in the bigger-faster-better-more high tech-never-be-really satisfied kind of lifestyle that much of our world has been caught up with for too long, I have tried to find the little things that maybe we have taken for granted for too long.

One example of this was in the shower recently. I stood there, feeling the warm (nearly too hot, really) water cascading down my body and realized I really like a warm shower. And I like water coming out of a tap that is above head height, not having to stoop down and take water in scoops from a bucket or crane my head down to fit under a too low shower head. Our new house offers this lovely treat. A standing up, warm shower with no fear of running out of water. A simple pleasure.

Another example was a bike ride with my son the other day. We got him a new bike as a present for his birthday. He had clearly outgrown his first one. This new one is a little too big, but he was up to the challenge of trying to ride this around our new neighborhood. I really enjoyed the simple pleasure of a bike ride around the neighborhood with my son. His giggling at all kinds of random things, including nearly riding his new bike through a big ‘ol pile of water buffalo poo, but mostly at the simple joy of riding his new bike, made me laugh and smile too. A simple pleasure.

One final example came in the form of a dinner with some new friends who recently moved here from another country. They are not from our same home culture, but we really enjoyed a time of eating a delicious meal they provided for us, followed by some simple conversation around the table. A good meal with friend. A simple pleasure.

What about you? What simple pleasure(s) have you enjoyed recently?

What a trip!

2009-08-10T23:05:00.001-07:00

I recently returned from a trip to the US. I have made more of those trips than I care to count over the last 11 years. Often I find myself going through the motions of the trip (airports, rental cars, hotels, Immigration, Customs, etc.) largely without thinking too much about the process itself. This trip home reminded me of how spoiled I have become when it comes to my treatment by the airlines.

I have typically flown one airline and its partners almost exclusively, and due to my high mileage travel patterns, I have been in the top tiers of their frequent flier program for most of the last ten years. Recently that airline stopped flying direct in to our home city, so we made the decision to change our ‘allegiance’ to a different carrier. That means becoming a ‘no-one’ for now until I build up my status with them. I felt the full force of this on my trip home.

I flew standby on an earlier flight for the first of my three flights to get home. That apparently is where it all began to go wrong. Somehow my subsequent flights got goobered up and I ended up being standby on one of the two long-haul international flights as well. After getting all of that sorted out (and being treated not as nicely as I used to be treated by my previous airline of choice), I was given a seat assignment for my first long flight, but told I would have to check in for the second one upon arrival in the transit city.

On the first 9 hour flight I was given a bulkhead seat near the front of the economy section. The seat map I was shown indicated it was right at the entry door, so there was no actual bulkhead, which turned out not to be true. There was a bulkhead, and my legroom was almost nothing as a result. A 9 hour flight with my knees in a nearly 90 degree position, which is terribly difficult for me to do after my numerous knee surgeries.

On the second 9 hour flight I was given an aisle seat near the back of the economy section – second row from the back to be exact. It has been literally years since I was not in the first 5-7 rows of the economy section, so this was an adjustment. At first I was ok with it since it was an aisle and not a bulkhead seat. I was looking forward to more legroom. That would change when I got to the seat and realized that the computer and control systems for the in-seat video system was all in a box located in the foot space for my seat. I had just barely room for my right leg under the seat in front of me, with no room to put my left leg anywhere but again in a 90 degree position for the whole flight. My knees were killing me by the time I got off that plane.

To add insult to injury, both meals served on the second 9 hour flight were ‘leftovers’ since the flight was full and they had run out of not only selections, but in one case they had run out of the entrée part too. We were being fed scraps they pulled together to try to create something that looked like a meal.

A final whack to my reality check was given when I realized that my video/sound controls for my seat were not working, thereby rendering the entertainment system useless to me – the same one whose control systems were blocking my leg room.

Now all of this sounds like a rant thus far. I don’t intend it to be so. In fact, this trip has caused me to reflect on the fact that I have in reality been quite blessed over the years with quite good treatment and some very good luck.

There were a couple of redeeming qualities to the trip as well. I made all my connections, and all my luggage arrived safely and in a relatively timely manner. I met the son of a friend of mine who was travelling on the second and third flights with me and had a chance to get to know him a bit more, including over a meal in Frankfurt on a layover. There was a woman and her very young son who were sitting next to me on the last flight, and the son was amazingly well behaved. As a parent of young travelers and someone who is keenly aware of how my own kids behave on flights, I made sure to tell her what a great job her son had done (and thereby her as a parent) on the trip. The process of getting through the health screening (for H1N1) and Immigration and customs went much faster than expected upon arrival, especially considering starting out at the very back of long lines for those processes.

All in all, I realize I need to be thankful for the blessings I have had over the last number of years. This trip reminded me that all of those trips could have been worse.

The Tooth Fairy

2009-01-03T07:01:00.000-08:00

In the last week the Tooth Fairy has visited our house twice. Our son has lost his 5th and 6th teeth, both within a 3 day span. Both front, top teeth. They both had been loose for some time now, so it was definitely time for them to come out. He missed by days being able to sing the old song ‘All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth’.

He is not quite sure how the whole Tooth Fairy thing works, and has tried to explain it in a number of ways. The thing I have noticed is that they have such simple faith. Simple not in the believing anything they are told kind of way, but simple in the ‘this is how we have seen it work, so we believe that is what is really happening’ kind of way.

A few days ago when the first one came out, I helped him wrap the tooth in a Kleenex and carefully place it under his pillow. The Kleenex is to keep it safe and clean I explained, when it fact it really helps me find it in the dark under his pillow once he goes to sleep.

This particular night he got in to bed and about 10 minutes later he got up needing to go potty once more. While he was in the bathroom I made the switch of cash for tooth, hoping he would not check on the tooth when he returned to his bed. He didn’t, and went right to sleep.

The best part is always the next morning when, in wide-eyed wonder, he comes out so excitedly displaying the results of the magic of the Tooth Fairy’s visit.

Some would say we do a disservice to our kids by ‘tricking’ them in ways like this. I don’t think so. While I won’t say it is necessarily meritorious to do such things, I don’t think it is a negative thing. As I reflected on this experience, I began to ponder how God might view us. Does he see us as simple-faithed people who continue to believe Him because of how He has acted in the past? Or are we people who are easily ‘tricked’ by someone/something that is beyond our knowledge? I also pondered on how we as parents do many things for/to our kids that they simply don’t understand or see. In the same way, what things does God do to/for us that we simply don’t see or understand?

A few tricks left in this old dog

2008-12-25T17:03:00.000-08:00

I am glad Christmas is over. Not because of any bad reason. For good reasons in fact. I had planned several surprises for my wife and kids over the season. Sometimes it is hard for me to keep things a surprise. I find myself itching to let someone else in on the surprise. I just want so badly to see the look on someone’s face when they realize the surprise. I love that part. But, I managed to pull off all of my surprises this year without spoiling any of them. One of my favorites was on Christmas Eve.

My wife had been in the US with her mom for two weeks and was due to come home very early Christmas morning. We had agreed that she would take a taxi home from the airport so the kids could sleep peacefully. We had the kids geared up for seeing mommy in the morning too. All expectations were set.

Just before bed time, while the kids were in taking a ‘tub-bath’, having had their dinner and then decorated the World’s Biggest Christmas Tree-shaped Sugar Cookies we had made earlier in the day as a surprise for mommy when she got home, I quietly slipped in to their bedroom and placed a ‘golden ticket’ on each of their pillows. I had made these tickets earlier in the week and kept them hidden from the kids. They said “Christmas Airport Express” on the top and had the kids name on each one with a few departure details, etc.

Once we had done the advent calendar I explained that they both needed to go to bed at the same time (normally one goes and then the other an hour or so later) so that they both had good sleep and would be ready to be happy for Christmas morning with mommy. They both agreed and headed in to the bedroom.

The girl saw the boy’s ticket first and asked what it was. The boy read the ticket and his eyes began to widen. I asked what they thought we should do with the ticket and his reply was ‘We should go to the airport and pick up mommy!” Then the girl turned and saw her ticket on her pillow, and there was much jumping and shouts of joy.

They both went off to bed easily after my assurance that I would wake them when it was time to leave for the airport. At 12:30 am I woke them up and told them to get dressed in clothes I had laid out for them, which they did quickly. We headed down to the car. Once in the car, I asked for their tickets, and made a big production out of ‘punching’ their tickets, having taken a cue from the character in the Polar Express movie. And off we went.

On arrival at the airport, we stopped in to McDonalds (there are two at our airport here) for fries while we waited for mommy to arrive. We then headed to the door nearest where she would come out and ate fries and waited excitedly. As the time for her arrival neared, I handed each of the kids a sign to hold, sort of like when a taxi or chauffeur is waiting for you at the airport with a sign with your name on it. The kids’ signs said ‘Mommy’ in big letters and my sign said ‘Wife’ in big letters.

She had no idea we would be there, so when she rounded the corner and saw the three of us standing with our signs, a big smile and laugh followed. As she neared the exit the kids went and hugged her. A truly fun moment. As we walked the kids told her the story of the ‘golden tickets’ and the trip to the airport.

We pushed the luggage cart (that we knew was full of fun goodies for all of us that she had brought home from America with her) to the car and got in. Before we left I asked the kids for their tickets again, and ‘punched’ them once more. I then asked my wife for her ticket. She said she did not have one. “Check your pockets” I said (just like the Polar Express character again). While pushing the luggage cart I had secretly placed a ‘golden ticket’ in her purse. She found the ticket, and the kids were amazed that mommy got a ‘golden ticket’ too. I punched her ticket and we all headed for home.

It was a simple idea. Take the kids to the airport to get mommy. It was made all the more fun for a few surprises like ‘golden tickets’ and so on. All easy enough to do, and cost almost nothing. Just a little creativity, planning and forethought. I love pulling off surprises. There were a few other surprises too, but those will have to wait for another time.

So what about you? Any surprises this Christmas season?

12

2008-12-06T00:00:00.000-08:00

Today the number 12 is important. Why? Here are twelve 12s about me.

-Leah and I have been married for 12 years as of today.
-We were married in the 12th month of the year.
-Our kids’ combined ages total 12 years (7 and 5).
-I have been to approx 12% of the world (according to my Facebook gizmo)
-We have 12 employees in our company here.
-We as a company are working on 12 different projects right now.
-I have a car with a 12 volt battery in it.
-If you add the numbers on the license plate of our car (8547) and divide it by 2, you get 12.
-If you add up the numbers on the license plate of my motorcycle (9690) and divide it by 2, you also get 12.
-It was 12 years ago that we first came to this country to visit.
-I am not currently in any kind of 12 step program.
-I like Diet Coke, which comes in 12 ounce cans.

So there you have it. Twelve 12s about me. What about you? Any 12s in your life? Or another number?

What drives them?

2008-11-12T13:48:00.000-08:00

I saw something the other day the reminded me of one of the reasons we love, and at the same time dislike living in a place like South Asia. It can be a fascinating and yet confusing place.

I was sitting in the car waiting for my son to get dropped by his school bus. Every day we park by the side of the road in the same spot, waiting for him. Just ahead of where we wait is a moderately busy intersection where a traffic policeman is often standing and guiding traffic or catching offenders. While sitting there waiting I often take notice of various cultural things going on around me.

This particular day I noticed a number of people who were breaking laws with impunity. As an example, I will use motorcycle riders. Here there are helmet laws for the rider (passengers are apparently not worth saving), as well as limits of only two people per motorcycle, etc.

One bike pulled up right beside me and stopped. I noticed three guys riding on it. One deftly hopped off the back and began walking while his friends causally rode through the intersection, with the cop standing right there, and waited for their friend on the other side of the intersection. All three did not have helmets on. As soon as the friend got through the intersection he hopped back on the back of the bike with his other two friends and off they went, totally unnoticed by the cop. They were obviously more scared of triple-riding than of riding without helmets. Or perhaps the logic was if they were doing both they would get caught, but only breaking one law at a time was ok.

Another bike pulled up and stopped near the side of the car. This time there was only one person riding, but he did not have a helmet on. As he stopped, he casually reached down and grabbed the helmet sitting between his legs and on top of the gas tank and slipped it over his head and then proceeded through the intersection. Again, all of this done in plain view of the cop, but no action taken by him. As soon as the rider was through the intersection off came the helmet and he was on his unencumbered way.

This got me thinking. What is the value system that determines how these people behave? Safety does not seem to be the priority like it is for some cultures. And it does not seem to be guilt that drives them since they clearly knew they were doing something wrong (hence their stopping before the intersection to correct at least part of the wrongful behavior) but kept doing it anyways as soon as the immediate danger of the traffic cop was passed. Was it expedience? Avoidance of an awkward situation? Did they somehow know that the thing they were doing wrong would be excused if they appeared to be at least ‘trying’ to do the right thing? So many possibilities, and so little understanding of what drives them to do what they do.

Where did you learn how to ride a bike?

2008-11-03T20:54:00.000-08:00

Our son, aged 7, recently learned how to ride his bike sans training wheels. We had tried raising the training wheels up a little some months ago, but he has not ridden much in the last couple of months. The other day he decided he wanted to try riding without training wheels. We first tried raising them a bit more so he could try learning to balance, but still have the ‘safety’ of the training wheels to catch him. Within a few minutes he was riding all around on only the two main wheels, so off came the training wheels. It was literally minutes until he was riding all over on his two-wheeled bike, with a joy that knew no bounds. Incredible, really. It was like he simply decided that it was time, and knew he could do it.

However, this whole process made me realize one thing that was fundamentally different about my son’s bike riding learning process than most. Certainly different than my own. The big difference? He learned all of this on the roof of our house/apartment building, six floors up.

Now, before you freak out at the imminent danger we placed our son in while letting him ride on the roof of a 6 story building, let me clarify. We live in south Asia, where most buildings are made of cement and brick, and have flat roofs. Our apartment building has this, and the half of the building across from our apartment is known as a terrace. It is quite wide open and smooth and flat. And there is no animal or other traffic to contend with while learning to ride.

So, where did you learn how to ride a bike? On the top of a 6 story apartment building? I bet not. This is one of the many, many things we love about living here.

Culture, but which one

2008-10-10T20:53:00.000-07:00

Recently we were the recipients of Asian hospitality. This is the stuff of legends for some. We were in Singapore for a long weekend.

In preparation for our trip, we had asked a friend of ours who is from there if she had any recommendations for a cheap, safe and family-friendly place to stay. That set the wheels of Asian hospitality in motion.

A series of emails back and forth between friends of friends resulted in a chain of things being done for us that was so totally above what we expected (or deserved). The net result was an incredible 5 days, being spoiled rotten with home cooked meals, outings to restaurants, being driven all over the island, and having gifts given to us and our kids, etc. All of this by people we have basically never met before. Asian hospitality is truly amazing.

After thinking about it some, though, I was faced with a question. It is definitely an Asian culture thing to show incredible hospitality. But, what we were shown was so incredible. Some of it, we realized, was due to who we knew. Most of the people were doing these things because they knew someone we knew, and were doing these things as much for their friend as for us. All of these friends were like-minded in terms of faith. So, the question – was this an Asian culture thing, or a Christian culture thing? After some reflection, I tend to lean toward it being a combo of the two, with a strong portion of it being the latter, but don’t know for sure.

Is it wrong to play 'fetch' with your kids?

2008-09-28T21:33:00.000-07:00

My kids love to play outside. They also love to play various games while outside. Tennis in a favorite. Cricket as well. Sometimes we play other games like riding bikes in races, hide and seek, catch, etc.

The other day we were playing ‘tennis’. My son can hit the ball pretty well, and has reasonable control. My daughter can hit it if you toss it just right for her (read as toss the ball in to the face of the racket, timing the toss with her swing of the racket causing the ball to hit the racket, rather than the racket to hit the ball). When it was my turn to hit, the kids both went to return the ball to me. This quickly turned in to a competition to get the ball first, which quickly deteriorated in to me hitting the ball and them both going to ‘fetch’ it.

I play fetch with my dogs. Well, the one plays fetch, while the other one plays keep away. Playing fetch with my kids seems a little out of place, but they love it.

So is it wrong to play fetch with your kids?

Only a daddy

2008-09-28T21:25:00.000-07:00

This coming weekend our family is going to go to Singapore for a few days. Long boring story, but it relates to our visa status here. In preparation for this trip, we were planning what things we wanted to do over the weekend there. There is an aquarium there that is apparently quite nice, and one of the things you can do there is to ‘swim’ with dolphins. This is an educational thing where you learn about dolphins up close, and are allowed in to the water to some degree with them in the process of learning up close.

When I mentioned to the kids there was a place to swim with dolphins, they were very excited. They then took off on a story of how this would all work. Here is there version of events to come.

“Daddy will swim out in to the sea and try to find some dolphins. He has to learn to speak Dolphin in order to be able to convince the dolphins to come to the beach so we can play with them. If he sees a shark, he will have to swim ‘jet-fast’ to get away, and try to find a dolphin to help him. If a shark comes while he is riding on a dolphin, then the dolphin has to jump high, ‘cause they can jump higher than sharks to keep daddy safe.”

While the above plan seems sound to a 5 and 7 year old, there are several parts that are worrisome to me. 1) Swimming in to the open sea is a bit scary. I like swimming, but open water is a different kind of swimming than High School Swim Team. 2) Leaning to speak Dolphin is not going to be easy. There are likely not as many ‘Learn to Speak Dolphin in 30 Minutes’ courses as there are for other languages. 3) Sharks? Ummm, about that . . . . . . . . .

When asked why mommy can’t be the one to implement the above plan, the kids response was that only daddy’s can speak Dolphin. How silly of me. I should have known.

So, we will see how the weekend goes.

Criteria

2008-09-21T23:38:00.000-07:00

Let me ask a question. What criteria should one use to determine higher education opportunities for one’s children? Cost? Location? Socio-political leaning? Degrees offered? Religious affiliation? Reputation?

While all of those might be valid, let me add one that perhaps you had not thought of. Spelling. Allow me to elaborate.

The other day while sitting waiting for my son’s school bus to drop him off, I was noticing the signage on various vehicles passing by. At the time of day I sit and wait for him there are a significant number of buses going by from various educational institutions. Some technical schools, some primary education school, some colleges, etc.

