Bullet Points for a Friday Morning #3

  • Monday road trip to Nashville was awesome. Saw some friends, made some new ones, saw a great concert. (Geof recorded it and you can download MP3s.)
  • Driving 1300 miles in two days will make you a little bit saddle sore.
  • Work has been somewhere between ridiculously crazy and insanely crazy for the past couple of weeks. Looks like it’ll stay that way until the middle of May.
  • I’ll be traveling to Toronto for work in a couple of weeks. Looking forward to finally meeting Dan and Laura in person.
  • Listened to about 15 hours of D. A. Carson sermons/lectures on my road trip. That guy is an amazing teacher.
  • At the moment I’m listening to Manchester Orchestra (which isn’t a symphony orchestra, Dad, it’s a rock band) and they’re pretty darn good.
  • Guess it’s time to get back to work.

Bullet points for a Tuesday Morning #2

Laziness, and no big topics to contemplate. Put those two together and you end up with my blog as of late. Sorry folks. So, a make-up post of sorts.

  • Only four more weeks until the baby is due. I’m sure we don’t really understand quite how life will change going from 2 to 3 kids, but we’ll figure it out. Excitement is building among all the residents of our little home. (Well, maybe not among the cats.)
  • We’re now several weeks in to our first Stonebridge small group and we’re really enjoying it. It’s fun to make some new friends. I did get a few weird looks last night when I briefly touched on the whole gay marriage thing, but my lament about Christians being known more for their support of Prop 8 than for their love for their neighbor was well-received.
  • I’m applying for a new position here at work - a fantastic opportunity. Not going to say too much about it here just now, but I have an interview tomorrow at 1 pm.
  • Another thing that’s sneaking up on us - Laura will turn 5 this summer, and so the school questions start coming up. We’ve pretty well decided to homeschool her for the time being, and communicated that intent to our local elementary school last month. Now I’ve gotta get the ins and outs of the homeschool support/oversight system understood in preparation for next fall. Oh, and sign up with HSLDA.
  • When I have trouble coming up with something for the fifth bullet, you know that either things have been fairly uneventful or I’m just having a horrible time remembering anything. *sigh*

Bullet Points for a Friday Morning #2

I’ve been neglecting this blog for the past few weeks, so it’s time for an update of sorts. So… bullet points!

  • We’re in the home stretch of the pregnancy… just a little more than two months until baby #3 is scheduled to make his/her appearance. The girls have finally decided that they’d like a little brother - they want to have a prince to play with them when they’re playing princesses.
  • We’ve decided on sticking at Stonebridge for the forseeable future, and we’re starting to plug in. First up: small groups. The group we’re joining starts up next Monday night. It’ll be good to just sit down and get to know some folks.
  • In the vein of church stuff, I’ve contacted the music pastor at Stonebridge and arranged a time to get together and talk about how I might occasionally serve on the worship team. The key word here is occasional. I don’t want to be in a position where I’m indispensable. I think it can be worked out.
  • On the work front, the project I’d been working on for the past 18 months got shut down last week. All of us working it are getting transferred to new projects and new groups. I’m going to be joining a group that focuses on aircraft certification. It’ll mean a lot less coding and a lot more documenting, but it’ll be very good experience and learning for my DER ticket.
  • It’s still winter in Iowa, but it’s been at least tolerable the past week. It got up above freezing yesterday, and we haven’t had any significant snowfall this week. I can handle winter when it’s like this.
  • I’m really looking forward to a weekend with very little on the schedule. Nothing scheduled for Saturday, just church on Sunday. Time to crash.

Well, enough for now.

Everybody's Working for the Weekend

Yes, we have a weekend coming up. Unfortunately, we’ll be heading into the weekend with a house full of sickies - Becky, both girls, and I are all fighting colds, coughs, and sore throats. Ick. So, here’s my list of guesses of things we’ll do this weekend.

  • We’ll want to sleep in tomorrow morning, but won’t really get to, since the girls pretty much are up at 7:00 regardless of what day it is.
  • We’ll rent another DVD or two from the store and catch up on a bit of our movie watching. Maybe Wall-E or Hancock.
  • We’ll hit CiCi’s for cheap-o pizza.
  • We won’t get to church, given that we’re all feeling icky.
  • We’ll visit the library sometime… probably Saturday.
  • We’ll watch some college football… most definitely the Florida/Alabama game.
  • I won’t post anything more interesting than this to the blog.

There’s my profound list for Friday. I’ll check back in on Monday to see what kind of score I get.

Bullet Points for a Thursday Morning #2

It’s been a crazy week so I’m reduced to one of these play-by-play lists. Sorry.

  • Note to self: eating at Texas Roadhouse only two hours before playing a rec league basketball game: not such a good idea.
  • Looking forward to getting out of town this weekend.
  • There is pretty much nothing cuter than a four-year-old excited about being invited to a friend’s birthday party.
  • Is Thanksgiving really only two weeks away? Where has the year gone?
  • I’m getting a kick out of Fake Geof Morris this morning.
  • It’s been far too long since I’ve listened to Mel Brooks’ The Producers soundtrack. Hilariously clever lyrics.
  • I’m with Kari - it’s too early for Christmas music.

