Good bye Olympics

I am sitting here watching the closing ceremonies for the Olympics. I am going to miss them. I love the pure athletic competition. I will admit I love the cheesy life stories. The stories of those athletes who have overcome so much just to be there. I love to see the reaction of the face on those winners when something they have trained for all their life is now coming true. I wish however, they would show more of those people who did not finish first. I am talking about the athletes who just finished. I realize that the network coverage wants to show all the events and there is just not time to show the "also ran" athletes. I get that. I know we all talk about how the Olympics are overly commercialized. Hey it is expensive to do what they do, so if commercials pay for the expenses, good for them. The athletes are still just trying to their best. So I leave these past two weeks with fond memories. The worst part about the whole deal: Now I will once again have to worry about what to watch on TV at night, bummer.

The dryer woes continue

I thought I would be blogging about my dryer finally being fixed. But no such luck. We bought the dryer about a year ago. Fortunately it broke about a week before the warranty was over. So we had a guy come out. He looked at it and realized it was the heater coil. Well it has taken about a month to get the heater coil delivered to us. It finally got here on Saturday and we called the company to come back out and put it in. Well that was today. The guy shows up, puts the machine together, and everything seems good. But just when it all looked good, we realized (of course after the repair guy is gone) that the dryer is not spinning. So here we go again. It had better not take another month!

The Olympics and my laptop...good combo

I love these two weeks with the Olympics on TV. It makes my decision as far as what to watch real easy. I watch the Olympics! I love the Olympics. Now I will admit, there is times when the event is boring and I don't watch that close. Like right now as Ice dancing in on. Not a big fan of ice dancing. During those times, I just play on my laptop a little more. All and all, fun times.

If you can't beat them, join them

I don't know why but tonight my boys were just complaining about everything. Isaiah got to the point that he was crying at everything I said. One time I asked him, "Are you crying because mommy told you not to put that toy in your mouth?" I think he realized how ridiculous that was. But still he kept on crying about everything. I had enough. It was get annoying. So I did the mature good parent technique. I cried about everything too. It was funny to see Isaiah look at me thinking I was crazy. After about 2 minutes we were all laughing about every thing that would happen. If you can't beat them, join them.

Oops, not quite the way I wanted that to happen

My parents have been away on vacation since last Tuesday. Being the oh so responsible son, I remembered today that I am suppose be making sure the house is ok and stuff. Well I drive by the house at least twice a day. I have known for the past week that I need to shovel. But to be totally honest, I am sick of shoveling! But since they are coming home tomorrow, I thought I better start shoveling. I shoveled out a pretty big area. My next trick was to move my mom's car. That is where things went wrong. I was trying to get it out of the driveway when all the sudden it was no longer quiet. I must have bumped something on the exhaust because wow, was it ever loud. About 30 seconds later I get it out in the road, only to realize there was another car coming. At this point I start heading back into the driveway. The first car stopped with no problem. The second car, again not problem. The third car, well that is a different story. Oops. I guess I caused that accident.

Saying it all in 60 seconds

Today, I got to witness something amazing. I got to see a teenager make the most effective, succinct testimony about who God is and what he has done in his life. I really wish I had this recorded. I really wish I had a video. It was straight forward and to the point. I have sat through hour long sermons that said less then he did in about 60 seconds. This was all done in a packed room of 140 family and friends. He did not hold back, he did not mix words. What he said was so powerful and so good. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention one other factor, this was at his Dad's memorial service. Wow!

Believing in people

There is something that I want to make sure that I do with my boys. That is believe in them. Believe that they can do it. Believe that if they put the effort in it they can accomplish the task. Believe that they are capable.

I want my kids to know that they can give it a shot. I want them to know that I believe they can do it. I want my kids not to be thinking about "what if I don't" but rather thinking about "what I have to do to do this"

Success is trying. Success is attempting to do something. Success is giving it your all.

When I started to train for my marathon, I admit I had many moments of "I will never be able to do this." Guess what my wife told me? She told me that she believed in me. She told me that I could do it. And you know what? I am happy to say, she was right!

There are far too many people in this world that tell you what you can't do. Tell you why you will never be able to do something. Tell you that it will never work out. Why be like that? What good does that do? How does that help someone? What if rather then telling people what they can't do, you switched to "go for it!"

I dream of the day after a cross country meet (okay, it doesn't have to be cross country) me an my son, Isaiah or Sam, are sitting there eating an apple, and had finished 2nd, and he says to me "you know what, I need to work harder on my hills, I lost a lot of time on the hills, I was faster on the hills, I could make up that time I lost." At that point I would have a choice. I could say "well son, maybe your just not fast enough" or I could say "Go for it, do it with all your heart!"

Now you are sitting there and saying what would happen if he never beat the other person and never finished better then 2nd? My answer: Who cares! He gave his best! Did he fail? No!

Be a you can person! Believe in people!

Shovel shovel and more shoveling

Yes that is all I have done in the past couple of days. I shoveled for about 8 hours on Saturday and probably 4 more on Sunday. Monday was another 4 or 5 hours of shoveling. Yes my back is sore. And yes it is snowing right now, which means more shoveling soon. Argh. So how is this the beginning of something legendary? Well one of two ways. Maybe all this training will help me capture the world cup of professional snow shoveling. Or I will teach my 4 year old son to shovel snow. So in case you wonder what I have been up to, it is shoveling!

A bit of holy discontent

Today I was(am) having one of those days were I am just wishing I could do more. It make me upset when I can not solve the worlds problems. I know, I am exaggerating, but the point is this, I want to be able to help more. So fortunately I was able to go for a run today (don't worry this relates). When I run my brain thinks more clearly. So later on today I had a thought (my one of the day). I started coming up with a plan that will allow me to be able to help a lot of more people by helping people. I hopefully will be able to put on paper what I am thinking real soon. Pitch the idea to a couple of people for funding, and then be able to start. So sometimes a little bit of holy discontent is a real good thing!