While taking note of the various names and types of the institutions, I could not help but notice that several of the college buses had misspelled the word ‘college’ on the back or sides of their buses. Some were spelled ‘colleg’, others were spelled ‘colege’, and one other was ‘coolege’. That then begs the question, can a college that can’t spell college really be the best option for my child?

As humorous as it might be (especially if one’s own children are not studying in said institutions), perhaps before deciding on a college for one’s children to attend, take a walk around their buses (or their campus, etc.) and see if they spelled their words right.

2008-09-21T23:36:00.000-07:00

No apologies for not putting anything on here for so long. No excuses about being busy. No commitments to being more regular in posting. Just simply . . . . I am back . . . . . for now.

Another lesson learned

2008-06-25T23:41:00.000-07:00

So my son is a fast learner at times, especially when he determines he is interested in something. Yesterday was a good example.

This year for school he has ‘tie’ shoes, as opposed to the Velcro closures on last years’ shoes. He has actually only had a few pairs of tie shoes so far, and he never really learned how to tie them himself. That all changed . . . . . in one day . . . . . at school.

Clark came home last night from school and as we were outside playing soccer before dinner I pointed out that his shoe was untied. He looked at me with a sheepish grin and told me to watch him. He proceeded to bend down and with a fair amount of concentrated effort, tied his own shoe. He stood up and said ‘Didn’t I do a good job, daddy?’

I wholeheartedly congratulated him on a job well done, and then asked when he learned to do that. ‘Today at school’ was his reply. When probed as to who taught him, his reply was ‘My maam’ (teacher). Just like that. One day, he learns how to tie his tie shoes. And he does it well too.

We went inside so he could show off his new skill to his mommy as well, who was equally enthusiastic about his new skill. He stood, hands on his hips, basking in the glow of his parents approval.

Moments like that make me so glad for the chance to be a daddy. I must admit that part of me was sad that it was not one of us who taught him, but realize in the grand scheme of things, that is ok.

Lesson learned

2008-06-22T22:22:00.000-07:00

The other day my son learned a lesson, apparently better than I expected he would.

As we sat waiting at his bus stop in the morning for the bus to arrive, we went through our normal routine. Pray about his day ahead, and talk about what he needs to focus on for his behavior, etc. I saw the bus coming in the rear view mirror and told him “Wait until the bus stops before you open the door.”

He did not. And I watched as the concern that motivated my statement to him became a reality. He opened the door, all the way, right in to the side of the still moving bus as it drove next to our car. Thankfully, either the driver saw what was happening and stopped just in time, or a major coincidence in timing, but the bus stopped right at the point of jamming the door against its own wheel well. It was jammed in hard enough that the only option was for me to start the car and move forward, releasing the pressure on the door. I am so glad that my son’s fingers were not in between the door and the bus. As I pulled forward, it appeared that the door was not bent or the hinges sprung, for which I am also thankful.

I rolled down the window and ‘made it clear’ to the boy that he had not listened, and the exact reason for my statement had happened. He was visibly sorry for his mistake. As he got on the bus with his head hung a little low, I felt like a schmuck for scolding him right before sending him off for the day.

The next morning as we sat at the bus stop and went through our routine, I saw the bus coming, and again said to him “Wait until the bus stops before you open the door.” This time, the bus pulled along side and stopped and two other kids got on it. After a few more seconds a small, tender voice came from the back seat, ‘Daddy . . . . . . is the bus stopped now?”

So he at least learned a lesson through it. As I pondered his response the second day, I am not sure if he learned the lesson I wanted him to, i.e. that opening a door beside a moving vehicle is dangerous, or if he learned to be overly cautious so as not to make daddy mad. Perhaps we both learned a lesson through this experience.

I got nothing

2008-06-20T09:11:00.000-07:00

It has been a very dry spell as far as the blog goes lately. Not just lately, but for months now it seems. I am not sure why that is exactly, because it is not for want of things happening in my life. I just have not felt like much of it was ‘worth’ posting stuff about.

Perhaps that is a result of my wit (as well as my sarcasm) being out of adjustment, likely due to the heavy travel schedule of the first half of the year and the ensuing tiredness and perpetual state of trying to catch up on things. Perhaps it is just me being old.

In an effort to get things rolling, let me recap the last few months.

Came back from the US in mid-January, only to leave three days later for a different part of the country for the better part of a month, then home for a few weeks to get various things done, then off to the US for 3 weeks for meetings in several cities, then back home for less than 2 weeks before going to the UK and France for 2 weeks (a week of work and a week of vacation, which was great), then home for less than 2 weeks before returning to the UK for another 3 days of unexpected meetings, followed by a very short trip to another part of the country for a weekend, and finally home this last Sunday night late.

As I read that, my head hurts a little, thinking about all that happened, and all that needs to happen in follow up to all those trips and meetings.

So, there you have it. I got nothing. Nothing but a pile of things to do. But thankfully I am home for the foreseeable future, and should have time to make it through a good part of my list.

More later.

Tagged

2008-05-08T08:13:00.000-07:00

My friend Libby tagged me with a meme. I understand I am supposed to tell some things people might not know about me. So, here goes . . . . . .

I was once kissed by Suzanna Somers . . .on live television! Not kidding. Easter Seals Telethon, I read a TON of books and raised some money, got on tv and she kissed me on the cheek. I was in 4th grade. She was on Three’s Company.

At one time or another, I have broken every single one of my fingers at least once. What can I say? I played rough as a young man.

I once flew an airplane. I was about 15, and my Uncle was a private pilot with his own plane and he let me fly it once when he was bringing me home from my summer on his farm. What a rush. He was sitting right beside me telling me what all to do, but I was flying the plane.

I once took a job as a scab (crossed a picket line during a union strike to work the jobs left open by the striking workers). Not too proud of that, but it was at a time in my life where I needed the work, and besides, my mom was part of management, so she was exempt from the strike and they needed the help.

I once had to show a professional truck driver how to back his 53 foot semi trailer around a blind corner into our warehouse. I was 18 at the time, and he had been driving trucks for 15 years by then. He was impressed, but not happy to be shown up by a punk kid.

I have flown over a million miles with one particular airline (who will not get props here since they continue to treat me like crud on those long international flights I take, even after enduring a million miles with them).

There are three things that are almost a guaranteed smile-maker for me. My wife, and our two kids.

I was once thrown out of the bed of a pickup while it was hurtling down a country road. I was wearing a brand new white down ski jacket that my parents had just bought me and I tumbled down the road for what felt like a mile, and as my friends gathered around me (while I lay motionless in the middle of the road) I clearly remember two things. One, I could not breathe and was gasping for air. Two, one of the friends was saying repeatedly “He’s dead! He’s Dead!” I was not dead. And the most amazing part was that the white down ski jacket was totally untouched in the whole thing. I walked away unscathed – not a scratch on me. Talk about the hand of God protecting you. My mom would have skinned me alive had that jacket been ruined. They don’t know about this incident (at least until they read it here someday).

So there you have it. Some of the antics I have gotten up to in my life that you might not have known about.

What about you? Anything you want to share?

Zoiks!

2008-05-08T07:35:00.000-07:00

Hard to believe it has been so long since I last put something up here. So much has happened since then, so I will not try to update on it all, but rather give some highlights, and maybe a lowlight or two.

The last two months have seen lots of people coming and going through our part of the world. We had friends come visit, teams left, right and center, and we had trips ourselves. My wife went to Germany for 10 days while I held down the fort (mostly successfully), and most recently I had a trip to North America for about 3 weeks that included about 9 cities. Mostly a good trip, but those trips can take a lot out of me as well as my family who is still here at home. I got to have a day of golfing with friends one day and then about a week later I got about 300 miles of therapy (on a 1400 cc bike with lots of open highway and a bright sunny Georgia day) with my friend Peter, which did us both some good. I have been home for 10 days now, and tomorrow, we leave again.

This trip is to the UK and France. First the UK, where my wife will attend her annual meetings as part of our work, while the kids and I traipse off to two other cities in England to go see friends we know through our work here. We will travel by a bunch of different trains, which the kids are very excited about. Then about 6 days later we meet back up with mommy for a few days of vacation in the London area. We have all kinds of fun things planned for those days.

Then, off to Paris, via the Eurostar train. The boy is very excited to go on a fast train, and through a tunnel no less. Very cool stuff. This will actually be his second time in Paris, but the first time he was less than a year old, so he does not remember it except by our stories and photos. He is now going on 7, so he will remember this one.

The girl is also very excited about this trip. She ‘knows’ everything about all the places we are going, and tries her best to let us know exactly how everything will go. We really hope they are able to enjoy this trip. We are also looking forward to some down time ourselves. This last year has not been easy on us as a family, so some downtime is a good thing.

So there you have it. A brief update. Confirmation of my continued existence at the least.

More later.

Btw . . . . . Total driveway shovels this year: 0!

This might not be a good idea after all

2008-03-04T21:20:00.000-08:00

So in our normal tradition when mommy is gone, the kids and I loaded up on friable foods to have for our Fried Food Festival. Our rule is – if it can’t be fried we don’t want to eat it. We even make a special trip to the supermarket for loading up on our friable treasures.

On night two of the Fried Food Festival we were running a little late. I had put the oil on the stove to begin heating while we ran around the corner to help a friend sign his lease for a new flat to rent. That took longer than I thought, so by the time we returned, there was a distinct hot oil smell in the kitchen. No problem, I thought.

I grabbed a pack of chicken nuggets from the freezer, cut off the top and dropped them in to the oil. What resulted was nothing short of impressive and terrifying all at once. The oil was so hot that the totally frozen nuggets were burned beyond recovery in less than 5 seconds, and the shower of anger coming from the pan made it hard to get them out before a distinct funk filled the air.

After a few minutes of angry hot oil display, I turned down the heat and waited for some time before trying something else.

The rest of the event went fine, with no adverse affects. While the kids were laughing hysterically at the angry oil show, I was admittedly pretty scared it might flare out of control. Maybe these Fried Food Festivals are not such a good idea after all.

Like a living cartoon

2008-03-03T21:19:00.000-08:00

Well, after a long and glorious break from blogging, I am back. Today something happened that was just too good to pass up on writing about.

My wife is away on a work trip to Germany for the week. That leaves me with Daddy Day Care duties again. I actually enjoy these times for the most part. They give me a chance to spend more time with the kids and maybe even have an excuse to slow down on the other parts of my schedule.

Tonight while playing soccer on the ‘grey terrace’ (flat roof on the other side of our building) with the kids they each took a turn being a living cartoon scene. My son, age 6, started off the fun with a shot he took to the lower legs. I had kicked it in the air liked he asked, and as it neared him he locked his knees to block it from going past him. The only problem was he was leaning slightly back as he did this, so the force of the ball basically knocked him on his hiney. He went down with knees still locked, so he looked a bit like a bowling pin falling over – totally stiff the whole way down. We all laughed.

Then my daughter, age 4, got in on the cartoon-like action. She decided to run and kick the ball as hard as she could. What resulted was a Charlie Brown like moment where she began the kick too soon, just barely missed the ball, sending her leg flying in to the air and her momentum carrying well past the ball, at which point she landed on her hiney. We all laughed again.

Good thing for flexibility when you are young. If that had been me, I would likely still be out their writhing in pain.

Away From Home for the Holidays

2007-12-05T08:00:00.000-08:00

This year we will be away from home for the holidays. We leave in just two short days for our whirlwind tour of America to visit family and friends for about 5 weeks. This will be the first time in 6 years that we are in the US for Christmas. Over the next 5 weeks we will experience 8 flights, including 4 of those as long-haul international ones of 9 hours each, 6 different time zone changes (spanning over 13.5 hours of time difference from here) 5 cities and at least as many different beds.

The kids are all kinds of excited. One of them asked me the other day to talk to ‘the calendar people’ and make Thursday come sooner.

One of the things I don’t look forward to, however, is the cold. Three of our cities are in prime snowy weather places. That scares the wits out of me, since this is getting in to winter here, and when it is 75 degrees or less in the morning, I wake up feeling like a Kevin-sicle. I have no idea how we will manage the cold everywhere we go. And the kids have no idea what they are in for, being frozen solid for 5 weeks straight.

The good thing about this trip is that we will get lots of chances to celebrate. We are looking forward to our second Thanksgiving the day after we arrive, with some family, and then of course the normal Christmas with my family, and then a late Christmas with Leah’s family. And so on. We will take any chance to celebrate, as long as it in indoors and warm.

What about you? What will your holidays look like this year?

Breakfast

2007-11-29T08:03:00.000-08:00

Our daughter continues to crack me up. She can be so insightful at times, so willful at times, so unbelievably adorable most times, and other times . . . . . just plain ignorant.

This morning after dropping a friend at the airport and then dropping the boy off at his bus stop I came home to find some breakfast before heading out for a presentation I needed to make this morning. Upon opening the fridge door, I quickly realized, I was in trouble.

No bread, so that means no toast, which is my most common choice. No milk, so that means no cereal either. No Diet Coke, so that means no perky Kevin, at least not right away.

As I was recounting to my wife my thought process and having initially deduced I would be going without breakfast today, my daughter chimes in in her ‘you are so silly daddy’ voice and says “Noooooooooo, there are carrots!”

Carrots? Carrots did you say? She obviously has not gotten the memo that carrots are rabbit food and therfore not an acceptable breakfast food in Daddy-Land. But doggone it she was cute when she said it.

Fried Food Festival

2007-11-15T08:56:00.000-08:00

My wife and daughter have been out of town for almost a week now. They went with a couple of guests to a different part of the country. This left me home with my son for the week. We tend to find ways to enjoy our time together. I always try to make sure we do something fun and memorable, and often that includes doing something we would not do if mommy was here.

This time, we decided we were going to have a Fried Food Festival for the week. If it could not be fried in oil, we would not eat it. We even made a special trip to the store to get frying foods. Had a little ceremony and all.

We had popcorn chicken, french fries, tater tots, fish sticks, more fries, bacon and eggs (even though they were not fried in oil, we counted it since it was indeed fried in a pan), etc. The exception to our Fried Food Festival was Sunday night, which was popcorn and ice cream according to our family tradition for Sunday night.

Mommy and the girl come back tomorrow, and I think after a week of fried foods, the boy and I are both looking forward to some ‘real food’.

Lyrically Challenged

2007-11-14T08:47:00.000-08:00

My son loves to sing. Being in the context we are in, he hears and picks up bits of songs in several languages, and happily sings them, often not knowing what it is he is singing, and equally as often butchering the lyrics. Last night I heard him singing a song I recognized, since it was in English. Some of you might know the song. Lord I Lift Your Name on High.

The song goes as follows:

Lord I Lift Your Name on High
Lord I Love to Sing Your Praises
I am so Glad You’re in My Life
I am so Glad You Came to Save Us.

You Came From Heaven to Earth
To Show the Way
From the Earth to the Cross
My Debt to Pay
From the Cross to the Grave
From the Grave to the Sky
Lord I Lift Your Name on High

However, there were a few substitutions made lyrically in my son’s version.

Lord I Lift Up Your Praises
I am so Glad You Came to Save Us

You Came From Heaven to Earth
To Fake my Death

Lord I Lift Your Name on High

At first I giggled, but then as I thought about correcting him, I realized he was not that far off. In a way, what Jesus did on the cross was sort of like faking our death. He died, so that we would not have to, and yet, the death was so convincing (and real) that our sins were paid for.

Out of the mouths of babes often comes great truth and a wonderful simplicity.

A Near Miss

2007-11-03T08:45:00.000-07:00

I was up late the other night waiting to go pick up some friends from the airport and saw something that was admittedly a little scary. The flat we stay in overlooks the runway of our towns’ airport. We are about a half a mile away, and essentially directly to the side of the runway, giving me a great view of incoming and outgoing flights, but with a lot less of the noise. It also allows me to be at home and watch the flight land, and then enjoy and icy cold Diet Coke or do a few small tasks before leaving to go pick the people up (allowing time for Immigration and Customs clearance formalities to be completed).

As I stood last night, I watched a flight from a well-known international airline taxi to the end of the runway (we only have one here) and turn around to prepare for takeoff. As he sat finishing his preparations, I noticed a second plane, this one having just broken through the cloud cover and descending quickly for landing. The outgoing flight was sitting at the end of the runway, all the while the incoming flight was still approaching.

At one point, I remember thinking “Oh, this is not going to be good.” Finally the outgoing flight began accelerating, but ever so slowly it looked like. The incoming flight was still descending. They were getting closer and closer, since the descending flight was moving much faster than the outgoing flight.

At their closest point, the incoming flight was coming in fast and was clearly over the end of the runway, while the outgoing flight was not yet halfway down the runway and gaining speed. I would guess they were within maybe 400 yards of each other at one point. The incoming flight either decided or was told to abort the landing, so he accelerated hard, and pulled up in a sharp climb to the left, passing directly over the airport building at a very low altitude. I am sure the people in the building were wondering what was going on at that point.

Eventually, the outgoing flight took off without incident, and the incoming flight circled around for another attempt at landing, which he did successfully. I am sure the passengers in the outgoing flight had no idea what happened. Thankfully the incoming flight was a cargo flight, so only the crew got the wits scared out of them.

As I reflected on the situation, I wondered not only how often that type of thing happens here, but also realized some thoughts has passed through my mind about my own convenience. My friends’ flight had not yet arrived, so if those two planes crashed, that would goober up the airport for days likely. What a pain. And what a hassle to figure out where they ended up landing, and how to get them to here from there. And would their schedule get messed up as a result. I was shocked at how easily my mind wandered to my own convenience and wants. It is not that I was not aware of the destruction and death and its impact on all those other people and their families, but I also quickly went to my own needs and feelings. Not sure how I feel about that.

Busy, but loving life

2007-10-26T11:40:00.000-07:00

This last two months have been very busy, but we are loving our lives here. We are truly blessed. Some of the reasons for our great joy in the midst of this busyness are:

1. Getting to see our beloved India through the eyes of new people who came and visited, and hopefully had a great time here with our friends.

2. The incredible generosity of friends and visitors, like the 16 pounds (no joke) of Halloween candy a recent group brought for us, or the giant stash of Goldfish crackers for my kids, or the great encouragement they offered to us in terms of how we are impacting them and others. And good coffee for my wife.

3. Seeing partnerships and projects moving forward, sometimes after many long months of planning and hard work.

4. Seeing that somehow all of our financial needs get met, even though our budget does not seem to be fully funded. God somehow always provides, often through His people.

