Floyd

Floyd is coming home. I don't knw how long he has been away. I know it has been awhile since he was home.

And it is a shock that he is coming home. It took a lot of hard work, some luck and it cost a guy his job to get Floyd home.

And today, the University of Minnesota beat Iowa to bring Floyd of Rosedale home to Minnesota. A nice tradition and a totally unexpected win for the Gophers.

The coach was fired mid season. Sometimes a new face is what is needed. A new face cna bring a new atitude. Old excuses are gone.

Might be worth watching a game or two more next year...

The New Phone

My son and some of his college buddies moved into a house that my wife and I own last Spring.

Good bunch of guys (better son).

We were doing some work on the place after they had moved in. Finishing hanging doors and finishing a shower and stuff like that.

My son was setting up the Internet and cable for the place. Like most young people today, he and his buds only use cell phones. When he went to get the cable and Internet set up the cable company gave him four handsets for his new land line. It was part of the "deal".

So he set it up. Took a couple of calls to customer service.

He got it set up. I called his number from my cell. Worked great.

Then my wife and son ran to Home Depot to pick up a few things. This is the same Home Depot that sent my wife a handwritten thank you note for all the business we were doing while we rehabbed the house.

As they were pulling out of the alley the phone rang. Not my cell phone, the new land line. I figured my son was calling to see how it sounded on the call in side.

But no, it was a sale call. It wasn't more than twenty minutes after he got the line set up and working.

The other day, I asked him if they ever got any calls on the land line. He said no, it was all sales and political calls.

Not more than 18 years ago, we got a first cell phone, a bag phone for emergencies only. Now it is the primary means of communication for a generation. Land lines are going the way of the telegram.

At least the political calls are over for now...

One Thousand

In March of 2000, I became a certified soccer referee. I started out doing little kids games and then older kids and adults and high school games.

Recently, I refereed my 1,000th soccer match. Some have been as referee (center) and some have been as assistant referee (linesman).

I have kept track of my games from the start to make sure that I get paid correctly and also to make sure that I pay my taxes properly.

The game itself wasn't all that special. A mid division, girls premier, under 15 match. I was the referee. Thirty five minute halves. No cards, no real problems, score of 6-1. There were a couple of areas that I could improve on.

This has caused me to reflect a bit.

You see, hitting 1,000 games made me realize how big a mile stone that is. A hundred games came and went without notice. Same with 500.

But a thousand, why that is four digit territory! It means about fifteen hundred hours on the pitch. It means a lot of weekends and evenings in the sun, rain, wind, snow, clouds and temps from 15 degrees to over 100. It means over three thousand miles running and countless bottles of water.

It meant reffing with my daughter and son. A true highlight even if neither still refs.

It is constant learning and trying to improve. I now referee totally differently than I did ten years ago. While some coaches, players and parents might think otherwise, I think that I do a pretty good job.

There are a lot of people who don't referee this long. I know of some guys who have passed on and many kids who didn't like the constant criticism. I think I have a thicker skin now. I realize just how ignorant most coaches and especially parents are of the game. Most kids playing the game never hit a thousand games played.

So what does it all mean? In the long run, not much.

But I am proud of it...

Back

I was reminded recently that I need to post some new items. And so I shall.

My excuse is that I have been busy beyond belief. But that is just that: an excuse.

So I shall endeavour to be more regular from here on out.

Everyone Communicates Few Connect by John Maxwell

This is a manual on connecting with others. There is a lot of value of in this book and I recommend it.

In today’s media driven environment, we are often bombarded with words, images, programs and other attempts to sway us to a certain point of view. Most of this onslaught goes unnoticed and we fail to pay any attention. John Maxwell points out that “Connecting with others is the ability to identify with people and relate to them in a way that increases your influence with them.” Most communication directed our way doesn't connect.

John lays out Five Principles and then Five Practices on connecting with others spending a chapter on each. At the end of each chapter is a summation that provides practical points for connecting one-on-one, connecting in a group and connecting with an audience. I found these summations especially helpful and concise.