Observations from the weekend

  • Your house doesn’t have to be amazingly clean to invite friends over.
  • Even if it was amazingly clean when the night starts, it won’t be when it ends. Not with 4 kids playing for three hours.
  • That’s OK. You can always clean up again.
  • Good food + good conversation = a great time.
  • Hearing friends’ back stories is fantastic.
  • When your friends read your blog, you have to try to remember which stories you’ve already blogged and thus shouldn’t re-tell.
  • We should do this more often.

Bullet points for a Monday Morning #3

A week without a blog update + lack of creativity = desperate measures. Hence, the bullet points.

  • This past weekend felt far more like autumn than summer; this morning when I woke up it was 53°F outside and 63°F in the house. Beautiful sleeping weather. It’s gonna warm up a bit this week, but nothing too bad.
  • I thought it felt like I ran into a strand of web as I walked into the dining room this morning. A few minutes later I felt something on my neck. Becky, you can thank me later for killing that spider. :-)
  • My sermon on Saturday night went pretty well. I intended to link to it here but didn’t get it uploaded last night. It’ll have to wait.
  • Now I need to get my backside in gear for my next sermon, only two weeks hence. How do I focus all I want to say about worship into 30 minutes?
  • Next week I’m headed to Denver for some training and a conference. I think it’ll probably be warmer in Denver than it will be at home while I’m gone.
  • Nick & Allie led worship Saturday night at Imago and did a fantastic job. Allie wrote a new tune for the hymn Under His Wings that has been stuck in my head all weekend. Thanks a lot, Allie. ;-)
  • My poor backyard is being overtaken by crabgrass. Gotta do something about that.

Well, now, that was random, eh?

Bullet Points from Montreal

I’ve been in Montreal since Monday night, and it’s my first trip here, and for that matter, my first trip out of the country. I don’t have any profound essays to write but a bunch of little observations that work most easily as bullet points. So here goes.

  • It’s the little things that mess with you. Ordered a Whopper at Burger King the other night (I was craving the fries) and was asked if I wanted “the trio”. What in the world is “the trio”? Ends up that’s what I know better as a combo. [lightbulb goes on]
  • The roads are bad. They aren’t marked very well, the lanes are narrow, and the traffic is horrible.
  • The other weird traffic thing: rapidly-flashing green lights. As far as I can tell, a rapid green is equivalent to a green left arrow in the US; it’s letting you know that it’s safe to turn left, because the folks opposite you still have a red. Rather non-intuitive, but it works once you get the hang of it.
  • Sewing machine stores in shopping malls. Apparently people in Canada really like to sew or something.
  • A big report came out today in Montreal that is the result of a year-long commission holding hearings and taking suggestions on how to deal with all the ethnic and cultural issues they have in Quebec. It’s interesting listening to talk radio this afternoon to hear what people have to say about it. The commission’s conclusion is that the worst of the division is more stirred up by the media than by the ethnic groups involved. Figures.
  • Of course French is the predominant language here in Montreal, but pretty much everyone I’ve run into switches pretty much effortlessly into English. Still, it frustrates me a bit that they have to; it feels like I’m making them do me a favor rather than being able to just interact with them on their terms.
  • Tim Horton’s (a donut/breakfast chain - think a Canadian Dunkin’ Donuts) has tasty food, but no trash cans. Weird. It feels like a fast food, there are lots of tables to sit and eat… but apparently they expect you to just leave your trash on the table. Very strange.

Well, enough of that. Still, it’s been an interesting place to visit. Tomorrow I fly home.

Tuesday morning this'n'that

I have a couple other posts floating around in my head, but need to gather some thoughts (and pictures) before writing them. So… a little this’n’that, aka bullet points for a Tuesday morning.

  • Softball last night was fantastic. Beautiful weather, good competitive game. Oh, and we won.
  • Not my favorite: opposing pitchers who whine about us taking walks when they are unable to throw a strike.
  • Definitely my favorite: Becky, who struck out (looking!) said whiny pitcher to start the seventh inning.
  • My list of projects is getting long. I’ve accomplished some, but others are going to slide right into June without me even touching them. :-(
  • Next week: headed to Montreal. Looking forward to it.
  • Also next week: Becky’s folks come to visit. This will be two years in a row that they’ve come to visit the week that I’ve been on travel. Hmmm… wonder what I should infer from that?
  • These Fractal Drawers might be one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen… at least this week. (Saw them on Boing Boing, then Daniel shared them, too… thanks Dan!)

Bullet Points for a Monday Morning #2

  • It was an amazingly beautiful weekend. Fortunately the beautiful weather is sticking around for today so we can play softball.
  • Oh, and I’m going to ump the second game of the night. I don’t remember if I’ve said it before, but I enjoy umping games almost more than I enjoy playing them.
  • Got a bunch of projects completed on the house this weekend.
  • New carpet put down in basement: complete.
  • Nasty mold scrubbed from laundry room wall: complete.
  • Pegboard hung in laundry room to organize tools: complete.
  • Tools organized: not so complete.
  • Crock Pot cord repaired: complete.
  • Music leading both Saturday night and Sunday morning: yep.
  • Double-edged sword: if I had the Versus channel I could’ve watched the Dallas Stars play last night. On the other hand, had I stayed up to watch, I would’ve had to watch until the fourth OT to see them win.
  • Go Stars! Bring on those Red Wings.
  • If the Stars win the Stanley Cup this year I’m gonna buy that Mike Modano jersey I’ve always wanted.
  • Enough with the bullets already.