5. Getting meaningful ‘rewards’ along the way like a recent weekend of rest and play with our kids, including swimming and meals out.

6. Getting/making time to read and fill ourselves up with knowledge, information, encouragement, etc.

7. Seeing our kids grow, learn and develop in such amazing ways. They bring joy in all the right ways.

8. Getting to struggle through relationships and difficulties. At least we (and the people we struggle with) have not given up on each other. As long as we don’t give up, there is hope.

9. Having times where my wife and I think so much alike and even say the same things to people, without knowing the other had already said the exact same thing. Makes me feel like we are on the same page many times, which is a good thing.

10. Looking ahead to how our team and out work will and must grow in the near future to keep up with all we can and should be doing. Growth problems are the best kind to have.

So there you have it. A snapshot of how things have been going. What about you? What kind of snapshot would you offer?

What's in a name?

2007-10-05T11:49:00.000-07:00

Over the last few days I have seen a few things that got me thinking. Let me explain.

Often times in our part of the world, people will paint on various parts of a vehicle what that part is. This is especially true for trucks and buses. For example, if there is tool box welded under the body somewhere they will paint the word ‘Toolbox’ on it. Sometimes the painter does not get the spelling just right, and it ends up being painted as ‘Toolbocks’ or ‘Toolboox’ or something else. At times it can be fun to try to figure out what in the world was intended by the painted letters.

Another thing they often do is to label certain areas or parts of the bus or truck. For example, the space where the driver sits will be labeled in some fashion. This is an area that has caught my attention a few times this last couple of weeks. Below are some samples of signs painted on the area near the driver’s door or seat. I am not making these up.

Pilot
Pie-lot
Captain
Cap-tin
Drivver
Smart Gay (I think they meant Smart Guy, but this way was even funnier)
Navigatur
Gas Man

Some of those brought a smile to my face. Some made me wonder if it was the drivers choice to paint that particular word or phrase of if one of his friends was having a bit of fun with him.

But then I got to thinking about all the names we have for others, or that they have for us. What exactly is the intended difference between a Captain and a Pilot, even if spelled correctly? Does it say something about how they view themselves, or how they want people to view them? Is one better/more proud than the other, or more lowly/humble than the other?

That then got me to thinking about the titles I would prefer to be used for me. Certainly not Gas Man. But what about other titles I would prefer? I love being known as the dad to my kids. I love being known as the husband of my wife. I love being known as friend/coworker to my colleagues and friends here. Are there other titles I wish were ascribed to me?

What about you? What titles do you prefer? Why?

Aaaaaaahhhhhhh . . . . . . .

2007-09-09T15:35:00.000-07:00

It feels so good. I am reading again.

Some who know me, know that I love to read. I read books on a variety of subjects. Culture, leadership, theology, business, ministry, faith, family issues, adventure, biographies, etc. I love reading.

For the last few months my reading had been sacrificed. To what? Busyness. Too many things that seemed more important got in the way. Also tiredness. There were many days when I was doing well to actually make it to bed before falling asleep.

A couple of weeks ago, something in me clicked. I was not feeling complete or satisfied. I had a yearning, but for what? Books. Information. Knowledge. Time with someone else’s thoughts and words to enrich my self. I needed some reading time.

So, in an effort to feed my own soul, I made a commitment to begin reading again. I simply must make time for it, and make it a priority. In fact, through a series of conversations with some key influencers in my life, I realized that a good part of the reading I enjoy is actually a part of my work. So, while I enjoy it and it energizes me, I also had to recognize that I had been neglecting a part of my work as well.

That all changed. In the last week and a half I have read three books. One of them in only one day. It felt so good on several levels. Now the trick will be not to let this be overcompensated for and spend time doing nothing but reading. But for now, it feels good.

Aaaaaaahhhhhh . . . . . . . books.

Different Perspective

2007-08-23T12:53:00.000-07:00

I came across a rather interesting couple of sentences today that made me think about the possible differences of perspective in the situation, depending on whose shoes you were in. The statement was on a package of smoked salmon (a gift from some of our NW friends, thank you very much) that is marketed as being from a First Nations Tribe. It read something like this:

“The first salmon to return from the saltwater sea to the freshwater streams – a Spring Chinook – is caught and ceremonially brought to the village. There its flesh is meticulously removed from its bones and eaten and shared with everyone in the village. Afterwards, the bones of the fish are returned to the river with equal ceremony and placed into the river facing the same direction, in hopes that the fish will tell his brothers and sisters of the great treatment it was given in the village and bring more of them to the area.”

My first thought – YOU ATE IT!!! What kind of idiot fish is going to send his siblings to you to have their flesh picked from the bones?

After putting my cultural glasses on, however, there is likely more to the story. The respect afforded to the fish, being brought with great ceremony, and the likely detailed process of removing every scrap of flesh from its bones (so as not to waste even one bit) and then being shared by all, these all speak of great traditions and great awareness of history and our fragility in this world as well as the fact that we are all in this together and need each other.

This is not the image of a massive commercial net being dragged through the water, pulling every living thing over a certain size out of its norm, and often discarding or destroying things in the process that we deem invaluable or not what we were after.

This is not a rail on the waste we can so easily see in so many different ways in the world. That is not my style. No, in fact, this is a call to consider how something that at first seems so odd or crazy, might actually have some real value. Consider the lessons taught by the village elders each year as they repeated this process. Think of the depth of tradition and reinforcement this made in the young men and women in this tribe. There is value in that. It was not only the pragmatic issue of feeding the village. It was about much more.

Of course, all of that said, it would still stink to be the fish! Rich depth of tradition and culture or not, it would not be a good day when you get the flesh picked from your bones.

It still ain't right, but it is getting better

2007-08-20T12:55:00.000-07:00

Some time ago I wrote about a situation that had me amped up, and quite honestly hurt more than anything. In the last few weeks we had the chance to address some of that. Truth be told there was more than one situation in a very short period of time that fit the description I wrote originally.

As we talked through, face to face, and brutally honestly at times, with the people who had hurt us, we were reminded once again of the fragility of human communication and relationship. It is amazing to me that any real, healthy relationships occur at all. Of course the theologian in me says this is a problem of our sinful nature. We are no longer exactly as God intended us to be, so how can we do things right. But still, God being who He is, made us in such a way that we have tremendous faculties about us that allow us to learn and grow and develop. So why have we not figured out this relational thing yet?

As we talked with our ‘offenders’ we found out what we suspected all along, and likely knew deep in our hearts. They had not tried to hurt us, nor were they aware of the hurts they had caused. But it still hurts. So then the question comes up about what to do about it. To what detail do we dive into this in terms of specifics. For some, simply knowing there were issues was enough to cause them to rethink how they do things and how they say things. For others, they wanted to know specific details so they could avoid those in the future. We all are wired differently.

In the end, all is not right, at least not yet. But there is hope. Relationships takes time to heal. On our part, we try to remain open, as vulnerable as we can reasonably be for now, and giving feedback as we are able to try to bring healing to the relationships affected. We also had to examine what our role is/was in these situations, and how not speaking up sooner allowed the hurt to compile. We will do better in the future.

So bring on the healing, and let healthy relationships abound.

Cared For

2007-08-13T11:47:00.000-07:00

This last week was a good one in a certain way. As a family we have been facing some struggles and needed some caring for. We got it, and in a way that we all admitted was just what we needed. Let me explain.

We had to travel as a family to the US for some meetings with our partner organizations. We were not looking forward to the kids missing school and unsure of what to do with them during the long days while we were both in our meetings. Our families stepped in and offered to be there with us to look after the kids for us. How this worked itself out was a real comfort to us.

It began with my mother-in-law, who used her frequent flier miles and flew in to the city we were to have our meetings in. She timed her flight to arrive around the same time as us, so we all met up in the airport and proceeded to our hotel together. We arrived a day early in order to get over jet lag and spend some time together. We spent the day shopping and eating meals out and generally just doing whatever we wanted to.

As our meetings began the next day, my m-i-l did a fantastic job of looking after the kids so we could concentrate on our work there. We did not need to worry at all. She did a great job of releasing that concern from us.

On Tuesday of that week she went with the kids to the airport to pick up my mom, sister and nephew, who were flying in to town (again on frequent flier tickets) to take over caring for our kids for the second half of the week. Later that night she went back home to return to work.

My mom, sister and nephew did a great job of taking charge of the kids and doing whatever needed to be done, including going way above and beyond by tracking down a missing package we needed to get a hold of to bring back to one of our colleagues here in India as well as doing several loads of laundry that we had not had time to take care of. The kids had a ball, and got to do lots of fun things with Grandma, their Aunt and their Cousin. Fun times were had by all, and once again, all done in a way that took the stress away from that part for us.

As we left on Friday to go to another city, my m-i-l happened to be going to that city for her work, so she once again timed her flight to arrive near ours. We spent a good part of the day Saturday shopping some more, eating family favorites and just being together. Sunday she helped bring my wife and kids to the airport too (while I was in a meeting again) and got them on their way home to India.

As we reflected on how all of this worked itself out, we realized they each of our family members had stepped in and done an extraordinary job in trying to help us in very real, practical ways, that demonstrated their love for us. They were selfless in making our needs their priority for the week. This made a remarkable difference in our week and in our ability to be a part of what we were there to do.

So here’s a word of deepest thanks to my m-i-l, my mom, my sister and my nephew. You touched our family in ways you likely don’t know, but we are so very thankful for that, and even more so, thankful for the families God made us a part of.

Really Good Engineering

2007-08-01T23:44:00.000-07:00

On my way home from my son’s bus stop today, I discovered some really good engineering on our new car.

Traffic was really piled up for some reason, and there was just enough room for me to slip past a truck that was in the middle of it all. Once past the truck it was going to be clear road ahead. As I inched my way beside the truck he apparently decided to move over, either to prevent me from passing him or in an effort to get himself unstuck. It felt like the former more than the latter.

As he moved over, he now had me stuck with my side-view mirror basically wedged against his truck. My only option was to turn more myself to disentangle our two vehicles. As I did that, I heard a pretty horrible crunching, grinding sound, and knew I had hit the cement block sitting beside the road that I knew I was close to. I feared the worst – a significantly damaged side step that would require replacement and who knows how much other damage.

I extricated myself from the traffic jam and headed to a nearby gas station, since I needed diesel anyways. I got out of the car and went to inspect the damage. Shockingly, there were no visible signs at all of any damage.

I have determined that this lack of damage is due to one of two factors. Option one - they designed the side step so well that it is nearly indestructible. Option two - they designed the side step in such a way that any contact whatsoever reverberates (and possibly amplifies) the crunching/grinding sound directly into the passenger cabin, so as to cause the driver to stop doing whatever it is that is making said contact.

Since very few things here are made to be that tough or indestructible, I am currently leaning toward believing it is option two that is the more likely. Either way, that is some good engineering.

Happy Birthday Sweet Boy

2007-07-26T10:05:00.000-07:00

Today is my boy’s birthday. Hard to believe it was 6 years ago God blessed us with him. He was our first, and quickly stole our hearts and changed our lives forever, in very good ways. And now, as he grows and continues to develop, he keeps amazing us with his personality, his skills, his sensitivity at times, and his interest to learn lots of new things.

I am very proud of you, son. Happy Birthday, sweet boy! We love you more than you likely know.

It ain't right!!

2007-07-11T09:52:00.000-07:00

I am in a quandary right now. Faced with a situation that in my opinion is just simply not right. A decision was made, and in my opinion it was a less than stellar one. Likely not done vindictively (trying to give the benefit of the doubt), but with hurtful outcomes that the decision makers may or may not be aware of.

So what should I do about it? How hard do I push to make my feelings known? Do I simply inform the decision makers of the (hopefully) unintended outcomes of their decision? Do I try to work to right the perceived wrong? Or do I just simply let it be and do my best to move on?

If I do say something the strength of my feelings will likely taint the conversation. I often have a hard time with this when there is a clear principle that has been violated. How can the person not see that their decision was going to have this effect? Or maybe they did see it coming, and just don’t care. I don’t like thinking about people that way, but have had enough times getting burned by those very kind of people that I have to admit it is possible.

If I don’t say anything, it will continue to fester inside me. Until I can get things like this out, I have a hard time just letting them go. But will anything good come from talking about it? The pessimist in me says nothing will change, so save your breath.

Of course I also have to admit that my attitude might need to change in this regard too. The problem is not always ‘out there’ or with someone else. Sometimes, often times, I also need to shoulder some of the responsibility for the way things are. And it is also possible that the perceived wrong is not as big as it seems right now. I need to be careful to not overreact. I also need to be careful to not drag others into the situation unnecessarily.

Do, do, what shall I do?

Discombobulated!!

2007-07-10T09:24:00.000-07:00

That’s about how I feel today. My cold is still holding on in some ways. Yesterday was worse than today, though.

I just feel out of sorts. I have that drugged up on anti-histamines kind of feeling, but I have not had any in a few days. My stomach does not take kindly to almost any kind of food, and as a result I have not eaten much in the last few days. I sometimes describe this feeling as ‘disconnected’. Bordering on an out of body like experience, where at times it feels like I am in the corner of the room watching myself act out this moment in time.

I really don’t like feeling this way and hope it passes on soon.

Sometimes when I feel all cruddy like this I have to remember that I actually have it pretty good. It could be that I am in the hospital with a much worse condition or injury, or even worse with some kind of sickness that has no cure. Yes, things could be much worse.

So buck up, little camper. This too, will soon pass and you will be back to normal – well . . . . . . . as normal as you’ve ever been. Not that normal is a work usually ascribed to me.

I hate being sick!!

2007-07-03T09:15:00.000-07:00

Being sick is not something likely to be high on most people’s lists of favorite things. Me? I just plain hate being sick. And I am not good at it either. I am not a good sick person – one who suffers quietly and endures the misery of a cold or the flu without letting many others around know what is going on. No, not me. Just ask my wife. With a roll of her eyes she will tell you I am a miserable person to be around when I am sick.

I often say I have a high tolerance for high level pain. I can break my leg and keep on going with whatever I am doing. However, I also have a pretty low threshold for low level pain. A paper cut can render me useless. Ok, maybe a slight exaggeration, but you get the point.

The last few days my son was sick with a fever and cold kind of thing. Apparently he was kind enough to share. Not surprising since he slept in my bed with me most of his sick nights.

The real onset was yesterday. I had to go to a lunch with some colleagues here and some guests who had come from the US. By the time I arrived at the place I was already feeling pretty cruddy, and it got worse by the minute. I had a pretty good fever going, and had no desire to eat anything whatsoever. The worst part of this time was the constant (and that is not an exaggeration) running of my nose. Like a faucet with a steady drip.

By the time lunch was over I was in full-blown misery mode. I drove home, and even stopped at one point and pulled to the side of the road, contemplating calling my wife to come get me and drive the rest of the way home. I walked in the door and she immediately recognized my pathetic demeanor and stayed out of the way while I got some aspirin and Dayquil and headed to bed.

Massive doses of Tylenol and Dayquil later, and a mostly restless night of sleep behind me, I don’t feel as bad today as I thought I would. Hopefully a good night of sleep tonight will leave me feeling much better by morning.

Did I mention? . . . I hate being sick!!

In a hurry? Try the 'jumping' button!

2007-07-02T19:16:00.000-07:00

I got a call today that no parent likes to get - the school calling to let me know my son is sick and needs to be picked up. While this is nothing new to being a parent, in our case it becomes a little hard because any time after 10 am it takes a solid hour or more to drive to the school, and even longer to get back. This is mostly caused by massively overcrowded roads combined with lots of road construction along the way, making for very slow going.

As we got going down the road and began hitting some of the heavy spots of traffic, my daughter began her coaching of my driving skills. The conversation went something like this:

Her - “Daddy, you should use the jumping button.”
Me – “The what?”
Her – “The jumping button, so you can just JUMP over all the cars.”
Me – “Our car did not come with that option honey. Sorry.”
Her – “That’s ok, daddy. (pause for a few seconds) . . . . Then you should try the bouncing button.”
Me – “The what?”
Her – “You know, the bouncing button, so you can just bounce on top of all the cars, trucks, autos, and buses. But you can’t bounce on the scooters and bikes and motorcycles. They would get hurt if we bounced on them.”
Me – “Our car did not come with that option either, honey. Sorry.”
Her – “That’s ok, daddy. So, I guess we have to just sit here and wait our turn.”
Me – “Yes, unfortunately we do.”

Thankfully we made it to the school in record time – 48 minutes from here to the school, inside to get the boy and back out to the car. Not bad me thinks.

But just remember, next time you are in a hurry and find yourself stuck in a traffic jam, try using the jumping button or the bouncing button – if you have one. If only it were that easy sometimes.

Communication breakdown

2007-06-27T14:03:00.000-07:00

OK, so I lifted the title of this entry from a song (can you hear the tune in your head?), but it fits in this case.

When husbands and wives don’t communicate clearly, the results can vary greatly. Sometimes they can be aggravating, sometimes disastrous, and sometimes a little funny, with perhaps an element of providence thrown in too.

Yesterday I phoned my wife asking if she was ok with having 20 people over for dinner. That was my way of asking if the group of visitors I had been spending the day with could come over and join us for pizza at our house. She quickly agreed. The problem is, I was not clear on which 20 people that meant. You see, we currently have a number of groups of visitors, and she thought I meant the group of international volunteers we spent last week doing orientation with. I meant a different group. We clearly missed each other in this process.

She agreed to have the people over, and then proceeded to invite some of the people from the group she thought I meant. I proceeded to invite the group I actually meant, and transport to/from our house was arranged. By the time we spoke again, and realized our mistake, we now had 35 people coming to our house for dinner.

Oooops! Good thing we have a decent sized apartment to fit them all into.

So, 8 or 9 large pizzas later and an equal number of portions of garlic breadsticks along with several liters of Coke, Pepsi, and other soft-drinks later, we had successfully fed all of our guests. One of the big hits were the chocolate chip cookies that my wife quickly made using the chips one of these groups had brought us. Not a scrap of food was left, but everyone seemed satisfied.

The evening was a success by most accounts. People got to meet new friends, hang out and play games, rest, check email and so on, and all of this in spite of our blunder on who it was that was being invited. So in the end, this time the result of our communication breakdown was good, and likely included that measure of providence I mentioned earlier.

