things.

When we heard you were coming
There was love mixed with fear
Excitement and a bit of dread
For it was you and we didn't know you yet.
What would you be like?
Who would we be with you?
But it was love that we held for you.

And yet the years of prayer and hope that preceded you
The desires for good and protection for you
The dreams on your behalf
Came
and stayed
and grew
For it was you, you at last!

So much change, so fast!
We prepared as much as we could
Adapted to the unexpected
Chuckling together at the memories taking root...
Memories we would hold on to for you until you could understand
And smile
And laugh
And share those moments with us again
And again.

So many were sweet yet fleeting
Milestones we wish we could recall
More than can be counted
More than we could hold
And yet...details long gone
We recall the warmth and joy of it all
Unforgettable.

To hold this is in is impossible.
The ever-spring always overflows the banks.
The streams and brooks will form
Along oft remembered and traveled pathways
Shaping
In hope of filling anew
those
down
stream
who
listen and receive.

Those dry, rocky bits and sandy spots that are never filled
We learn them, hopefully
Shore up guides along to allow the stream to continue
Unstopped.
Unhindered.
Imperfectly...but as best we can.

The many eddies can seem like the horizon
For a time...
Filling all we see
How and why
Help and stop
Where to reach next from here?

And yet, the flow is unmistakable
If we look
The end is known
If we see clearly
The landscape is dark and ever moving
But what we need is there.

He promised.

There are times when I wish things were different.
There are times when I wish I had chosen differently.
There are times when I recognize my own mistakes for what they are.
There are times when I lose hope and get frustrated.
There are times when I think the world does or, at least, should revolve around me.
There are times when I realize that life is messy.
There are times when I wonder how I let things get to be the way they are.
There are times when I just wonder.
There are times when I doubt.
There are times when I acknowledge that much in life is quite frail.
There are times when I lose sight of reality and spiral down into my own little world.
There are times when I don't know how to express or even identify what I'm feeling at any given moment.

...but...

Those times are temporary.
Those times are expected.
Those times are not without growth.
Those times are not without reasons for thanksgiving for at least something, somewhere.
Those times have their place in a larger picture and context.
Those times have been predicted from before the beginning of the world.
Those times have a predetermined end.
Those times have purpose.
Those times result in focus.
Those times result in a deepening.
Those times result in a realization that I am small and the world is quite large.
Those times result in either determination or surrender...each has its place.
Those times result in cutting through all the maundering piffle to what really matters.
Those times, if we allow the fog of our misperceptions/predispositions/bliks to be rolled back and blown away, result in a grounding in Reality: the way things really are.

...so...

Read the Bible.
Pray.
Ponder.
Evaluate.
Think.
Do.
Be.
Persevere.
Hope.
Have courage.
Hate Evil & injustice.
Love Good & pursue what is right.
Hold together.

See. Reality.

Okay, so I just joined Facebook so that I could look at a site for an old HYACK student that was getting married. I figured that I'd just join quickly, look at his site and then forget about it as it's one of a myriad of minimal registrations that I've done on other sites for various reasons.

And then...

...I received a bunch of friend requests from people I hadn't connected with in years. What a riot! So, I'm still thinking this will by my primary blogging-outlet, but Facebook is a nice add-on.

What a hoot!

C.

Wordle.net

Cool site that lets you create word clouds like this one (click it to see the original Java/clearer version):



This word cloud was created from the blog posts that covered my mom's passing away a couple of years ago.

C.

From the New Yorker Web page:

This week in the magazine, Nick Paumgarten writes about the lives of elevators, and tells the story of Nicholas White, who was trapped in an elevator in New York City’s McGraw-Hill building for forty-one hours. Here is a condensed look at White’s ordeal, as captured by the building’s security cameras.

That's just a scary thought. Go to this link to see the time-lapsed version of Mr. White's nightmarish ordeal.

Yikes!

C.

This is the fruit of some stream-of-consciousness-surfing.

On a devotional site I read periodically, there was a link to an interview with Phil Vischer (of VeggieTales fame). It seems that God has brought him through a particularly tumultuous path. At some level, it's something that we all can relate to. It's worth the read: Talking with Phil Vischer

That article linked to Phil's new company, JellyFish. The preceding link goes directly to the "About Us" portion of the site. I found the thoughts around why they chose "Jellyfish" as the company name/approach as well as his story to be profoundly challenging.

That site linked me to his personal blog...which is filled with good stuff from what I've seen so far.

It was there that I found a link to a good article about The Golden Compass. I've not read the books or seen the movie. I've read bits and pieces of interviews with the author and articles about the books and movie. I author of the Christianty Today article brings up some good things to consider. Good read.

Gotta get to work now...

C.

One thing that was reinforced while helping coach Caleb's football team was that most really great coaches really emphasize about 5-6 things. Those things are the important, non-negotiables that players need to know/master to excel. For the Saints football defensive team, we emphasized the following:

[*] Be safe, have fun, learn about football
[*] If you hit really hard, it makes the game easier, hurt less & more fun.
[*] Tackling: Get you're head in front/across the ball carrier & hit, wrap, drive & roll
[*] Contain, contain, contain . . . and push everything inside
[*] Hit, get rid of the blocker, find the ball & tackle...aggressively

There was other stuff, but these were the things I either heard or said most often.