The only issue I have is that it appears that the bulk of the information in the chapters themselves seems to focus on connecting with an audience. But this is a minor complaint.

As far as I can tell this is the first book that John has put out on his blog for a period of time for comment prior to publication. He used more than seventy quotes, anecdotes and stories and made over a hundred corrections and improvements based on net feedback. It was a lot of fun to be reading along and find a quote from a guy I knew in high school.

I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Be Careful Who You Help?

Big basketball game on Wednesday last week. Kansas State played at Kansas. Kansas State was ranked number five and Kansas was ranked number two.

Place was pretty nuts. Students camped out for a week to get tickets (Classes? We don’t need no stinking classes (yes, I know that there is a group system that means that only one person has to be in a line at a time)). The local ticket outlet was totally sold out. The highest price I heard of for a ticket was $1,200.

Kansas won. Great game.

Turns out that last December on a flight from Los Angeles to Kansas City, one of the assistant coaches for Kansas (Kurtis Townsend) had met a woman who graduated from KU a few years ago. She talked about wanting to take her brother to a game on his birthday and Coach Townsend arranged for a couple of tickets to be left for her.

Pretty common for coaches to leave tickets for alumni and fans.

After the game, the woman sent out a Twitter to her “small” group of followers (only about 2,000) talking about a what a great game it was and thanking Coach Townsend for the tickets.

Problem: The woman is a porn star.

And word started to get around about the whole thing.

So then Coach Townsend had to talk with the press and the University about the whole thing. And he had to explain to his wife about how he knew an adult film actress.

The coach says that he didn’t know what she did for a living and there is no reason to doubt him.

The University doesn’t think that Coach Townsend did anything wrong. Head Coach Bill Self doesn’t think that Coach Townsend did anything wrong. And not that it matters, but I don’t think he did anything wrong either.

I think he was just trying to do something nice for a fan of the team.

And it came around to bite him. Happens.

Sometimes we’ll try to help someone and it won’t work out the way we expect. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t quit helping them. Just means that it didn’t work out the way we expected it to work out…

Free at Last

The family just switched out cell phone plans. We have had the same carrier for about ten years. But we came to the conclusion that we could save about $30 a month by moving to a different carrier.

We looked at a lot of different plans and carriers. The big problem is that most of them require a two year commitment. We didn’t want that. We wanted the freedom to be able to switch carriers at will if they start to raise rates.

The catch is that we have to buy our own phones. And phones cost more than they are advertised for. Because you pay for the phone over the life of the contract. And you keep paying for those phones.

But we were able to get our old carrier to unlock our phones since they were old. My wife spent several hours wading through phone tree hell to get the unlock codes (and one of the codes she got from one rep was totally wrong).

But with the help of a patient clerk at the new carrier and a last minute call to the old carrier’s customer service, we got all of our phones successfully unlocked and switched over.

So we now have a new cell phone provider with the same cell phone numbers as before.

And we have no contract and no obligation.

Reminds me of sin. It binds me to death. When I accept Christ as my savior I am set free from death.

And through his death on the cross I am free at last…

Rejected

I recently went in to donate blood.

I went in early on a Saturday right when they opened. This was so that I would be able to donate early and then make it to a gun show before the crowds hit.

Things went pretty normal. Signed in. Hung the number outside the screening room, Closed the door. Read the instructions. Answered the questions. Opened the door. Reviewed the questions with the reviewer: Yes, I served in the military (not in Europe). Yes, I have been to Africa (Somalia, 1982), Yes, I have been out of the country in the last three years (Mexico, March 2007).

Then I got to the physical check. Arms OK, (no needle tracks). Temperature 97.8 (must be my cold, cold heart). And then the new automated blood pressure/heart rate machine with instructions not to move or talk during the test. Blood pressure a nice 118/70. Pulse 44.