When did you experience a communication breakdown, and what was the result?

How do you show you are angry or upset?

2007-06-24T10:59:00.000-07:00

The other day we were driving in the car and it was raining a little bit and traffic was, as usual, all cafluffled as a result. At one point in the drive a bus and a scooter had a near-miss and a brief exchange of ‘pleasantries’, which my son saw out his side window.

In his enthusiastic, somewhat incredulous type of voice, he relayed what happened for the rest of us to hear. “Mommy, daddy, just now there was a scooter a bus that almost hit each other. The man on the scooter was really mad at the bus driver for almost hitting him.”

We asked him how he knew the man on the scooter was really mad. Before he could reply, my daughter asked a follow up question, sounding more like she was trying to answer for him than anything else – “Did he show his teeth to him?”

Apparently our older dog Maggie has left an impression on the kids. When she gets mad or scared she will show her teeth to let you know to back off. The kids, or at least my daughter, now associates showing anger with showing your teeth to someone.

So how do you show someone you are angry or upset? Do you show your teeth?

The newest Oakridge boy

2007-06-17T09:27:00.000-07:00

We went today for the orientation program at my son’s new school, called Oakridge International School. He is very excited that the day is finally here to wear his new uniform and meet his classmates and new teacher. He is finally . . . . an Oakridge boy. As he says that memories of 8 track cassettes in my childhood come back. Ahhh . . . the Oakridge Boys. But he is a different kind of Oakridge boy, one with a small ‘b’.

As we got ready and headed to the school, several sayings or phrases came out of the boy that gave me a giggle or a laugh. Among them are the following:

“Daddy, now, when Maggie (one of our two dogs) bites me I won’t cry because Oakridge boys don’t cry for that stuff.” (I love that he said when, not if. He does have one experience with this, so I hope he is not prophetic.)

(said while walking down the steps while looking straight ahead, not at his feet as usual) “Look daddy , I can walk down the stairs without looking down. Oakridge boys can do that.”

(also while walking down the stairs) “And, I also don’t have to hold the handrail while going down. Oakridge boys don’t need to hold on.”

(said to sister while walking up to the front of the school on orientation day) “Slow down!! Only Oakridge boys can walk fast like this.”

He made it sound as if simply by being enrolled in the school, he had somehow become smarter, more able to take care of himself, and more physically gifted than he was last night when he went to bed. If only it were that easy. My gym membership does not work that way for sure.

And all the while, his little sister, who I call ‘Monkey’ for exactly this kind of thing, was mimicking his every move, and trying to do it better than he had done it.

Moments like that make it fun to be a parent.

Back to School

2007-06-11T12:09:00.000-07:00

It’s back to school time here. My daughter began her new year today. She was excited to go back and get the year going. She claims to be really looking forward to having homework this year, like her big brother did last year. Always knew there was something wrong with that one. Liking homework? She did not get that from me, since in four years of high school I brought homework home only one night – out of the whole four years!! I fully expect she will do school this year like she does most everything else in life – full throttle! You go girl!

My son is also excited, but for different reasons. He gets to ride the bus to and from school this year. We went this morning to see the bus stop, and figure out exactly where he has to wait, and so on. He does not start until next week, but the older kids go this week, so we took advantage of the ‘dry run’ for the morning bus routine. I even flagged the bus down to speak to the driver and watchman (they have dedicated security on these buses in addition to the driver, thankfully), which the boy thought was pretty neat that his dad can stop buses whenever he wants to.

We have begun talking through how he should behave on the bus, etc. He told me if other children do things they should not do, or if they start picking on him, he is just going to ‘sit nicely and look out the window and pretend they are not even there.” His words, not mine. Part of me fears how he will change this year with exposure to all kinds of things (people, behaviors, language, etc.) that are largely out of our control. He is a great kid that usually shows real tenderness when given a chance. His sister can be the exception to that rule.

My how time flies. It was not so long ago they were just little ones, and now they are off to school and becoming little people in the process. Soon, they will be at the point of being sure they are smarter than their parents. I keep warning the boy at least that I will always be bigger, faster, smarter, and stronger. In my heart, though, I know that may very well not be true.

One down, about eight to go

2007-06-10T11:54:00.000-07:00

Got one of our recently deceased appliances working again this weekend. The fridge is now back to its cooling ways.

The repair man came on Friday to look at it, on hour 49 of the promised 48 hour window of time for his arrival. He made quick work of the situation and assessed the problem, removed the faulty part, and headed out to go get a replacement, telling me he would be back the next day to finish the job.

Saturday, while my wife and I were out at a movie (Ocean’s Thirteen, worth seeing once at least) he arrived back at the house. Our house helper let him in, and within 10 minutes the new part was installed and the fridge back in working order. Quick (at least by time standards here), and painless too.

The best part was the cost – absolutely nothing. We were within a month of the end of our one year warranty period, so they fixed it for free. Unfortunately the other items will not be repaired for free since none of them are under warranty any more. Oh well, at least that one was quick and easy.

A yucky cold story

2007-06-07T15:24:00.000-07:00

WARNING – some of you might think the following is TMI (too much information). Read on at your own risk!

I am just getting over a cold. Had it for about a week now, and can’t wait to be rid of it. I am not a good sick person.

The other night I had quite a restless night of sleep. I keep a fan next to my side of the bed that blows across my upper body and head to help keep me cooler. At one point I woke up to what seemed like something wet splashing across my face. My first thought was that the monsoon rains had begun, and we now had a new leak in our roof, right on to my head. Great grief!

But no, that was not it. After waking up a bit more, I realized it was snot, dripping steadily from my nose, and as it was falling the air from the fan was blowing it – right back into my face and splashing on to my cheek before falling on to my pillow – which was by now soaked with my ‘nose nectar’. Pretty gross – even by my own usually low standards.

So there you have it. TMI. I warned you.

Burn, baby, burn

2007-06-06T15:26:00.000-07:00

First the fire, then the flood, and now things burning up – sort of.

We have had some power issues the last couple of days in our building. At first I thought one of our ACs had gone bad, so after some lugging and heavy lifting, and help from my wife in this process, we moved the office AC into the bedroom and vice versa. That was not the problem apparently.

Throughout that long and restless night of sleep with no AC, the power seemed to be going up and down, based on the random speed of the ceiling fan throughout the night.

We got up the next morning to find that the power was still not stable. After about an hour, the lights suddenly became much brighter very quickly. The Fridge door being opened nearly required sunglasses due to the glare of the light inside.

By then, the damage was done. There were no noticeable blasts, or pops, or puffs of smoke. Nothing to hint of the damage done. However, a surge of voltage well above our normal range had coursed through our building (we found out later apparently it was only in our building, and only in half the building since there are two main power panels).

Over the next several hours we began to notice several things not working the way they should. The fridge was the first casualty we noticed. The light was still on inside, but the compressor was no longer working, and things were beginning to get warmer in there. Not good.

Then we noticed the microwave, then the stereo, then the cable tv box, then the vcr, and the cordless phones, and so on. Ironically in two parts of the house, there were two power strips with multiple items plugged into them, where half the items blew and half were just fine. Odd to me that not everything blew that was in that same line.

So, we now begin the process of trying to repair what can be, and consider replacements for what is needed. By God’s grace our office and all of its computers was totally fine, including our own computers. We hope the fridge might be covered under warranty, but the other items we will have to pay for. Some might need to wait for a few months.

Thankfully we have a guest house just one floor down that is not housing anyone right now, so I carried that fridge up to our place last night to allow us to save most of the cold stuff. That will get us through until the fridge can be fixed. The microwave is the biggest loss right now.

More on this saga in the days to come.

The birthday girl

2007-06-04T17:15:00.000-07:00

“Hey daddy . . . . . . . I am four now.” These were the words whispered into my ear yesterday morning by my daughter to wake me up.

The day had finally arrived. We had talked about it for weeks, planned lots of funs things for the day and she was geared up for it. I can only imagine her glee when her eyes opened and she realized the day was finally here.

Chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, off to church in a new dress, and presents throughout the day. A good afternoon nap and lots of friends over for a party in the evening, with tons of great food, games, more presents and three birthday cakes. Yes, three birthday cakes. A purple flower shaped cake, a pink flower shaped cake, and a purple and pink castle design cake – all her choices.

By the time the party wound down, she was exhausted and yet so eager to not let go of the day. Once she was finally in bed it only took a few minutes until she was off to a deep sleep, hopefully filled with happy thoughts and memories of her special day.

Happy Birthday sweet girl!!

Family fun time

2007-06-01T11:47:00.000-07:00

This last week was really great. My wife had been invited to participate and help teach at a women’s conference in another part of the country. We decided to make it a family affair and drive over to the city the conference was being held in. The kids and I would play and relax while my wife spoke at the conference a few of the days, which is something she loves, so it was ‘relaxing’ for her too.

Our host for the week arranged a great place a little outside the city for us to stay. We had requested somewhere with a pool for the kids, and she got us a great rate on a great place. At times we had the place to ourselves it seemed. Very odd for such a nice place to be so empty.

We had a nice view of the valley and the city within it. We had the pool just outside our balcony. We had lots of helpful staff around to do almost anything. We had a playground less than a hundred yards away. We had beautiful weather all week, including the brief rain one afternoon and a lightning storm one night. What more could we ask for? We were truly spoiled this last week.

A few stats from the trip for those who care:
Total distance driven – 1140 kms (just over 700 miles) roundtrip
Total driving time – just under 17 hours roundtrip
Average driving speed – roughly 70 kms/hr (under 45 mph)*
Fuel burned – 114 liters (roughly 30 gallons)
Average fuel economy – 10 kms/liter (roughly 24 mpg)

* - we got several comments from people that they could not understand how we were able to drive so fast. So fast?!? And average speed of 45 mph over 700 miles does NOT feel fast to us, but under these conditions, we made good time.

And for those who really care:

Total Driveway Shovels – still 0!!!

The Hampster and the Monkey

2007-05-31T23:30:00.000-07:00

My kids have very different personalities. My son is usually more timid at first and has high hopes of doing lots of brave and adventurous things. He is often slow to start out, but once his confidence builds, he wants to show everyone what he can do and teach others how to do it.

My daughter, on the other hand, sees no danger and knows no fear, so she dives in to something with both feet and then when she gets hurts is totally stunned that this happened.

This last week was a perfect example of this. The place we stayed had a hampster-wheel on the playground. The boy decided he was going to play on that all day. Once we actually got to it and he saw how unstable it was, he decided he was only going to crawl on hands and knees. Over a period of several days and numerous attempts, he slowly built his confidence to the point that he was running on it by day 5, just in time for us to go home.

The girl first eyed the ‘web’ on the playground. She immediately ran to it and climbed right up to the top and even began climbing over the top bar and trying to descend down the other side. No fear in that one. After nearly losing her grip and falling a few times she learned to be a bit more cautious. All of this she was doing while still nursing two badly skinned knees and one skinned elbow from a fall at church last weekend (while excitedly running full-steam) to see a friend who had returned from abroad). Thankfully, no major falls or injuries this week for her.

Super-Flying Pool Boy and Aqua-Chick

2007-05-29T23:10:00.000-07:00

The place we are staying this week has a great swimming pool. The kids have loved it. We spend on average 3-4 hours a day in the water.

Over the last few days it has been really great to see the kids confidence in and around the water growing. My son is now known in my mind as Super-Flying Pool Boy. He loves to jump from the edge of the pool into the water, and even jumps from 3 foot high wall at one end into the pool. He jumps really high and far out into the pool when he does these jumps. He is working on teaching himself how to swim using proper strokes too. Very fun to see him gaining confidence in this area.

My daughter is now known in my mind as Aqua-Chick. She was a bit more timid at first, which is a real switch. Normally she is the fearless one. But she is 22 months younger, and not yet 4, so she has every right to be a little timid. She also has not spent as much time around the water as the boy. However, she has gained so much confidence this week. She now walks into the deep pool, and walks out to the point where she is on tip-toes and her head is tipped back to allow her chin and mouth to be out of the water, just barely. She tip-toes around the pool like that with surprising speed. In the kids’ pool she is also quite confident and now more than happy to put her face into the water, etc.

I love seeing the kids grow in their confidence and abilities. Swimming was something that was a big part of who I was as a kid and I love that my kids might also have a love of the water.

Swinging in the rain

2007-05-28T23:17:00.000-07:00

Today we went with my wife to a meeting she was involved in. Several of the other ladies wanted to see the kids, so we all tagged along.

While waiting for her meeting to finish my job was to keep the kids entertained and happy. Or at least prevent them from disturbing the meeting and/or hurting themselves.

We were told the campus we were on had a playground, so we set out to find it. After a few miscues from some well-intentioned, but obviously misguided efforts to help us find it, we stumbled across it ourselves.

There were two slides that were steeper than any slide I think I have seen here in India. There were two swing sets that sat lower to the ground than any I have seen before, with literally only inches of clearance between them and the ground. There were also a see-saw and a set of monkey bars.

While playing on the swings it began to sprinkle and slowly got more serious about really raining. The kids were having so much fun we decided to ignore the rain for a while. As this was going on I could not help but think of the song “Singing in the Rain”, so I changed the words a bit and began with “Swinging in the Rain . . . . . we’re singing in the rain . . “.

The kids looked at me like I was nuts, but then slightly impressed that I had just made up that tune all by myself. That is the fun part of being a dad. You don’t have to worry that they don’t know you did not make that song up.

Eventually we gave up on playing on the playground in the rain and headed for cover. I was glad to see the kids able to recount to mommy later the adventures we had and the song ‘daddy made up’. Memories being made. Good stuff!

First the fire, then the flood

2007-05-17T20:16:00.000-07:00

I got a call around 9 am this morning that there was apparently some flooding in our office. Someone had left one of the taps open in the bathroom, and the floor drain could not keep up with the flow of water. How could someone leave a tap open you might ask? Well, when you only have water running in the taps for a couple of hours a day, it is easy to leave a tap open without knowing it. I could hardly be upset with whoever did it, because we have done it before too. In fact I mostly felt bad that we had wasted all that water.

A few minutes later another call . . . . this time to report more extensive flooding than originally thought. It was not only a small area in the main room, but the whole of another room had standing water as well. With computer equipment and other electronics all over that office, it was easy to begin imagining the worst. I headed down there.

By the time I arrived two of the programmers had begun sopping up the water with some towels kept in one of the cupboards and were using a squeegee to push water out a doorway as much as possible. I joined them and began soaking up water into a bath towel, then wringing the towel out and repeating the procedure. Within about 15 minutes we had most of it cleaned up.

The good thing about it being 1000 degrees here this time of year (ok, slight exaggeration, but it did hit 107 in the shade here this afternoon and more than 130 in the direct sunlight) is that any remaining water was quickly evaporated.

It does not appear that any of the equipment suffered in this potential calamity. Whew!

So, two days of fire (or things getting burned anyways) and now one day of flooding. What will tomorrow bring? Freezing? Wind storms? Infestation of vermin or insects? Oh the possibilities. Can’t wait. Each day here is a new adventure.

Dad burn it!! - Day 2

2007-05-15T19:44:00.000-07:00

I am a dad. It burned. ‘It’ was a voltage stabilizer.

I returned home late this morning to a smell that scares me every time I smell it. Burning electrical something or another. No smoke. No active noises or signs of ongoing burnage, just the lingering funk from a very recent electrical burn. It was one of those sting your eyes, can’t possibly be good to be breathing this stuff sort of smells.

And so I began my hunt for the recently deceased electrical device, which those of you who have seen our office at home know could take me days to find. Since the power was off (in the whole neighborhood, not as a result of the burnage), which happens all the time here, this could be interesting. All the while, the question keeps running through my head – is there something still burning?

About two months ago we had an inverter installed in our house which stores power in two truck batteries and then supplies power to almost the whole house when the main power goes off. A very cool thing indeed, which has made our lives a lot better. So, due to the inverter, most things in the office were still powered on.

I began by searching for devices that should be on (powered by the inverter) but were not. I found two. My wife’s lcd monitor for her computer, and the fax machine. The fax machine is old and would be no great loss. The monitor would hurt a bit more. Then I realized that both devices were plugged into one single point, the above mentioned voltage stabilizer.

We bought that stabilizer almost 10 years ago now, when we first moved here. Power fluctuations were extreme then, and one dared not plug much of anything in unless it was through a voltage stabilizer. It has served us well. However, it will not be serving us any longer.

As soon as I picked up the stabilizer I knew this was the source of the smell. It was too hot to hold in my hand, and reeked of the same smell as the whole room, only much, much stronger. I removed the cover and confirmed its status. Totally hopeless. The main coil inside had literally melted and several key wires had burned significantly.

We are actually lucky it did not do more than fizzle out within itself. It was sitting behind my wife’s desk, among a whole pile of other cords, wires and cables. A bad thing indeed had it ignited back there.

In happier news, an update on my fingers from yesterday – they have experienced remarkable healing in the last 24 hours. One of them still hurts, but not too bad.

My hope now is that there is not a need for a “Dad burn it!! – Day 3” to add to this series. We can not afford to burn anything else.

Dad burn it!!

2007-05-14T20:53:00.000-07:00

I am a dad. I burned it. ‘It’ being my fingers.

Tonight while cooking dinner for my beloved children (we are eating healthy this week while mommy is away – mostly things that require frying in hot oil), I apparently overheated the cooking oil.

I realized this fact only while placing frozen popcorn chicken (little balls of minced chicken covered with some kind of breading – likely meant to increase nutritional value I am sure) into the hot oil, it began violently spitting and popping. This caused reasonable amounts of oil to leave the confines of the vessel it was sitting in, and jumping onto the plastic bag containing said popcorn chicken.

As the super-heated oil landed on said plastic bag, meltage did occur. Said meltage then resulted in a serious case of “Oh Crud!!” being exclaimed.

The result – burns on several fingers. Not sure if the burns are from melting plastic or from splashing hot oil. One of the fingers had blistered before I even turned my hand over to look at it.

But not all was a total loss. The chicken was not harmed in this process (it had been harmed long before it arrived in our house), and I proceeded to cook it, albeit at a lower temperature, along with some French fries. We all enjoyed. I winced a little.