When I watched Caleb's baseball team this past summer, I noticed that his coach, Todd, did a great job of distilling all that could be taught about baseball down to what needed to be taught about baseball. Every time a kid was up to bat, he said the same thing: "<kid's name>, when the ball is right in front of you, hit it. If it's not, don't hit it." After the player would swing at a pitch that was over his head, Coach Todd would say it again. Eventually, most of the kids got it.

As I thought about the coaches I was privileged to be under when I was an athlete, the same thing held true.

[*] Coach Eckman: Know your job & do it well. Be a student of the sport, be prepared for everything & focus.
[*] Coach Ellison: Be tough, hit hard, remember how hard you worked & rise to the occasion.
[*] Coaches Carson & Schomig: If what you're doing isn't working, do something else that does work.
[*] Coach Rex: Play with your heart every play -- size & ability help, but playing with heart is what really makes the difference. Work, sweat, lift & play harder. Love God & His Word, be a man of humble character & follow Christ, serving others all along the way.
[*] Coach Bishop: Generally speaking, we all know what is right. Do right.
[*] Coach Swider: Stay tough, get it done...in season & out of season.
[*] Coach Church: Balance athletics with ministry. There's a larger picture to life than just running track or athletics.

Each of these coaches taught much more than these, but these were the things that were indelibly marked out by them for their athletes. On a daily basis during their athletic season, each of these coaches emphasized fundamental aspects of their sport. Develop speed, explosive strength & endurance. Technique matters and will help athletes excel. Practice has a purpose: to prepare athletes for the games and the scenarios that can happen.

I once saw a documentary on brain activity during athletics. They studied the brain activity of world-class archers. When the archers were aiming their shots, their eyes flicked around to three or four points on the target and their brain activity was quite low -- only two or three areas of their brains had a little bit of activity going. The rest of the brain showed as "dark" in their monitoring software. However, when they did the same study on novice archers, it was quite different. The novice's eyes flicked around to 10-20 different points almost constantly. Their brains were on fire with activity according to the monitor. Multiple, large regions of their brains were on overdrive.

What I came away with from watching this documentary is that the difference between "better athletes" versus "other athletes" was that the experienced ones know what to focus on and what to ignore. Similarly, while in every sport there's a huge amount of stimuli flooding a player at any given time, the best athletes, know what is important to focus on (i.e. in football, the movement of the ball at the snap, the first step of the offensive line or center mass/stomach of the ball carrier, closing the gap & tackling with force) and what can be ignored (i.e. QB cadence, misdirection from the backfield, noise from players/sidelines/crowds, juke steps, head fakes, etc.).

So, the challenge is for coaches to distill all that can be known about a sport down to the essential things that players, at whatever level they are at, can understand and focus on. Same principle: what to focus on versus what to ignore. In coaching this 3rd grade team, the temptation was very real to get into various nuances of the game and take time to teach these. However, time was short, we only practiced twice a week...so we made sure the kids had fun, were safe and learned "a little" about football along the way. That "little" really makes coaches figure out what the kids need to know versus what can be taught when their older and have the fundamentals down pat.

Good stuff,

C.

Our mechanical scarecrow, Harry Potter 7: Escape from Gringott's took second place in its category. On one hand, we were glad that the scarecrow turned out as good as it did. It took a lot of planning and work, so to see all the pieces come together so coherently was thrilling. The smoke, the sound effects/music, the flapping wings & fire as well as the character likenesses & the Dragon's overall look -- that was a blast to see. It was our first time to do anything like this and we definitely learned a lot along the way (i.e. Counterbalancing wings/levers, mechanical transfer of motor motion, what kind of glue works on styrofoam, cutting/painting/making dragon scales...etc.). So, it was cool to be in the top three out of what I think was 18 total mechanical entries.

On the other hand...

...being rather competitive, it was a bummer to come so close. I have to say that the winning entry was amazing: a huge straw Big Foot with wiggling toes, singing/playing a ukelele along with 6 other moving animals on various perches. Apparently, the creator had won the mechanical division at least a few years in a row. In talking with the other mech-contenstants, most of the top displays were sponsored to some degree. It was cool to hang with the "big boys" . But...number 2 is not number 1.

I do have a small niggling doubt about a technical problem we had and its effect on the results: on Saturday, sometime between 11a & 4:30p, our power shut down because of the timer box we used to distribute the power. Unfortunately, none of us were around to catch the problem until we arrived at 4:30. I had originally planned on coming earlier, but our plans flexed a bit after church in the morning and we ended up going to the site later than originally planned. So, I can't help but think that we lost out on a significant number of votes during the "downtime."

Either way though, it was fun to be in the hunt and to interact with people at the festival. We did get the biggest kick watching little children (eyes & mouths open wide wondering if it was okay to come near the dragon), Jr. High Boys ("No way! Harry Potter?! That's AWESOME!") & older couples (lots of nice comments and conversation about how we made it). Tons of people stopped to take pictures and ask questions about the display. So that was really fun.

What a relief that it was cool and not lame!

Thankfully,

C.