Minimum to donate is 50. Except if you are a runner. Then it is 46.

The screener went out the door to talk with the supervisor.

So two more tests with instructions to “stress out”. Blood pressure rose each time. Pulse the second time: 44. Pulse the third time: 43.

Rejected.

I understand the reason. They are worried about slow donations and people fainting. But I have never had any problems with that.

And I don’t blame the screeners and people at the local office who were only following the ironclad criteria laid down by the Main Center of the Community Blood Services. Because I know from previous conversations that they get hammered by the people in quality control if they mess up in any way on the paperwork.

And I can go back and try to donate the next day, although it will be at least a week.

So now I have a letter to write to the Main Center. And I have to point out that if comes down to a choice between my health and donating blood, it will be my health. For it is my health that allows me to donate blood in the first place (I don't want to give the impression that I am bragging for I realize that I have been blessed by good genes).

This is not really a big deal. I have been more amused by this than anything else. The fact that I am “too healthy” to donate is a weird idea.

But it has made me think: How many times have I rejected someone because of my ironclad criteria without regard for the circumstances of the individual?

The Map: The Way of All Great Men by David Murrow

Two things: First, The Map is a book for men and for women who want to understand men. The author freely acknowledges that he has not figured out the implications for women. Second, it is a work of both fiction and nonfiction.

That said, I am really torn about this book. The first half of the book and the epilogue are a story about a map to spiritual maturity found in an ancient Greek monastery. I did not like this part of the book at all. It was all too contrived, too pat and too fantastic. I would have enjoyed the story more if it read like a story instead of reading like a first person memoir.

Once I got in to the second nonfiction part, I enjoyed the book more. The author’s basic premise is that all great men follow three separate journeys of submission, strength and sacrifice. Although this is written from a Christian and Biblical perspective, he does not confine it to the religious arena entirely.

The main issue I have is that the author tends to view the three journeys as separate when they should build on each other. We should operate in strength under submission and sacrifice from strength under submission. While the author briefly acknowledges that they are not entirely separate, the main thrust of the book is that they are.

All that being said there is some value here in the tools, pitfalls and suggestions the author lays out. I recommend that you skip the first 102 pages and just read the last 124 pages while ignoring most of the epilogue.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Lake Placid

Thirty years ago today the Miracle on Ice in Lake Placid, NY took place when the United States defeated the Soviets in hockey at the 1980 Winter Olympics.

Like many people my memory gets a little clouded over the years. Until just a day or so ago I thought that I had heard the game on the radio and watched the gold medal game on TV. But I realized that it was the other way around. It’s strange how memories can come back because I distinctly remember listening to the US score two goals while walking outside in the sunlight. The gold medal game took place during the day.

I watched the US team beat the Soviets on the 13 inch black and white TV in my apartment in Minneapolis. Two days later I listened to the USA defeated Finland in the gold medal match over a battery powered transistor radio while I was in the library at the University of Minnesota studying for one of the few times in my undergraduate college life.

Maybe it is growing up at the edge of hockey country in western Minnesota that let the game have such an impact on me. I remember going down to the rink at the end of block when it was still half flooded and skating in the dark with no nets, just hacking away at the puck. And just how bad the warming house smelled at the end of the season. And guys coming to school on a Monday with frostbit ears from long, cold weekends spent skating outside. And playing street hockey in a friend’s driveway during the summer with no pads to cushion the falls to the concrete.

It hard for many people today to realize just what a momentous game that was for the country. The United States was in the depths of the Cold War with the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union controlled Eastern Europe which they had essentially occupied since the end of World War 2.

Nuclear war was a real possibility as two massive armies faced off nervously in Europe. Military doctrine at the time was one of massive tank armies battling to see which one could survive long enough to be the winner.

In Iran, a bunch of “students” had taken over the United States Embassy and held the staff and Marine Security detail hostage for several months. The father of one of the guys in my ROTC unit was one of the hostages.