Now . . .I am going to go find more ice to soothe my pains. As they say here in India . . . “My fingers are paining me.”

Camping . . . .sort of

2007-05-06T19:08:00.000-07:00

This weekend we had a family camping experience . . . sort of. It involved some of the normal camping elements, like grilled Hilshire Farms Beef Polska Kielbasa, hoagie rolls, potato chips, ice cold diet cokes, and lots of other goodies. It also included a tent, paper plates and utensils on a picnic table and two very excited children.

However, our camping ‘trip’ also included some non-traditional elements. Namely, we never left our house, so we had all the comforts of home on this trip, without packing any of it.

We had a ‘picnic’ on our balcony using the kids’ plastic picnic table and dined on some delicacies we bought earlier in the day at one of our favorite stores that occasionally has imported goods – hence the Hilshire Farms.

We also had acquired earlier in the day an electric grill that my wife has been eyeing for months. As luck would have it, we got the very last one they had. So the kielbasa was grilled along with the hot dogs for the kids. She also made fresh hoagie rolls to eat the sausages on.

Once the main course was over, we were ready for dessert. Smores. Mmmmmm, yummy! The marshmallows were cooked over an open flame (albeit on our gas stove, but still, an open flame) and placed onto the nearest thing to a graham cracker we could find – plain digestive biscuits. Cadbury chocolate bars were broken up and placed inside along with the hot marshmallows.

After dinner was over we went inside and watched the live action version of Charlottes Web on dvd, and then decided it was soon time for bed. We headed to our ‘campsite’, a space made in our bedroom to set up our tent (brought back recently from America). We moved in all the blankets and pillows and allotted space for all four of us. We also turned on the air conditioner in the bedroom to cut down on the heat. Another nice part of camping at home.

After a few minutes the kids were settling down, and mom and dad were getting restless. The ground, in this case a marble floor, can be really hard at our age. The kids slept blissfully, while we tossed and turned most of the night.

The kids were so happy to have gone camping. We were so happy to have had some of the comforts of home on our ‘trip’, but more important, we were happy to make a memory together. It was an adventure that only took a little creativity and a good measure of child-like willingness to enjoy the simple pleasures.

It always takes longer

2007-05-05T19:13:00.000-07:00

One thing we learned early on in our life in India is that things almost always take longer than we are told they will. This is true across a broad range of things, some simple like getting a ticket for a train, or running to the store, etc. It is also true for larger things like registering a new car, building a new building, etc. While this simple fact of life here may not seem like a big deal, it can at times be terribly annoying, especially when you forget it or are not ready for it to rear its ugly head.

As I ponder this issue of the timing of things, it raises any number of questions. Perhaps my sample questions will reveal more of my own line of thinking as I write here. This just may be therapeutic. Let’s see.

Line of Questioning #1 – Is the fact that things take longer than estimated a result of poor planning or foresight? Can people simply just not actually calculate or estimate with any reasonable accuracy how long something will take? Do they not learn from the past and therefore adjust future estimations based on that? Poor record keeping or a very short-term memory would play into this.

Line of Questioning #2 – Is this process the result of a different set of values at play, i.e. they know it will take longer, but in an effort to be ‘nice’ of ‘helpful’ or not to tick you off, they say it will take less time? ‘Truth’ (i.e. an accurate and realistic estimate of time) is outweighed by the desire for friendship or helpfulness. Another possibility along this line is that they simply don’t have a clue, but that is not a ‘helpful’ answer, so they give some random guess at a timeline in an effort to be helpful.

Line of Questioning #3 – Are people here just so unbelievably optimistic that they simply can not imagine one (or more) or any number of possible situations delaying the desired outcome? If you can’t or are not willing to see possible obstacles, you won’t be able to account for them in your estimate.

Line of Questioning #4 – Are things here just so totally random that there is no real way to accurately estimate how long something will take? If the process changes every single time you do something, that would make it hard to estimate accurately. But that would beg the question as to why the process changes each time? And if it does change every time, how does anything at all get done here with any regularity?

While I can admittedly see each one of these played out as very real possibilities in situations I have been in even in the last 6 months, I am hesitant to say one is more common or more at fault than another.

Of course there are some who don’t seem to have much trouble with this issue. But that then begs a whole new line of questions (at least in my own mind) as to whether I get special treatment in the ‘things always take longer’ dept in an effort to teach me something. Is God is trying to help me learn something (patience being near the top of that list)? Am I giving off some kind of vibe that induces people to try to irritate me in this way (being too demanding, pushy, or arrogant would do it here)? Is the color of my skin getting me treated this way? Or maybe everyone has to deal with this, but some deal with it better than I do.

Hmmmm, so that was only slightly therapeutic, and leaves me with many more things to examine about myself, my role in all of this, and my expectations and responses to the situations thrown at me.

Smell that?

2007-04-21T20:47:00.000-07:00

Do you smell something? Smells like a new car to me.

Yes, we joyfully took possession last night of our new car. We are so thrilled that it all came together exactly as we had hoped and prayed. At 3 pm Friday afternoon the new owner of our previous vehicle gladly took possession of his ‘new’ car, and within two hours we were taking possession of our new one. Before pulling out of the lot with the new car we prayed that God would keep it safe, us safe in it, and make it last a loooong time and be a very useful tool for us and our work.

We are very happy, and even more thankful for all who had a part in making this a reality for us. Thanks to you all!!

What a night!

2007-04-14T08:02:00.000-07:00

Arrived home last night from my recent trip to the US. Overall things on the trip went good. No flight delays to speak of, no major hassles of any kind, and only minor weather challenges. However, that last few miles were a bit different.

Normally when arriving by an international flight into India the airline provides ‘landing cards’ used for immigration and customs purposes while in flight, leaving you plenty of time to fill it out. However, on this night the airline had no landing cards on board, so that meant a mad dash to get to the immigration hall, find and fill out a card and get into the line. This same feat was being accomplished by all of the nearly 350 people on the flight, making for an interesting scene.

But wait, it gets better.

I passed through immigration with no trouble and headed downstairs to the baggage claim area. And I waited . . . . and waited . . . . and waited. By the time there were only about 20 of us left waiting for bags (out of the aforementioned nearly 350 people) I began to worry. There were no more bags coming out on the conveyor belt. Some of us were looking at each other as if to say ‘This can’t be good’. Finally more bags began appearing after some time, my two among them. Whew! That was scary.

But wait, it gets better.

I passed through customs without so much as a glance from the customs agent, and headed outside to find my requested taxi driver, who I expected to be standing with a sign with my name on it. No such luck. No one with my name, and no one looking for me either.

I headed over to the pre-paid taxi stand, only to find the poor chap inside dead asleep on the floor of his office. I almost felt bad waking him up to do the job for which he was being paid. I told him where I wanted to go, paid the fare and collected my receipt. Shortly after that a young man began escorting me to his waiting car to take me to my appointed destination – home.

We loaded the two bags into the trunk of the car and I climbed in. The driver climbed into his seat, and then began shouting out the window. A few other young men, seeming to know just what was needed, took up positions behind the car, and started pushing. Yes, pushing. Apparently the starter on the car was not working, so the good old bump start method was being employed.

After pushing the car up and down the taxi lane a few times, with me sitting in the back seat the whole time, they concluded the only way this was going to work is to take a second car and push the car faster. So, off one of them went to find a suitable car.

But wait, it gets better.

While sitting waiting for the push car to arrive, all the while blocking the whole taxi lane with our incapacitated vehicle, I saw in front of me an accident involving two cars that simply were not paying attention. This happened directly in front of the car I was sitting in. The two drivers got out and began the dance of determining who was at fault, lightly assaulting each other, and attracting a growing crowd.

About this time, the push car arrives. However, due to the crowd of gawkers, we can now not go anywhere. After a few minutes the driver gets impatient and begins honking persistently, trying to part the crowd with his horn. The push car gives us a nudge, and we begin rolling.

After proceeding a few hundred feet thanks to the propulsion from the push car, the driver pops the clutch and our chariot comes to life. Of course, he did not wait for the push car to back off before doing this, so the jolt of the clutch being released caused the push car to slam that much harder into the back of our car. Not sure how much damage was done to either car, but neither driver was in the least bit worried.

After arriving home, most of the drive being spent with no headlights on (not easy to do at nearly 3 am), I unloaded my things, and gave the driver a small tip. He was not happy with the amount, but I told him that for all he put me through, he was lucky to be getting that much. Next time, fix your car right and you will get a bigger tip. Of course that only made me feel better as he likely did not understand any of that part.

But wait, it gets better.

Finally, I am home. A moment I have waited for for over two weeks. I move my bags near the elevator, only to be told by the watchman that the lift is not working tonight. What?? You must be kidding. Now I am faced with a 6 storey hike with two 50 pound suitcases and a 25 pound carry on bag. Not my idea of a good ending to my journey, especially considering the events of the last two hours. Thankfully my wife offered to come down and carry one of the bags for me, making my trip up possible in only one trip.

So, at long last, home, with all my bags. Tomorrow will be a fun morning watching my wife and kids open up the bags with all the goodies inside for them.

New car

2007-04-13T20:10:00.000-07:00

Went today and ordered our new car. My wife and I went together to make the final decisions on what to get, what options to request, etc. We are so thrilled to be able to do this. A dream come true in many ways. We use our car for so much, and are very much looking forward to getting something more reliable than the one we have right now.

After some significant delays (due to lunch hour, etc.) we were shown the various options we needed/wanted, and had taken one of the cars for a final test drive.

One of the funny things about this process was while discussing various options and accessories for the car. They offer undercoating here, just like car dealerships in America do. Funny thing to me since it rains only three months out of the year, and never snows, therefore they don’t salt the roads, etc. I don’t think I have ever seen a rusted out car here to the point of offering some incentive for getting the undercoating. We passed on that option.

Another funny thing was being asked “Do you want a fridge in your car?” Was not ready for that one. “A fridge? Uh . . . . . ummmm, well . . . . .no thanks.”

Turns out they have the car we want in stock, which surprised us quite a bit. There are a few small things they need to do to modify the car to be exactly what we need/want, so they said it would take about 3-4 days to do that work, and then we can go get the new car.

So, by mid-week next week we should be sporting around town in our new ride. Very exciting stuff for our family.

Leave an impression

2007-04-07T19:58:00.000-07:00

Got the chance to go golfing with some friends from one of our US partner organizations yesterday. I like golfing, but due to our living situation I get to do it at most once or twice a year. That translates into me being pretty much a hack on the golf course.

I was generally true to form for most of the day, starting out rough, slowly getting more comfortable with the clubs (I have to rent every time I play) I was using, and gaining confidence in my skills. That pattern holds true up to about hole 12 or so, where my lack of consistency in playing shows up. I begin to fade, get lazy in my swing, make silly mistakes, and my scores go up.

By the 18th hole, I was ready to be done. My hands were getting tired and having trouble holding onto the clubs firmly enough throughout my swing. I had shanked my drive a little to the right side of the fairway, landing behind some pretty tall pines on the side of the fairway. I was now faced with a decision. Hit out the trees and onto the fairway hoping for a good third shot toward the green or go for broke and punch through the trees, over the water beyond the trees and go straight for the green, which directly and abruptly met the water via a 4 foot retaining wall on the front edge.

I chose the second option. This was my chance to leave a grand impression. I chose a 5 iron, settled in to a steady stance, and swung away. The ball stayed low under the trees, rose quite a bit just beyond the trees and carried flight over the water, finally dropping down with a plop onto the green and rolled to within 10 feet of the cup. Spectacular!!

After a series of ‘Wow! That was amazing!’ and similar comments from my playing partners, I headed to the green and drained a decent putt. If nothing else, it left a good impression in my friends’ minds. I may have scrapped the whole round, but that one hole redeemed me just a little bit.

They say first impressions are the most important, but sometimes leaving a positive final impression is worth a lot too. Finish well, as they say.

My little earth muffin

2007-03-15T08:46:00.000-07:00

My son is turning into quite the little earth muffin. He is learning in his school about the earth and how it is getting so polluted. This has led to some interesting conversations to be having with a 5 year old.

Take for example when we walked down the road to see how the work was going on for the bridge near our house that they are tearing down in order to build a newer, better, bigger bridge – albeit one that goes over one of the most disgusting smelling, fetid bodies of water in our area. As we walked over and watched the massive diggers working away, my son’s attention was drawn to the nasty water below.

“Daddy, why is that water so gross?”
“Because people keep throwing garbage and other things into it.”
“Why do they throw garbage and others things into it?”
“Because they don’t want to take the effort to get rid of the garbage properly.”
“Oh. So they just throw it here?”
“Yes.”
“That is very bad! Now the whole earth is getting polluted because of people throwing garbage in this water. Look daddy!!! Some of the water is getting hard.”
“No, son, it is not getting hard. That is something called sludge. That is part of why it smells so bad over here.”
“I don’t like sludge. Its yucky!”

Or take another conversation just the other day. Mind you this one happened right after he got up from his nap with the AC running in his room, keeping him nice and cool.

“Daddy, air conditioners are bad! They make CFCs go into the air and then the atmosphere will break.”
“Where did you learn about CFCs?”
“At my school.”
“So you don’t want to use your AC any more because of that?”
“No. We should find a different way to cool my room.”
“How should we do that?”
“Maybe we could get a REALLY big fan and use that instead.”
“I don’t think you would like that too much.”
“Well, . . . . we just have to be careful that we don’t break the atmosphere.”
“OK, we will be careful.”
“OK, I will tell my teachers we will be careful.”

I am encouraged that there are at least some here who are aware of the problems and are trying to teach young kids about it too. So many here simply throw things here and there, making the problem that much worse. Who knows if this concern will stick with him, but for now, it’s a good thing.

Road trip funnies

2007-03-05T18:46:00.000-08:00

Had a few funny things happen while on this trip. I will post a few more in the days to come hopefully, but one of them simply needs to be shared right away.

After church on Sunday I had determined to find a place to change out of my Kurta (Indian man’s outfit) that I had worn to church. There was no way I was going to drive 6 hours or more wearing that. But there was no suitable place at the church, so while on the road I found what I thought was a good place. Often people here will change right out in the open, sometimes using a towel held around their waist to cover themselves. I however, do not have the prowess to do such a trick.

I pulled into the back corner of the government bus depot, which was almost totally empty, and parked near the fuel pumps, thinking no one would want to come back there, and I only needed two minutes to quickly change behind the car. I was no more than setting the parking brake on the car and a uniformed security guard began making his way toward us. I realized he likely thought we were trying to steal diesel from the pumps, but figured by the time he meandered over I could be changed and on our way. He came around just as I was putting my new shirt on, and said “You can’t be here, this is government property.”

I explained that I did not want diesel and I was only going to change my clothes very quickly and would be on my way. I had not even turned the car off. He repeated himself. The whole time I am continuing to change. He and his two friends who have now joined him are standing watching me get undressed and then dressed again. By the time I was done I had an audience of three grown men watching me disrobe and redress, plus my friend Ragaland who had also gotten out of the car to try to get them to understand I did not want to steal their diesel, and was only going to change my clothes and then leave.

I had no idea me changing my clothes would be this interesting. I nodded towards the men as if to say ‘I hope you enjoyed the show’, closed the back of the car and hopped in and off we went. As I got in I could hear the guys snickering to themselves, likely something about ‘crazy foreigner who takes his clothes off in the parking lot’.

Road trip stats

2007-03-05T18:44:00.000-08:00

Just got back from our road trip to Kerala. Here are a few of the major stats for those who might care.

Number of days: 5
Total distance driven: 1872 km (1163 miles)
Total time spent driving: 29.75 hours
Average speed: 57.04 km/h (35.44 mph)
Diesel burned: 195 liters (51.51 gallons)
Average cost per liter: Rs. 34.1 (US$3.00 per gallon)
Average fuel economy: 9.6 km/l (22.6 mpg)
Number of states traveled in: 3
Speeding tickets: 0
Number of birds that hits us: 1
Number of deceased persons lying by the side of the road: 2
Number of trucks we saw that had tipped over: 12

The scary thing about the average speed is I am known as a very fast driver here. How pathetic is an average speed of 35.44 mph?!?

Anyways . . . . fun facts to know and tell.

Also . . . . .
Total Driveway Shovels: 0!!

Road trip gear

2007-02-28T20:29:00.000-08:00

Realized today that we needed one important piece of gear for our road trip that begins tomorrow. What piece of gear might that be, you ask. I realized we simply could not do this trip without . . . . . . . a 12v cigarette lighter in our car.

Now before anyone goes off on some rant about smoking, etc., we don’t need it for lighting cigarettes. We need it to power the FM transmitter my sister and brother-in-law gave us for our i-pods. Our car did not come with a 12v power source in it like most cars do. It didn’t come with a lot of things in fact. So, at 5:15 tonight, I took my daughter out for an adventure to try to find a cigarette lighter and get it installed into our car.

One thing that happens in many cities in India is that all of the similar shops locate near each other. So, I headed for the ‘car accessories’ part of town. I pulled up in front of one of the more well-known places, hopped out with daughter in tow, and asked about the cigarette lighter.

I was told it was indeed possible, and in fact would only cost $3 and would take about 3-5 minutes to install. Now I have lived here long enough to know that IST (Indian Stretchable Time) can be a funny thing. I decided to try my luck and let them have a go at it. I handed my keys over.

About 3 minutes later (no exaggeration), a small, wirey young boy returned to the counter to inform me it was all done. I was first of all shocked, then skeptical. I went to the car to inspect the work. Not only was it done neatly and cleanly, but it turns out this guy had wired it the way I wanted as well, which is that it is not powered when the key is off, so as not to cause a drain on the battery if we inadvertently leave something plugged in overnight. I have to admit it looks like a factory install.

This is just one of the MANY things I love about living here. Things that would otherwise be costly, time consuming or simply not possible to get done in the preferred timeline are simple, quick, efficient and inexpensive. Of course the reverse can also be true, but that is a different entry altogether.

Road Trip!!

2007-02-28T09:44:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow first thing we leave on a road trip. We have a good friend who is getting married in Kerala, a state in south India. Our plan as of now is as follows:

Day 1 –
Drive to Bangalore, a major city about 10-11 hours driving time away from here.
Stay overnight in a hotel and get to bed at a decent hour.

Day 2 –
Drive the rest of the way to our destination, approximately another 7-8 hours driving time. Stay overnight at another hotel, arrange by our friend.

Day 3 –
Attend the wedding in the morning. I have a small part in the wedding. Reception in the afternoon, following the wedding. Stay in the same hotel overnight.

Day 4 –
I speak in the groom’s home church in the morning, and we leave right after church to return to Bangalore, about 7-8 hours driving time away. Stay in a hotel in Bangalore.

Day 5 –
We drive the remaining part of the return trip, arriving home sometime in the evening.

That is a five day trip, the better part of four of those days spent in the car. Leah is not fond of long car trips, but she is being a trooper and trying to make the best of it. This was the only way we could all afford to go, and since I have been away from them for so long already this year, we felt it was important to do this as a family.

So, off we go on another wild adventure. God, please let the car work perfectly the whole way with no breakdowns. And help us remember to enjoy the journey, not only the destination.

There must be a better way!

2007-02-27T21:39:00.000-08:00

There must be a better way to meet new people than what I experienced last week. Allow me to elaborate . . . . . . .

Sunday morning, getting ready to head to church . . . car has moderate trouble getting started. Not a good sign.
Wednesday morning, getting ready to go to the gym . . . . .car has even more trouble starting. Again, not good.
Thursday morning, getting ready to bring the kids to school . . . . .car simply won’t start. Very bad!!

While tinkering with the car trying to roughly determine the cause of said starting failure, a gentleman who lives in our apartment building came over and joined me looking under the hood for a moment and then kindly offered his car to take the kids to school. We have not had much interaction with this man in the past, so his offer was a little surprising. “The kids need to get to school.” he said simply.

Later that evening, my son and I went to go thank him again for his gracious offer of his vehicle, and for his real kindness to us. We brought the one thing we thought he might accept. We knew cash was out of the question for covering the cost of fuel, which is expensive here. So we brought sweets. He was a little shocked, but then invited us in, and only agreed to accept them if my son helped eat some. No 5 year old I know would turn that offer down. So, we went inside, sat down and had a nice chat with this kind man. There must be a better way to meet such nice people than to have your car break down though, right?

Another episode that same day . . . . when the breakdown mechanic (roadside assistance kind of thing) arrived, he determined after numerous attempts that the only option was to push start the car. We do not have a small, lightweight car. It is big and heavy. So, with the mechanic in the driver’s seat, I began pushing the car. No luck on the first few attempts. Slowly a few young men who wandered by began helping me push. By the time we finally got the car started we had pushed it up and down our street at least 5-6 times. The guys who helped were very kind and I thanked them as much as our various languages would allow. But there must be a better way to meet these guys than to have your car break down, right?

A final episode from the same day . . . .after dropping the car off at the service garage to have proper repairs made to it, I needed to get home. I flagged down an auto-rickshaw and told him where I needed to go. He said in broken English that he did not know exactly where I wanted to go, but if I knew the way he would take me. Along the way we had a lovely chat about various things, again, as much as our broken use of each other’s language would allow. He was a very nice guy, and was one of the few honest auto drivers I have met in this city. But there must be a better way to meet guys like this, right?

I could also tell about a couple of very helpful and conscientious taxi drivers, a very helpful service advisor at the service garage, another auto driver who took me back to the service garage to pick up the car, etc. All because of a break down with our car.

So as a result of our car breaking down, I met and interacted with a hand full of guys who blessed me in some way, but who would have likely remained unknown to me otherwise. So good things came out of it. That does not mean we are giving up our car altogether or that we hope it breaks down more so we can meet more nice people. What it does mean is that this is a good reminder that all around us are people with stories of their own, people with break downs of their own, and maybe some who have needs we could help meet, if only we take the opportunities to do so.

Update for those who care

2007-02-04T15:42:00.000-08:00

For those of you who care . . . . . . .

Total driveway shovels: 0

WOW!

2007-01-31T15:32:00.000-08:00

A few days ago some friends from our home city arrived here for a two week visit. I would be spending the bulk of that two weeks with them in another part of the country doing various kinds of activities. Many of these are friends from a long ways back, so it is always good to see them.

A few days after they arrived the group leader asked me if I had gathered all my things that they brought for me and my family. In a slightly uncertain tone, I asked if he was talking about the small computer part we had ordered for a friend of ours, since that was all that I knew of that was coming for us.

“No” he said. “I am talking about the stuff that will nearly fill a suitcase that is for you guys.” Oh my. Not what I had expected.

After dinner I went to the luggage room and began looking through all that was there. I was honestly overwhelmed by not only the volume of goods, but by the creativity and specific nature of some of the goods. There were things in there that my wife had mentioned some time ago on her blog, and some things that just plain showed people knew us, or had thought of us and wanted to send something special. Nothing extravagant, just thoughtful.

The goodies sent over with the team were a very significant reminder that we are loved, thought of, and special to a number of people who took time out of their busy lives to buy something and make sure it got sent over with the team.

To each of you who sent things to us, a heartfelt than you from my and my family. You have blessed us in ways you likely won’t understand.

Just what the doctor ordered

2007-01-29T15:35:00.000-08:00

I have been away for two weeks with a group visiting another part of India. This is an annual trip for these friends. My challenge is that this group is followed by another group, and this year they were literally separated by less than 24 hours. That would mean a whole month away from home in one stretch. I was not looking forward to that part.

Nearing the end of the first team, we were given a cash gift by two special people and I was told that was to help pay for me to be able to go home for the weekend to see my family between these two teams.

After clearing my late arrival for the second group with its leader, I quickly secured my ticket. I would arrive home late Friday night, and leave again very early Monday morning, arriving at my destination in time to begin the day with the team. Perfect.

While home for the weekend we packed it as full as could be. We had the kids Sports Day on Saturday morning (an event I had missed each year so far due to being away for these trips) and followed that with lunch at a local hotel, and then haircuts for my son and I. Afternoon naps for most of us were in order.

In the evening we went out for dinner and them went to go see a new animated film that had just been released here. Sunday was church together as a family, then home for lunch and naps again in the afternoon. In the evening we had time together at home, and I got to help my son do his weekend homework.

As I left early Monday my emotional tank had been at least partially refilled. I hope the same was true for my wife and kids. This weekend was just what the doctor ordered so I can carry on through this next two weeks before finally getting home on Feb 14th.

Thanks to our two special friends for caring for us as a family in such a practical way. Your gift made a huge difference.

Great quote

2007-01-10T21:09:00.000-08:00

Watching a quirky little show tonight on tv called “Ed”, I heard a quote from someone whose name I did not catch. As much as I want to credit the initial source, for now, the show gets credit for it.

“Out side of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside a dog it’s too dark to read.”

Any response?

Keeping up

2006-12-29T21:02:00.000-08:00

My brother-in-law has a new feature on his blog about the total number of driveway shovels he has had to do this winter season. Not to be outdone, I have decided that I will occassionally offer an update on the same thing. As of today, December 29th, 2006, I have had to shovel our driveway zero times.

Total Driveway Shovels: 0

Somehow I suspect that number will not change much in the foreseeable future. This is due to several factors. One, we live in a place where the coldest it ever gets is somehwere in the high 50s or very low 60s. Two, we live in an apartment building, on the 5th floor, and therefore we have no driveway. Three, we live in a country where labor is so cheap for things like this that I would be considered a fool by locals to do such a thing myself, since I could pay someone pennies to do it for me. Four, if it ever did snow here, shoveling the driveway would be the least of my worries, since I would need to be more concerned with joining the herds for the great migration south to avoid the coming ice age.

But, nonetheless, I will periodically keep you updated on the number of times I have had to shovel the driveway.

A boy named Sue

2006-12-29T20:50:00.000-08:00

OK, I took a little liberty. It should really be a boy named Su.

Got to go to a friend’s wedding tonight. His name is Sushanta. I have known him for several years now as we have worked together in the training programs, as well as through personal interactions in our home, etc.

Sushanta is a great guy. He is really turning into quite a man. It was a real joy to see how God has chosen to bless him with a beautiful bride who, according to those who gave testimony about her, is a real gem of a girl. I look forward to getting to know her a bit in the future.

So here’s to you, boy named Su. Congratulations!! And best wishes for a long, happy and blessed marriage.

The best reactions

2006-12-26T21:17:00.000-08:00

With two kids, ages 5 and 3, it is fun as a parent to scheme and find things you are pretty sure they will love to open on Christmas. This year was like that for us.

About 10 days before Christmas we were out shopping for boring stuff like food, etc., not presents. My son and I were charged with buying a Christmas star (a tradition here among believers) to put up at our house. We wondered across the street to a shop that had a good display. While we were in the shop I was talking to the shopkeeper about options for stars, lights, etc. I felt a gentle tug on my shirt sleeve and looked down to see my son, eyes fixed in one direction, staring at something on the counter. His only words, said with a mix of pleading and a little bit of awe, were “Daddy, can we?” He never even looked at me, just kept staring at whatever it was that he was so interested in.

I looked to where he appeared to be gazing and quickly realized what had caught his attention. It was a giant airplane. Giant compared to anything he had ever seen. It was a 747 plastic model, with a wingspan of about two and a half feet. I causally asked the shopkeeper how much the plane was, and he told me. Roughly $8.

We left the store without the plane and walked across the street to the car. As we got in, my son once again asked. “Daddy, I can sit here SOOOOOO nicely and you can go get that airplane for me, right?” He was truly intrigued by that plane. I went back a few days later and bought it, hiding it in the bedroom to keep for Christmas.

My wife had a similar interaction with our daughter. While at a shop looking for a few things she saw a strawberry shaped pillow that caught her eye. Several visits to that shop all elicited the same response. There was begging, there were moments of disappointment at leaving without it. All of that was about to change.

Christmas Eve we have a tradition of opening one gift. My son’s gift that night was his new airplane. He opened it, and immediately began tearing open the box and in record time he had it assembled and was flying/driving it around the room. His grin was priceless. His joy was unashamed.

My daughter’s reaction was even better in some ways. When she opened the pillow there were two immediate responses. First, a squeal of glee that brought a smile to our faces. That was quickly followed by her taking off in a dead run, one of her totally out of control, on the verge of falling with every step, kind of runs, into her bedroom, squealing all the way. She was desperate to put that pillow on her bed where it belonged. She too, could not contain her joy.

I love moments like that, where you see someone whose dream has been fulfilled, whose wish has been granted. The kind of reaction that knows no shame, that has no filters on it. If only we adults could remember what that is like. To feel total joy at something as simple as a pillow or a plastic airplane.

Do you have any times when you felt that way? So happy you just wanted to scream. So full of joy you simply could not contain yourself. I’d love to hear about it.

A proud parenting moment

2006-12-24T21:03:00.000-08:00

Today was a good day. Not only being the day before Christmas, but also a proud parenting moment or two. Our church here gives out prizes the Sunday before Christmas for Sunday School for the children. There are two categories. One is for perfect attendance during the year, and one is for an exam they conduct a few weeks earlier. No idea what is included in the exam, but there is apparently an exam.

This year, both of our kids got perfect attendance prizes. They were, much to our surprise, the only kids in the younger age group to receive this prize. They both ran up to the front to receive their ‘Champions’ (what they call a trophy or plaque) from one of the church elders. Huge grins covered their faces as the whole church clapped for them.

Then just a moment or two later, it was time for the prizes for the exam. My son got third prize for the exam in the younger age group. He again quickly ran to the front to receive his ‘Champion’ from the church elder, again beaming with joy that the whole church was clapping for him. He ran back and proudly held on to his two ‘Champions’.

As parents we cherish these times. There are many times where you wonder if you are making a total mess of your kids, or if anything you are trying to teach them or train them in is really sinking in. And then times like this come, where you can enjoy, even just for a minute, the joy of seeing your child revel in the realization that they did something good, and others appreciated them for it.

Makes me wonder if kids need to be getting more ‘Champions’ more often to encourage them in the things they do right. And there is little doubt that we need to be clapping for our kids more often than we do.

Make it easy

2006-12-21T08:58:00.000-08:00

This month has been a month of voracious reading. So far 5 books. I go in spurts like this, but try to always be reading something. Part of my life-long learner intention.

In one of my recent reads there was a chapter about the importance of assessing, as a leader, why someone was not able to perform the way they were expected to. Was it a motivation problem or an ability problem? Good question to ask. It then followed that chapter with a chapter about helping people succeed by making it easy for them to accomplish what is needed.

Make it easy for them? I have to admit my first reaction was “What a crock!” Make it easy in my mind meant lower the expectation. If a person could not perform up to par, lower that expectation to make it easier for them to succeed. So, based on that idea, the person’s feeling of success (meeting the lower expectation) was more important that actually accomplishing what is really needed (the higher expectation).

That got me to thinking, what would things be like if God did that? Be holy? I can’t quite do that, but would being mostly good most of the time be sufficient? Lowering the expectation is not the answer. I have to admit that I nearly put the book down at this point. But I kept reading. I am glad I did.

As I read on I realized that the main point was not to lower the expectation, but to work toward removing any obstacles to the person accomplishing the expected outcome. If they are not motivated, work toward removing any obstacles to them being motivated. If they are not able, work toward removing anything in the way of them being able.

This was starting to resonate more with me. Remove obstacles to people’s success. A good role for a leader to have. In fact, back to the God part, is that not exactly what He did? If His expectation is Holiness, and we can not meet that because we are sinful, then He needed to provide a way to remove that obstacle to us succeeding in being Holy. And He did – through His son Jesus Christ. He did not lower the expectation, but he made a provision to remove the obstacle.

What a perfect time of year to be learning this. As we celebrate the birth of Christ, it is good to remember that God was beginning to remove the obstacle to our success in being Holy people through the birth of His son Jesus.

Thanks God for helping us to succeed by removing the obstacles to our success!

Do you have any examples of when a leader you worked with/for did well with removing obstacles to your success?

Ten years plus a lot more

2006-12-07T20:35:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was our 10th anniversary. Hard to believe it was that long ago that we got married, and in other ways it seems like we have done and seen so much in that time. 9 of those anniversaries have been spent here in India.

It was also my birthday. I am a LOT older than 10, hence the ‘plus a lot more’ in the title.

This year we decided to get away for a night with just the two of us. My wife made me a great breakfast in bed that morning with chocolate chip pancakes, bacon, and a chocolate covered donut. The kids joined me in bed for that part. Anything involving chocolate and they are in.

Then we took the kids to school together and went off to the gym, where I got a massage while she worked out. She is much more motivated than me to work out every day. After our daughter got done with school we picked her up and brought her home and left shortly after that to check in to a local hotel.

We had arranged for some friends of ours to stay with the kids and take care of getting them to/from school, dressed, fed, to bed, etc. The kids normally do quite well with these situations, or at least that is what people tell us.

We left our cell phones turned off and had a backup phone on with only one person, one of the two looking after the kids, who had that number. No one else knew where we were or how to reach us.

We got to the hotel, checked in and promptly ordered room service for lunch. This is my wife’s favorite part of staying in a hotel. We ate like kings and then decided to read books for a while and eventually nodded off for a nearly 3 hour nap. Outstanding!!

We rested for a while more, got dressed and went downstairs to one of our favorite restaurants and had a great dinner of north indian kabobs and breads. It was as spectacular as it always is. This is one of our ‘special treat’ places that we love to go to, but can’t very often due to the cost so we enjoyed it to the fullest.

We again ate like kings and were totally stuffed by the end – when they brought us a complimentary cake (yes, a whole cake) for our anniversary. This was, in fact, the second cake we had gotten so far. We ate one bite each to be polite and asked to have the rest to bring to the room.

We rested the remainder of the night, trying to convince our full stomachs not to grumble too much. By about 10:30 or 11:00 we were off to sleep. Finally around 8:30 the next morning we conceded defeat and got up to have some breakfast – again room service as per my wife’s wishes.

We lounged around some more, read some more books and magazines, watched a little tv, and just took it easy. We eventually wandered down to the poolside and sat and read some more, my wife took a couple of quick dips in the pool and got some sun.

Finally we headed upstairs to get dressed for lunch and then checkout and go home. We had arranged for a late checkout at 2 pm instead of noon as they usually require. By 1:50 our bags were packed, and we headed off to pay the bill.

An incredible day of just being together, relaxing, resting, reading and eating till we were way beyond full. Glorious! What a great indulgent treat for both of us. We really must do this kind of thing more often. Somehow I doubt we would get bored with doing it simply because we could not afford to do it 'too often'. But boy was it a nice treat.

Negotiations gone bad

2006-12-01T21:25:00.000-08:00

Our daughter is a great source of laughter to us sometimes. She is brave, bordering on fearless, has a totally care-free desire to live large and play hard. She does everything full throttle. I have often said she will be the first of our two kids to call us one fine day and say "Dad, Mom, guess what I just did? I went to space!" (Going to space, btw, is what I think the next bungy-jumping-like craze is going to be and she is just at the right age to catch it early.)

Tonight her full throttle life caught up with her while we were negotiating how much more pizza she was going to have to eat before she could go back to playing. She began with one bite more, then we went to three bites, and while she thought about it briefly we then suggested four, and before she could think about it she blurted out "No, Five!!" That was readily agreed to by her and us, and she chomped down five more bites. She has no idea she just negotiated her way from one bite more to five bites more, but she felt good about the fact that we agreed with her offer. So I guess it is not so much a case of bad negotiations, but more that we did not understand the values at play in those negotiations.

However, remind me not to have her negotiate the price of my next major pruchase, whatever that might be.

Decision making

2006-12-01T21:14:00.000-08:00

The other day I had the joy of teaching a class on decision making to a group of nearly 60 future and developing leaders with our partner organization here.

One of the steps that we talk about in making decisions is determining a clear statement of what 'problem' needs a decision. Without understanding the problem it will be hard to make a good decision.

I was reminded of a quote that I have no idea where it came from, but still strikes me as significant when it comes to making decisions and to leadership in general. It goes like this:

"There is nothing as useless as the right answer to the wrong problem."

One of the examples I use in this vein is something like 'It is like me giving you a math problem like 2+(blank)= 10. Do you agree or not? Is that the right answer? Without out knowing what value goes into the blank there is no way for you to know if the answer is in fact 10 or not. We must know and understand what problem we are trying to solve before we can ever know if we have the right answer or not.'

I think many times in our lives we think we are giving the right answer, when in fact that may be true, but unfortunately we are answering the wrong question or problem.