And a lot of people were talking about appeasement with the Soviets.

The Olympics were for amateurs, no professionals were allowed. The Soviet hockey team was almost entirely made up of the Red Army team and all the players were in the Soviet Army. Their duties were to play hockey.

The United States team was made up of a bunch of college students coached by Herb Brooks after he quit coaching the University of Minnesota team. A bunch of amateurs against a bunch of pros. There was a sense of magic about the team. It had been 20 years since the US team had won at the Olympics in another improbable set of circumstances. Those games were also held in Lake Placid.

The game showed us one thing: the Soviets were not unbeatable.

In one way, the victory in Lake Placid marks for me the beginning of the end of an era.

Two years later I stood on the deck of an LHA, the Belleau Wood, in the middle of the Indian Ocean watching two Soviet Bear long range bombers fly overhead and take pictures of the Amphibious Task Force. Less than ten years later, the wall fell in Berlin and the Soviet behemoth cracked, fractured and splintered and I held my infant son in my arms and cried as I told him maybe he wouldn’t have to go and serve.

The world changes and other boogey men and bad guys come and go and in many ways the world is a much more complicated place than it was thirty years ago.

But I still believe in miracles...

A Century Turns by William J. Bennett

The subtitle of this book is "New Hopes, New Fears". I haven't read too many history books in the last few years. But this one caught and kept my attention. For one thing, it describes a lot of events that I lived through. For another, it is written in an easily readable form that drew me in.

This book is a follow on to two other books (America: The Last Best Hope) that Mr Bennett has written that have been used in teaching history in colleges and secondary schools. A Century Turns covers the time from the elections in 1988 to the elections in 2008.

Overall A Century Turns enlightens and illuminates a strange and in some ways frightening time in our world. From the fall of the iron curtain to the rise of the Internet to the fall of the Twin Towers to the election of Barak Obama, the two decades covered have been a time of drastic and rapid change.

We tend to get focused on what is going on in our immediate lives on a daily basis. As I read this book I was struck by just how much I missed during this time period. Not the big things, but the little things that influenced the big events in both the United States and the world.

The author was involved in many of the incidents he describes either as a central player with inside access or an ancillary character viewing events from the outside of the power circles. And therein lies my only complaint about the book: I do not always follow some of the conclusions that the author draws. Occasionally it seems that he adds one plus one and gets one and half (in other words, not quite two). But this is a minor complaint and definitely not a fatal flaw.

I recommend A Century Turns, New Hopes, New Fears to anyone interested in discovering the background of the events that are influencing our nation and world today.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Free Book by Brian Tome

Free Book is the latest work by Brian Tome, pastor of Crossroads in Cincinnati. This book is about freedom. Freedom from fear, freedom from sin and freedom from the legalism that Christians often wrap themselves in. It is not a license to do whatever we want, but freedom to really live within the boundaries God has laid out for us.

I absolutely loved this book.

The review copy came at exactly the right time for me. I plowed through it as quick as I could and found myself writing notes and underlining quotes and searching the web to find out the background of some of the statements Brian makes. I don't often do that.

Brian speaks in clear language that is often humorous and self deprecating. He backs up his thesis through thorough biblical references that are not taken out of context (I looked them all up).

Throughout the book, Brian lays out practical steps for freeing you from bondage. I was often reminded of Neil T. Andersons book: The Bondage Breaker. This book will challenge you.

Not everyone will be ready to take a critical look at themselves and their beliefs. But I have been in a church that was more interested in pleasing the community than in pleasing God. I recommend you read this book with an open mind and I do recommend that you read it.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Fawkes

For Christmas my son gave me an XBox 360 game: Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition.

Really an addictive game. Wandering through the wasteland around Washington DC a couple hundred years in the future.

A lot of the decisions that you make affect the course of the game and how it plays out. You can be good or bad or neutral (karma in the game).

At one point you will come across a character named Fawkes. Depending on your karma he may be recruited to help you out in the future.