Why do I do this to myself?

2006-11-28T11:12:00.000-08:00

I am part of a fantasy football league with a handful of people from various parts of the world. We all work for the same company so it can be fun to have a little rivalry amongst us. In addition to that, I have begun hosting Tuesday Morning Football, where, due to the time zones between here and the US, between 7 and roughly 10 am on Tuesdays we get together and watch the Monday Night Football game live. It is intended to be a bonding experience for us boys as we sit and watch the game and eat breakfast together, etc.

This week I have begun asking myself whether this is such a good idea or not. You see, I am *somewhat* competitive and if I or my opponents have players from our fantasy league playing in the Monday Night game, it is hard for me to be calm, cool and collected about it. As they do well, my stress level decreases, but when those players are not doing well, I get amped up like nobody’s business.

This week was a perfect example. My chosen QB was coming back after a 4 week injury-induced break, and was expected to do mostly well. Better than my other QBs in fact, which is why I chose him. One of my benched QBs scored an amazing 36 points this weekend, equaling a franchise record of 5 TDs thrown in one game, so I knew my chosen guy had better do well so I did not regret choosing him. In the first roughly 2 minutes he had thrown and interception and the opposing team had scored a touchdown shortly thereafter. Not a good way to begin.

It did not get any better before half time. He had thrown three interceptions and fumbled once, resulting in a negative 7 points. The real clincher was that I had a 3 point lead going into that game, and had he done nothing at all I would have won. Now, he was losing my matchup for me. Aaargh!!

The second half got much better when he threw 3 TDs and racked up some more yardage, giving me in the end a respectable 15 points to the positive and ensuring my win in my matchup.

But why do I torment myself this way? Maybe the best thing is to simply let the games go on and only check the scores later. That way my blood pressure need not go up for 3 hours at a time, and I don’t get so amped up about it. But that would not be nearly as much fun, would it? So I guess the key is to find a way to enjoy the game and the fellowship with the guys, but not take the fantasy part so seriously. Yeah, right. Like that is going to work. Good thing the season is only so long. My struggle will be over in a few weeks, and life will go back to normal.

Christmas comes early

2006-11-18T21:09:00.000-08:00

Christmas has come early this year to our house. My mother-in-law arrived for her annual Thanksgiving trip to visit us, and with her comes a load of goodies for us all. New clothes for the kids, fun treats for us all to eat, and usually a couple of things for my wife and I.

This year I had asked her to bring some attachments for my wife’s recently acquired KitchenAid mixer. We will now be slicing, shredding and grinding things in addition to mixing things.

And I will be happily listening to music and watching various kinds of entertainment on my new 80 GB video i-pod. Wow!! I could have only wished for this, and yet somehow here it is in my hot little hands. I have been hesitant to tell my wife what I have read about how mine is advanced over her measly old 60 GB video i-pod. :)

God is good to us, and so are our family and friends who continue to spoil us with the desires of our hearts and so much more. We are blessed indeed.

Discomforting words

2006-11-15T09:23:00.000-08:00

“When we fall, Jesus picks us up. He’s busy.”

These are the first words of Chapter 22 in Scot McKnight’s book The Jesus Creed.

For whatever reason these words struck me as I read them last night. While the first sentence is comforting, I find the second one particularly discomforting. Why is it that after all these years (decades, centuries, millennia) of church history and even our own personal faith in Christ and his transformative work in our lives, we still have not figured out how to ‘fall down’ less often?

Children learning to walk generally learn quite quickly not to fall so often, and in a short period of time become reasonably good at not falling down. The animal kingdom teaches us that those who fall down a lot are easily overtaken by their predators, so in their case it is truly a life and death situation. So why can we not seem to learn to not fall down as often in our spiritual lives?

Of course the argument could easily be made that God’s mercy and grace would not be as evident in our lives if we fell down less. But Scripture is clear that that is no reason to fall down more!

One could also argue that since the falling down part is a result of our fallen nature there is little we can do about it. We are just simply people who fall down a lot. That is taking the easy way out I think. It is not my fault that I fall down? That does not mean I should not strive to fall down less.

I also think one option that we need to at least consider is the price we pay for falling down as well as the reward we get for not falling down so often. A child who falls on his face learns quickly that that hurts, and can be very embarrassing. They also learn that parents are so amazingly happy and proud of the child when the child learns to walk. Perhaps we are not ‘embarrassed’ or ‘ashamed’ (I am not talking about in front of or by others as much as I am talking about within ourselves) enough any more when we fall down. Or maybe we have lost the joy of pleasing our Heavenly Father when we don’t fall down as much. Or maybe we don’t even remember that He cares or is watching.

I know full well that my Father watches me in all I do, and wants me to fall down less. He is overjoyed when I am successful in that. So let me learn to keep striving to fall down less, to be adequately embarrassed or ashamed when I do, and learn to celebrate with my Father in my successes. And thanks, Jesus, for picking me up whenever I fall.

Body parts

2006-11-11T18:56:00.000-08:00

While having a tickle fight with my daughter the other day she made me laugh out loud, and got me to thinking.

I was tickling her legs, especially the inside of her thighs and her hamstrings. She was laughing loudly, and when she had had enough she playfully said “Daddy!! Stop!. Stop tickling my knee-arm-pits!”

“Your what? I asked.”

“My knee-arm-pits. This part, in the back of my knee.”

What is that part in the back of your knee called? I always just called it the back of my knee. Knee-arm-pit is a new one on me. But should it not be called a knee-pit, following the lead of the ‘arm-pit’ protocol? And while we are at it, shouldn’t the inside of your elbow be the arm-pit since it is truly in the middle of your arm and the inside of your shoulder (what we now call an arm-pit) be a shoulder-pit? So you have a shoulder-pit, an arm-pit, a knee-pit. Any other pits?

What about the belly button? Shouldn’t it be a belly-pit? It surely is a pit on some, especially us ‘full-figured boys’.

Are there other funny parts of our bodies that don’t have proper names? Or maybe they do and we just don’t know what they are.

Feel free to submit your suggestions for body parts with funny names or little known proper names for other parts. Please keep it family friendly!

Going to space

2006-11-04T16:00:00.000-08:00

My son told me in the car the other day that he was learning about space in school recently. When asked what he was learning, he began sharing various facts that he was picking up. For example, when astronauts go into space they go in a space shuttle. Very good! And when their eyes are open they are on the earth, but when they are in space their eyes are closed. Not quite sure what that means, but good to know.

After a short silence he announced to me that someday he wants to go to space. The conversation went something like this:

Him: “Daddy, someday I also want to go into space.”
Me: “How would you get there?”
Him: “In a space shuttle, silly.”
Me: “And what would you do in space?”
Him: “I would go to Bluto.” (I was pretty sure he meant Pluto, since Bluto is a character on Popeye, and I don’t think he lives in space.)
Me: “Do you mean Pluto?”
Him: “No, daaaaaad! (in a ‘duh!’ kind of tone like everyone knows that is not right) I want to go to BLUE-TOE! (with emphasis).
Me: “And what would you do there?”
Him: “I would push the red button.”
Me: “And what would that do?”
Him: “It would make me go down of course.”
Me: “I see. And then what would you do?”
Him: “I would walk around Bluto for a while and see some people. Then I would come back up.”
Me: “How would you come back up?”
Him: “I would push the GREEEEN button. (again, in that ‘duh’ kind of tone like he just could not believe I did not know that)”
Me: “And then what would you do?”
Him: “I would push the blue button and come back to earth (pronounced by him as URT with no ‘th’ sound at the end, only a ‘t’ sound).”
Me: “Why is the button to make you come back to earth blue?”
Him: “Because most of the earth is made up of blue water!”

If only everything in life were as simple as pushing the right colored button to get done what we want or to go where we want. I suppose in the mind of a child it really is that simple. It is only us adults that seem to make it all so much harder than it needs to be.

Careful with my kid!

2006-11-02T15:58:00.000-08:00

I had written earlier about my son riding home in the ‘van’ from school and how it made me realize how fast he is growing up. I had a slightly different response when I went to pick him up the other day.

We meet the van near the airport, alongside an overpass. Most of the time the van goes under the overpass about a block in front of where we park, into a neighborhood and pops out again from a side street right near where we park. This particular day, the van driver saw me sitting there and decided to drop Clark off first.

At first thought that seems to be a nice gesture. However, the practical application of that gesture meant the driver was taking my son the wrong way against one-way traffic, weaving in and out of pedestrians and dodging scooters and cars as well as buses coming headlong at him into the bus stop through which he was driving the wrong way. All this he was doing in what amounts to little more than a overgrown soup can on wheels that would be crushed beyond recognition were it to attempt or be involved in an altercation with one of the above mentioned buses, or pedestrians, cars or scooters for that matter.

Mind you, the drivers of these school vans have always exhibited total control over their vehicles, but never the less, it was all together disconcerting to see said van lunging and weaving toward me knowing my son was inside, likely oblivious to the fact that he was in fact cheating death with every passing second.

As the seconds ticked by, feeling like an eternity in and of themselves, I winced as other vehicles came near and then deftly reacted to the not so odd fact of a vehicle driving the wrong way down the street. You see, here, it is quite a common experience.

Had this event happened in most western countries the driver would have been the subject of the nightly news for killing himself and all of his charges in the process of this escapade. But here, he is simply normal. And my son, having arrived safely at our car, was not the wiser to the stress his father had endured in the previous 15 seconds.

Maybe the best thing when things like this happen is to simply close ones eyes. And Pray!

Things immeasurable

2006-10-19T11:54:00.000-07:00

I am the kind of person that likes to be able to ‘measure’ my accomplishments. I like the kind of jobs where I can stand back and say ‘Look at what I got done today.’ Unfortunately for me, many of my current responsibilities do not align themselves with such easily visible or tangible results. Much of what I do is, for lack of a better term, immeasurable.

Sometimes I joke about being a ‘professional meet-er’, because I seem to have a lot of meetings, which in most cases means talking with/to someone about something. But the difficult part of that is that you can not usually easily measure the outcome of a meeting.

There are times I would like to convince myself that I have made a significant impact in someone’s life through giving them feedback, direction or input of some other kind. Feeling like I made a difference in someone’s life is a type of measurement and it makes me feel good. However, it is, in reality, almost impossible to know what, if any, has been the impact made in someone’s life until much later.

There are also times when I feel like I have wasted my time in so many meetings that were ‘useless’. However, in truth, the times when I have gotten the most direct affirmation of an impact in someone’s life was the result of what I had originally deemed a failure or waste of time.

The result of the combination of the above mentioned two types of feelings I have is that I understand even more how fickle and unreliable my feelings are about the worth of what I am doing. I simply can not rely on my feelings to determine my self worth and esteem.

And maybe that is the whole point. Perhaps I need to be more worried about how God views my work and how He measures my success or failure. Boy is that a scary thought!! If that is true, then I need a whole new set of measuring tools.

So how do you measure your own success or failure?

List of ten

2006-10-18T23:55:00.000-07:00

I have seen several people using lists of 10 things to help people get to know them a little bit. I have decided to do this, but in the form of a quiz.

Below are ten things that are true about me. Each of the ten things corresponds to the numbers 1-10. Match the statement with the number and either reply with a comment or send me an email. There might even be a prize for the winner. Hint – each of the numbers from 1-10 is only used once – there are no duplicate numbers and each number is used at least once.

# of my fingers I have broken at one time or another
# of dogs I wish we could have
# of years we have been married
# of dogs we have
# of years we have lived in India
the age of our daughter
# of my football jersey from 8th grade
# of knee surgeries I have had
# of different sports I competed in during school
the age of our son

Good luck!

Growing up

2006-10-17T19:50:00.000-07:00

I noticed today in a remarkable way how my little boy (5) is so quickly growing up.

Normally my wife goes to pick him up after school, and just recently he started riding the ‘bus’ (really a van) most of the way home after school. She goes and picks him up nearby and brings him the rest of the way home.

Today, she needed to go to a meeting so I was left to go get him from the bus. As I sat there waiting, watching traffic go by, seeing all manner of people wandering about on the streets, I was ill-prepared for what was about to happen.

As the bus pulled up and the door opened, I suddenly realized that my boy is growing up so quickly. He rides the bus home from school now, for crying out loud. He is not the tiny little creature I first knew him to be. He is more a little person now than he ever has been, and for some reason seeing him get out of that van made me realize it.

I now fear that these days are going by too quickly, and I know that I will never be able to get them back again. I only hope I don’t ‘waste them’ by not appreciating him as he develops and grows into a young man.

Lord, help me savor every day as he grows, and help me be a good example to him of what it means to follow you.

Just barely

2006-10-16T10:49:00.000-07:00

Had a close call this weekend in fantasy football. I was projected to win by 20 points, but that means nothing in reality, especially when your opponent has one player who just goes off and scores 30 points all by himself. However, in spite of that, I have pulled off a win this weekend, just barely, so far by only 2 points, but I still have one WR still yet to play on Monday night.

I could really use a good weekend next weekend resulting in a total blowout of my opponent. Somehow that does not seem likely. Oh well, one can hope, right?

Figuring stuff out

2006-10-11T22:02:00.000-07:00

I came to a realization today that I like to figure stuff out. That might not seem like a major feat, but it was encouraging to me as I figured out just a little more about how God has wired me.

This revelation is not actually completely new either. I have known for some time that I like to figure things out, especially people. I have also known for some time that the most frustrating times for me are when I don’t understand something and can’t seem to make any sense of it.

How did I learn this ‘new’ lesson?

I took apart a friend’s laptop to narrow down why exactly it was not charging the battery any more (after being dropped while plugged in) and discovered that the problem should be pretty easily fixed, assuming the right part is available.

I took apart the valve stems in my kids' bike tires to figure out why one of them was not allowing air to pass through and learned how differently they make those things over here, and yet in spite of doing it differently (not ‘wrong’ as some might say) it works quite well in fact.

I took apart a cell phone to try to figure out if there was a mechanical reason why it was not working, only to discover that if the ‘sim’ card is not installed the phone does not work – duh! Note to self, check for the obvious first.

I partially disassembled my office chair to figure out why it had developed a significant lean to one side while I was gone recently, only to discover that due to a design flaw the metal was fatiguing and will need to be replaced.

I could go on and on, but looking back over that list, there was a lot of taking things apart in the process of learning my lesson. I should say that all of the things have since been put back together and are working fine, with the exception of the chair which is yet to be brought to the shop.

I guess the new part of this lesson for me was the joy or sense of accomplishment in finally understanding something that I did not understand before. In each case I gained knowledge and now know just a little bit more in each case about how things work, and what cause them to not work at times.

I feel good about learning these things, most of which will do me absolutely no foreseeable good. I feel like I did something of value. Maybe that is the real lesson. Learning things, even if there is no foreseeable benefit in the future is of value in and of itself. Learning is inherently valuable.

Humility

2006-10-10T22:00:00.000-07:00

Today, I hang my head in shame . . . .for I am a loser . . . at least in my matchup this last weekend for fantasy football.

I feel shame because I lost to a team that only fielded 6 out of a possible 9 players. My 9 still could not beat his 6. How pathetic is that?

The only redeeming part of this whole thing is that I thankfully resisted the urge to talk ‘smack’ prior to the games. I came soooooo close to throwing down a big ol’ string of smack to let everyone now I was now on the front end of a long and prosperous run in our league.

I look back now and am ever so glad I resisted that urge. For the shame of losing to a 6 man team is enough without adding to it a serious helping of humble-pie.

So now it is on to next weekend. Will I fall to the 1-4 team that rarely, if ever, updates their roster that I am up against this coming weekend, or will I prove incapable yet again of what should be an easy win? Let’s see.

Jet lag stinks

2006-09-30T05:47:00.000-07:00

One of the downsides to having been gone so long is that I was totally adjusted to the time zones of the US. I was in all 4 time zones, some of them numerous times. But now that I am back, jet lag has set in.

I went to bed last night at about 10 pm. My rule is to stay awake until at least 9 pm on the day you arrive and for the first several days. That can be torturous at times, but it really does help. I made until 10 the day I arrived. Not bad.

Then 3 am rolled around. Uggh! I hate this part.

By 3:30 or so I conceded defeat and got up to do some work for a while. Might as well make use of the time rather than lay there agonizing over how much sleep I am missing.

So here I sit, blogging and writing emails and catching up on things to be done. Darn you, jet lag!!

The best part of coming home

2006-09-30T05:36:00.000-07:00

In addition to my very positive travel experience on my way home, I had another great part, the best part in fact. I walked in the door at 2:20 in the morning, greeted by my wife who I had missed a lot on this trip.

We decided not to open anything up right then and just go right to bed to get as much sleep as possible before the kids got up.

About 6:45 or so, I heard the bedroom door open and then close right away. I waited a minute or two to see if two little bodies would soon join us in bed. They did not. I was quite awake, so I decided to go out and see what the kids were up to.

I carefully opened the bedroom door, trying not to wake my sleeping wife. I walked quietly into the dining room and stopped to listen for sounds from my kids. My son peered around the corner from the front room. His reaction was priceless.

He ran full speed ahead toward me shouting ‘Daddy! Daddy!! Daddy!!!!’ and jumped into my arms. That was followed by my daughter with a very similar reaction. How great does it make you feel to get a greeting like that? That is the best!!

Hugs and kisses and cuddles followed. Then came the question – ‘Can we open your suitcase and see our surprises?’ I told them they needed to get mommy up so she could help. Mommy didn’t stand a chance of sleeping any more with two kids as motivated as these two were.

Once we were all assembled in the living room, the opening of the suitcases began. The kids began quickly removing all the contents of the first suitcase, each one claiming as their own certain things accompanied by gleeful comments like "I love this. It's my favorite!" They have a remarkable ability to sort out who gets what.

Then on to the second suitcase. More goodies. Lots of new clothes, some new toys, some videos, books, and food stuff. And a few practical things like toiletries, etc.

This is the best part for me. A great greeting/reaction from my wife and kids, and shear joy at all the fun things that come back with me for them. I love seeing them so happy, and I love that they like it when I come back. Much better than “Oh, you again?” And the scones mixed in the new KithcenAid mixer were delicious.

Most of the things this time were not bought by me, but by other family members and some friends. Even though they were supposed to be for Christmas, we decided not to wait. The kids know who everything is from and are so thankful for it all.

Home at last!

2006-09-30T05:31:00.000-07:00

I made it home yesterday very early in the morning. Overall it was a very good trip both in terms of outcomes but also in terms of logistics. I had a few very positive things happen on the way home too.

Upon arriving at the airport to check in I feared that one of my two bags was slightly over the 50 pound weight limit. When I set the heavier of my two bags on the scale, to my horror it read 70.0 pounds. I had significantly underestimated the weight of that bag. My plan was to shift any excess weight to the other bag or to my carry on, but there was no way I could shift 20 pounds.

I then placed the second bag on the scale. 50.0 pounds. Dead on the limit. While that is somewhat amazing that it was exactly on, that made my situation worse. No room to shift anything to that bag from the first one. I knew I was in trouble since I had phoned earlier and been told the cost for an international bag between 50 and 70 pounds was $129. I was not sure what I was going to do.

About that time the ticket agent came over and saw the weight of the bags, and asked if I could move anything to my carry on bag. “Not 20 pounds’ worth of stuff” I told her. “That will cost you an extra $25 for that added weight then” she told me. Before the words were out of her mouth I handed her my credit card. That was $25 well spent in my mind to make sure all of the stuff with me could go safely and not have to wait for a later trip.

While waiting at the gate before departure they announced they were looking for volunteers to be changed to a later flight. They were oversold in economy class, which is the perfect scenario for a frequent flier like me to get upgraded. Could it be? Nope, in the end they apparently found enough volunteers. No upgrade. Drat!!

Then, while changing planes in Amsterdam, I had another unexpected bonus. While scanning my boarding pass the machine beeped back at the agent. She looked down and then told me my seat had been changed. Instead of 11D, I was now in 2F. Yahoo!!! Business class on my last flight home. And that too, in Amsterdam where I long ago gave up on asking for upgrades since they NEVER do that there. I of course maintained complete composure, acting like it was expected or even happens all the time.

Upon arrival into my final city, I was the second person from my flight to clear immigration. Another advantage of the ‘good seats’ – very short lines for immigration, which can take a while. I headed downstairs to wait for my luggage.

As soon as bags started coming out on the belt I noticed a high number of them with chalk ‘X’s on them. That means additional Customs scrutiny. Not good. Please don’t let there be an ‘X’ on my bags. I fully expected there would be though since my one bag contained something that would surely look very odd on an x-ray scanner – a KitchenAid mixer. That was to be my big surprise for my wife. Hopefully it would not cause too much grief to get it into the country.

My bags finally appeared. One with no markings and the other with ‘RS’ written in chalk on three sides. No idea what ‘RS’ means, so I confidently headed towards the exit. Anything other than confidence will surely get you flagged for more scrutiny.

The agent noticed the ‘RS’ on the side and told me I needed to have the bag rescanned. Ah, that is what ‘RS’ means. File that away for future reference. I headed towards the scanning machine, placed my bag through and knew full well what they were going to ask about. They pointed on their screen, asking what the large dark object was. I explained as best I could, was looked over once or twice in a cursory glance, and then given the go ahead. Whew! That was easy.

I headed out the door and got into the taxi to go home. Home at last.

Nearly headed home

2006-09-26T21:02:00.000-07:00

In just two days I will be on my way home. I realized the other day as I was flying in that I only have two more flights before arriving home.

This trip has been a long one, and I am ready to be home. I miss my wife, I miss my kids and every time I think about buying things to bring home to them I miss them more. I love bringing them things, and hate that the airlines have lowered the free baggage allowance down to 50 pounds per suitcase. I realize that Americans have been so totally spoiled for years with such massive baggage allowances (70 pounds each up until late last year), but still, when you get used to it it is hard to drop down to only 50 pounds per bag. I could fit so many more goodies in for my wife and kids when it was 70 pounds.

I am bringing home some fun things on this trip that will hopefully bring them joy. We will have to wait and see.

Finally

2006-09-26T09:01:00.000-07:00

I won my first match up this weekend in Fantasy Football. My first two weekends were an abysmal failure. This weekend was a smashing success. My QB threw 5 TDs, ending up being the highest scorer in our little league. My kicker kicked several PATs and two field goals, one of which was a massive 51 yarder. The worst part is that my benched kicker did even better, but oh well.

This next weekend I go up against my wife’s team. That should be interesting.

What a difference

2006-09-24T21:04:00.000-07:00

Had an experience today that was so contrary to what most people have come to expect. I had a great experience with an airline.

I booked myself a frequent flier ticket to go visit my parents and sisters for two days in between stops on my long trip. I don’t normally fly with this particular airline, and the only miles I earn with them are through my credit card, so this ticket was simply the result of having spent a small fortune on my credit card over the last year.

My trip outbound was fine. Just as expected. On my way back I arrived at the airport much earlier than needed and when I approached the check in desk there was only the one airline employee there along with a TSA agent. Just on the off chance that I might get an earlier flight out, I asked if there were any earlier flights. It was 1:40 pm. I was told there was a flight at 2:15 and yes, I could get on it.

I then pointed out that 2:15 was barely half an hour away, the ticket agent said no problem as long as we hurry. No time to charge me the normal $25 change fee so that would be waived this time. When booking my seat she asked me where I preferred to sit. I replied “First Class.” She began looking and then realized I was on a mileage ticket, and began to inform me that this would not be possible.

I mentioned the number of miles I had paid for the flight and she went back to look again, and suddenly decided that an upgrade was in the offing for me today.

She rushed me through the process, handed me my boarding passes and tagged my bag and pointed me towards the security check point, telling me not to waste any time.

I cleared security quickly since there were only 4 people in line, and headed for my gate, arriving about 2 minutes before they began boarding. All in all I had been at the airport about 15 minutes and was getting on my flight.

Pretty amazing. No change fee, an upgrade, and all the while the agent was very nice and friendly. Maybe I need to change primary airlines . . . . . or maybe this was such a rare, random experience that it was simply God smiling on me. Hmmmm, there is a question . . . . does God care about getting upgraded on flights?

Poor taste

2006-09-18T15:08:00.000-07:00

I had an experience last night that has left a bad taste in my mouth as they say. I arrived into Minneapolis airport and proceeded to the car rental counter to get the keys for my pre-reserved rental car. I end up renting cars fairly often and frequently end up with one particular company because they end up being cheaper in many places I go to. I am no stranger to this company.

Upon arrival at the counter the on duty employee asked me for me id and credit card. She then proceeded to ‘offer me’ several variations of upgrades. She even used terms like “XX kind of car looks a lot more like your style, and for only YY dollars more we can put you into that car for your rental period.” That was followed with a question about which airline I flew in on, and an offer of “We are also offering special discounts for passengers of ZZ airline, which would make that upgrade only X dollars. Would you be interested in that?”

After stating several times that I only wanted the car I had booked and becoming somewhat annoyed and therefore more insistent, she went to go get the keys. She then came back and said “I’m sorry, we are all out of the car you booked. We can offer you a minivan (which are normally outrageously expensive to rent, especially in this location) instead for the same price. Is that ok with you?”

She had tried to get me to pay more for their mistake. They oversold a particular type of car and she was trying to con me into paying for an upgrade that they were going to have to give me anyways. And then instead of giving me the next level up, she gave me one of their most expensive rental types, albeit a minivan, not a luxury car. So instead of a $50 car for the two days I need it, she gave me a car they charge $180 or more for that same two days. That right after the ‘upgrade’ she offered which was only going to cost me $15 more than the $50 I already had committed to.

The whole experience was handled poorly and left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I am going to call the company and find out what they are going to do in response to this. More to come on this in the future perhaps – depending on how they do/do not satisfy a now frustrated but fairly regular customer.

Different worlds

2006-09-18T14:51:00.000-07:00

I have been gone from home for more than a week now and was realizing last night how amazingly different the worlds are that I move in. Our work in India is in obvious ways quite different from life lived in America, but I am realizing that impact in different ways on this trip for some reason.

While waiting for a flight at the airport and just observing how people interact (or more accurately how they don’t these days – each one with their eyes trained on their cell phone or pda, or a book or some other distraction), while looking at the plethora of choices on the menu of even the most basic restaurant and not knowing what to choose, while hearing conversations people have about various topics and how their world is so limited in many ways. None of these in and of themselves is a bad thing. I am just realizing how abnormal my life, and that of my family, is compared to many I see and meet along the way. That is not an arrogant statement in any way. I am not implying my life is better, just different.

In some ways, and at certain times I long for the simple life of not being aware of or caring about what is happening in other parts of the world. The toll these trips takes on me and my family is something I am becoming more aware of. In other ways and at other times I am so totally motivated to get the word out and get people motivated to get involved. Seeing someone really get hold of a vision for how they could make a difference makes me feel like maybe all the hard work is worth it.

In some ways that is the challenge of doing what we do. We need to live in different worlds at the same time. We need to know what life is like for most westerners and to be able to relate to them in some way, but at the same time we need to be keenly aware of what life is really like for many in other parts of the world and to articulate how people can be involved in making a difference.

I must admit that we as a family are quite spoiled. We have a core of friends and well-wishers who are faithful in making sure we know we are loved, cared for and our needs are met. We get the chances to be involved in things on a daily basis that we see as extremely significant. We get the chances to go places and do things and meet people that most simply don’t get in their lifetime. We are blessed. But we are challenged to live in different worlds, and to be effective in them all.

It is only with God’s help that we have the remotest chance of succeeding in this endeavor. That is an exciting place to be in many ways. Terrifying in some ways, but never lacking in excitement. What are you involved in that is drawing you deeper into your dependence on God?

Simple pleasures

2006-09-17T15:28:00.000-07:00

I learned a new game the other day. While at some friends’ house for dinner one of their houseguests, Matt, brought us outside to show us his new game. It looked simple enough. There were several Americans, a Scotsman, and a Northern Irishman present for this event.

Matt had taken two small pieces of plywood about 2.5 feet by 3 feet and cut a hole about 6 inches across near one end. He added legs to the end with the hole near it to make it stand at a slight angle. It looked like maybe he had slightly polished the top surface. Each board was positioned about 30 feet from the other, something akin to the stakes for playing horseshoes where you throw from one end to the other.

He handed us each 4 bean bags of medium size and explained that we were to stand next to one of the boards and try to toss the bean bags down towards the other board and try to do it in such a way as to make the bean bags stay on the surface of the board or even better to drop down into the hole cut in the surface of the board. A bean bag on the board was worth 1 point, and one that went into the hole was worth 3 points. Bean bags that hit and skipped off were worth nothing as were ones that fell onto the ground.

As each player threw their bags they could knock another players bean bags off the board, thereby effectively taking points away from them, or knock another players bean bag down into the hole, effectively giving them more points, etc.

This turned out to be much harder than it looks. Without sufficient height on the toss the bean bag would simply skip off the other end of the board if you were lucky enough to even hit it. Too much height without enough distance would result in the bean bag landing on the ground in front of the target. With some practice you could find your range and trajectory and eventually start scoring points.

We were all having some simple, clean fun and a lot of laughs. Of course eventually we started getting slightly bored with it all and began looking for ways to spice up the fun a little. Throwing the bags with your eyes closed certainly added an element of difficulty, as did throwing them grenade-style or behind your back, etc. This led fairly quickly into a free-for-all with bean bags being tossed in all manner of ways, and more than a few people being conked on the head or other parts by flying bean bags.

I was quite amazed at how something so simple could bring out so many laughs from such a diverse group of people.

What have you done lately that involved taking pleasure in something so simple?

Travel blessings

2006-09-07T14:25:00.000-07:00

I left from my home yesterday on a 24 day trip to the US. During that time I will fly on 17 flights, visit more than 10 cities, and rack up more than 27,000 actual air miles, let alone bonus miles and so on. For some road warriors that kind of trip is par for the course. While I might not be so cavalier about it, I do have to say that the thought of this trip does not overwhelm me like it might others.

I have traveled enough to know what I like and don’t like in my travel experiences. In fact, just the day before leaving on this trip I specifically prayed “God, please let me get upgraded so I can sleep on my long international flights.” Upon check-in at the airport I was told my seat had been moved and I was now sitting in business class, with one caveat. The service would only be economy since everyone sitting in that section was economy ticket holders. My prayer was for sleep, not for fancy meals or better movie options, so it was exactly answered. I slept almost 7 hours out of the 9 hour flight. Those that have traveled with me know it is no small miracle that I slept that long.

Another nice thing about my trip was when I checked in I knew I was WAY overweight on my suitcases due to the 2700 brochures I was carrying for our partner organization in Denver. I estimated the brochures alone at 100+ pounds, plus my clothes and so on for three weeks. The airline staff did not even bat an eye at how heavy my bags were. They just tagged them and sent them on for screening and loading onto the plane. No extra charge. Nice!

The third nice thing about my trip was on the second international flight (the one taking me into America) where I had the seat next to mine vacant, giving me just a little more room to move around and relax a little. Again, nice!

All in all, not a bad trip. Nearly a third of my air miles for this trip are over and so far no major hassles.

My biggest concern for the rest of the trip is for making all my connections and no cancelled or delayed flights along the way. Let see how it goes.

Everyone has a role

2006-09-03T20:44:00.000-07:00

As I spend more time here in India I realize more and more than everyone has a role, and they are expected to fill that role. Here is an example:

The other day I went to go buy tires for our vehicle. This is the third set of tires on this car, including the originals. I went to the shop with one of our staff, Edward. I chose the tires I wanted and paid with my credit card. We were then directed to the installation shop about half a mile away.

During the whole selection process, I was not allowed to touch any of the tires since that is not part of my role. My role, as determined by the shopkeeper and others around me, is that of ‘wealthy foreign customer’. They had two of those three words right, but the one they got wrong pegged me into my role of not touching tires. Someone else would need to do that for me. Wealthy people generally don’t get dirty.

When we got to the installation shop a similar experience awaited me. I was ushered in and immediately introduced to the head guy of the shop, likely the owner. He was an older man sitting behind a basic desk right out in the workshop area. Edward, began milling around the workers in the shop making sure they knew we were there and what needed to be done on our vehicle.

After several attempts they finally ushered me into the owner’s office and promptly switched on the air conditioner to make me comfortable. My role, according to their expectation, was to sit in comfort, likely talking on my cell phone to important people, rather than be out in the dirty tire shop watching all that was going on.

Now part of this whole role expectation thing can be very annoying to me. In this case, I love doing things mechanical and would consider myself reasonably well-versed with tools and such. I love the back and forth between guys who know their way around a car, how to handle a tool or how to get the job done in a workshop. In this case, my role does not allow that. They would not know what to do with me if I started behaving that way, so I do my best to play my role and not upset the system.

As I watched out of the corner of my eye what was going on I saw several things that needed doing or needed attention. Rather than go tell the workers directly, my role is to tell Edward and let him deal with it. That is his role.

After all the work was done to my satisfaction, albeit having taken the indirect route through Edward in each case, I then went and thanked the owner of the shop with a nod and a handshake. Our transaction was done, and we both were satisfied. The nod and handshake completed our roles toward each other, for today at least.

This idea of roles gets me thinking about how we ‘peg’ someone shortly after meeting them. We determine with such ease what to expect from them and how we will treat them. Unfortunately we are often wrong. The guys in the tire shop were wrong to assume I knew nothing about replacing tires on a car. I have been wrong about lots of people over the years.

So why do we keep doing this? Why do we assign roles to people based on very little information?

In some ways it helps us makes sense of our world. It gives us order. But it is also a dangerous practice to get into. Mainly because we can, and are, wrong so often. We also miss out on the opportunity to learn new things when we do this.

Imagine the surprise on the tire-shop guys’ faces when they realize I know a thing or two about a workshop. Could that not have changed their perspective about themselves in some way? Could that not have given them some hope in some way to see that here is a guy who knows how to do what we do, and look at him now? Maybe we could be like that someday. Could I not have learned a thing or two about their world in the process? And yet our roles, though self imposed, stop us from doing this.

I will admit to sometimes intentionally breaking the rules of the role. I call it ‘playing the foreigner card’, like a trump card of sorts. You can plead ignorance as a foreigner and be forgiven for your trespasses. You do have to choose when and how often to play that card though, or else it loses its value and effectiveness.

Has there been a time when you were wrongly ‘pegged’ into a role you didn’t like? Or when you ‘pegged’ someone into a role that you later realized was way off? What was the outcome? How would you handle the situation differently? Are you playing a role someone else determined for you? Or are you living your own role?

Heart attack

2006-09-03T19:50:00.000-07:00

So today at lunch my son, age 5, announced that he was having a heart attack. He was holding his hand to his chest and saying “It hurts so much daddy!” Of course something like this you never take lightly, so we began asking follow up questions.

One of the questions we asked him was if he was having pains up and down his left arm? Thinking we were trying to trick him into the problem being other than his heart, he said “No, it only hurts in my heart.”

He then proceeded to run around telling everyone who would listen that he was having a heart attack, and clutching his chest while doing so.

Most people laughed, some looked slightly shocked, while we sat waiting for him to either collapse from his heart attack or to begin to feel better.

He felt better quickly.

We were glad.

Waiting on others

2006-08-30T19:01:00.000-07:00

I have learned a lot about myself over the years. One of the things I have known for some time is that I absolutely HATE being late for something. A second thing I have known for a long time is that one of the most frustrating things for me is when someone does something that makes no apparent sense to me. If I could understand how that action may have made some sense or been logical to that person, I can be a lot more tolerant or understanding, but not knowing what in the world they were thinking is totally frustrating to me.

I am also learning that I really don’t like having to wait on others to make a decision before I can make a decision. I am in the midst of planning a nearly month long trip to the US and in the process have to juggle a series of meetings, appointments and schedules, all of which is dependent on decisions being made by others. That means until others make a decision I can not finalize my plans. I like to plan things well in advance when it comes to travel. Others are more than happy to wait until the last minute and ‘see how things work out’.

I leave in 6 days and only know my schedule for the first and last week of my nearly month long trip for sure. The rest is still up in the air. No airline tickets, no hotels or rental cars booked, etc. This has made for some frustrating days, checking my email to see if someone finally got back to me with details. Argh!!

I suppose I need to take comfort knowing that it will in fact all work out just fine. It might cost me more than I want to due to doing things very last minute, but it will all work out.