I am not really good at video games and tend to die a lot (think it has to do with the fact that I was in college when Pong came out). But it sure makes it a lot easier to have Fawkes along with me during this game.

He has saved me from a lot of grief along the way so far. The big guy can carry whatever I give him. And he has unlimited ammo. And his thick skin lets him take a lot of damage. And he tends to see danger before I do. He's got my back.

Now I realize that this is just a video game and Fawkes is just a figment of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) of the game engine.

But it really points out just how tough it is to "go it alone." Having someone to rely on is valuable.

Kind of like life. God did not make us to go it alone, he made us to live in community with others. This includes not only our spouse and kids, but other members of our families and our friends and others. Life is easier in community

We will still have challenges and trials and things won't go the way we want to go. But having others that we can rely on when things get tough can make all the difference.

Oh, sure, Fawkes can be annoying at times. He makes the same stupid Zen comments that don't make sense, over and over and he blocks the door all too often when I am trying to get out of a room.

But it sure is handy to have him around to help me get over my mistakes...

The Cyst

For the past several years I have had a cyst slowly growing on my head. It started out pretty small.

It has gradually grown bigger over the years. For most of the time, it has not been a problem. Until recently. Then it started to get in the way. I started to ding it every time that I cut my hair. And it became more and more obvious when I looked in the mirror.

This week I got fed up and had it removed.

The doctor did a good job. He made a small incision and took the cyst out. Three stitches. No bandage. Hard to see. I will have a small scar though.

Took away all the jokes I had planned about getting the hole in my head spackled. Kind of depressed about that.

Anyway, as I thought about this I realized that the cyst is kind of like sin in my life. It can start out kind of small and hidden. Then, over time, it grows and becomes more obvious and starts to interfere with things.

It can't be tolerated or I will be totally disfigured.

So I have to deal with it. I have to cut the sin out.

But I will have been changed by the sin.

No matter how good and completely that I remove the sin, scars will remain.

But the scars are not the same as the sin.

Scars are a sign of character...

Anniversary Cold

This past Saturday Loralie and I celebrated our twenty-eighth wedding anniversary.

We got married on the coldest day of the century. Wind chill was 98 below and we have the paper to prove it. We flew out the next day to get to North Carolina where we were stationed in the Marine Corps.

Flew from Fargo to Minneapolis to Chicago to Atlanta to North Carolina. Three plane changes seven takeoffs and landings. The cold followed us down. In Chicago it was so cold that the ramp that swings out to the plane was frozen and we had to get out on the tarmac to get off the plane.

And it was right around freezing in Atlanta.

Then this past weekend we saw some pretty cold temperatures again. Brought back memories of that weekend in 1982 even though we weren't in Minnesota.

And the snow was just as deep in Kansas as it was in Minnesota...

The Winter of Our Discontent

Here it is: Three days into the new year and I've shoveled about a dozen times already.

Pretty unusual.

You see, where we live here in Kansas, most of the snow that falls melts within a few days. We spend a lot of the winter with no snow on the ground. But this winter is different. We are having snow after snow. And it is staying cold.

By my calculations we are at roughly 18 inches for the winter already. There is around eight inches on the flat.

As I was shoveling early this morning, I had the realization that this was just like a Minnesota winter. Piles of snow and cold weather.

I realize that it is not near as cold here as it is up north, but it is cold enough.

Many people have not shoveled out from the first big snow storm preferring to just ram their way through the snow and ice clogging their driveways. I, on the other hand, subscribe to the: Shovel Early, Shovel Often" philosophy of snow removal. It is better to get out and shovel several small snow falls than to try and clear it all at once after the snow quits falling. Keeps ice from forming and the snow loads from being too heavy.

And there is a certain sense of accomplishment from looking out at a clean driveway and sidewalk several times.

So for the time being, I'll keep on clearing snow as it falls.

But there is another "heavy snow event" due in on Wednesday...