Early Morning Conversation

I was saying good-bye to the boys on the way to work and I noticed a word game on ~D~’s bed.

Me: “Hey what’s this?” I said, “Can you spell your name on this?”

~D~: “Sure.” 

I rotated the letters around until they spelled his name, but I had a couple of letters left over, which I used to add to his name:

Me: “Hey, I’ve been ~D~ED! Somebody help me!”

~D~: “Dad, I feel like you’re taking my name in vain.”

Me: “Sorry, I didn’t mean to…now you know how God would feel if you took His name in vain.”

~D~: “Yeah, I didn’t like it very much.”

Science Experiments – Is it Magnetic?

We started back to homeschool this week, which means back to science experiments. Last year we were growing plants, so our units were intense nightly affairs where we had to do something almost every night to measure or evaluate the plant development.

This year we’re doing experiments with magnetism, electricity and light, starting with magnetism.

Today we started the first experiment: “Is it Magnetic?” where we tried to classify objects that were magnetic. It was really way too easy for the kids, but we did it anyway. The obvious things (paper clip, nail) were magnetic, while feathers, ping pong balls, corks, pennies, and nickels were non-magnetic.

The only surprise was a Canadian nickel, which was magnetic, because it had enough nickel in it. I didn’t know that nickel was magnetic. (US nickels are mostly copper and don’t have enough nickel in them to be magnetic.)

When we were done, the response from the boys was: “Is that all?!” Definitely a way-too-easy start of the year.

Trying out WordPress.com

I’ve signed up for a blog at WordPress.com. WordPress is an open source blogging software that you can run on your own site, or you can get a free hosted site at WordPress.com. I’ve resurrected my old blog name, Not (quite) Balanced at https://notbalanced.wordpress.com.

Why?

A few reasons:

• Blogger doesn’t do categories or tags. There are rumors that they are rolling out a beta version that supports these, but they’re not converting existing blogs.
• It’s easier converting the presentation of the site. My Blogger template took a lot to edit and format. WordPress.com has widgets that you can drag and drop and add content to.
• You can also easily pick different themes, so it is easy to switch how the sight looks.
• It is easy to manage your blog roll by importing into WordPress.
• I can import all my old posts from Blogger to WordPress and not lose a thing.
• It has a calendar module to easily access previous posts.
• You can control who accesses the site, and if it is available to search engines for access.
• You can create pages as well as posts.
• The look and feel of editing and adding posts is better than Blogger.

I like WordPress much better as a blogging software package and if I hosted my own site, I’d use it. For now, I’ll just go with WordPress.com.

Strangely Compelling…

I’m not much of a sports fan, I’ll admit.  I don’t care much for football, baseball, or basketball.  I’ll watch a game occasionally (like the Super Bowl), but really don’t keep up with players and stats and stuff.

I played soccer as a kid, but even the World Cup this summer didn’t hold much interest for me.  I think I only watched one game.

Sometimes I wish I liked sports more.  This wonton disinterest singles me out as the oddball in groups of men.  I become strangely silent when the discussion moves to the latest amazing touchdown pass or how the running back missed a golden opportunity to convert for 2 in the last quarter.  (Did that make any sense?  I just made that up, and don’t know exactly what I said.)

However, recently I have found Auto Racing (Indy car and NASCAR) strangely compelling.  I’ve found myself reading about the races in the Sports page. (I never read the sports pages.) I’ve started looking forward to watching the next race, and wondering if Jimmy Johnson will be able to keep on top of the Nextel Cup point standings.

It all started when our oldest son asked to watch an auto race. It was around Memorial Day, so I recorded the Indy 500 for him.  We watched it about a month later on a Sunday afternoon. I thought, Cars going around a track 500 times.—Yawn.  (Actually it’s 500 miles, which is 200 laps.)

But I was wrong. It was exciting. The drivers trying to time their pit stops, the cautions and the final few laps when we thought the rookie, Marco Andretti was going to win the race.  I wanted to watch more.

And then we went to see the movie Cars as a family.  It was thoroughly enjoyable and I found myself wanting to watch a NASCAR race to find out what the hype was all about.

We watched a race at Martinsville, then one at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, then a road race at Watkins Glen.  My boys started cheering for different drivers and reading books about NASCAR.  I’m finding that I’m looking forward to the next race.

This is strange for me–I’m not used to being excited about sports, and now my wife has started calling me a Redneck.

I guess if the shoe fits…

Making MP3s

I’m sitting here at the computer ripping CDs to one track per disk. (It’s an audio book that I checked out from the library–will delete it from my MP3 player and harddrive once I’ve finished.)  Previously I had done normal ripping, but my MP3 player works better with fewer tracks.  So I’d stitch all the tracks together with MakeItOne, but then I thought, wouldn’t it be nice if I could rip to 1 MP3 per CD?

A Google search brought me to Audiograbber and a CNET article on how to use it to make 1 MP3 per CD.  It’s a little clunky, but seems to work OK and takes about5 minutes per CD.

Oops, the next CD’s done…

Snapshot From the Beach

We had just finished setting up camp at the campground. You could see the ocean over the dunes and smell the salt air. While my wife and in-laws were ready for a break and a rest, the two boys were bouncing off the walls from the excitement of being here. The ocean was calling me too.

I called the kids and we went to check out the beach, deciding to walk barefoot so we wouldn’t have to carry anything with us. We gingerly picked our way across the hot asphalt as quickly as possible, and ran to the receding tide to seek its cool relief.

It was quickly evident that a cursory exploration of the beach wasn’t going to cut it. We needed to get wet. So we ran back to the RV to get changed in our swimsuits. The deal was, though, no stuff. No towels, toys or any other gear. It was just a quick dash to the beach, right guys?

We returned to the water with gusto.

We stood in the surf, trying to stay in one place as the waves crashed into us. The kids were having trouble withstanding the waves, and they were soon holding my hand in order to steady themselves. Because the water was only up to my knees, I wasn’t having any problem holding my ground, but then I got down on my knees, and could see why they were struggling. With the water now up to my middle, I was having more trouble with standing up against the waves.

And so we stood there in the surf, pretending to be on a ship in a storm, with the waves washing over the deck and lashing out against us. We were fighting to hold the ship steady and stay on board, yelling out at the storm, “Is that all you’ve got? Give us your best shot!” And another wave would roll over and try to push us from our spot.

Then 1 Cor 15:58 came to mind,

Stand firm. Let nothing move you.

and this whole scene suddenly became a parable of my role as a father in lives of my sons:

I cannot completely protect them from the forces and influences in the world that come against them. There are battles that they must fight and stand firm against. However, I need to get down on their level and stand with them and hold their hand. I need to act as an anchor for them, representing Jesus the Rock, so that they can stand firm in a storm by holding onto me. And I need to be an encouragement and example to them, cheering them on and sharing my successes and failures in standing firm.

As this spiritual truth became evident to me, I started shouting to the waves, “We shall not be moved! We shall not be moved!” The boys joined in the chorus, unaware of my revelation, but spurred in their determination to hold their ground.

I treasure that moment.

Sunrise from our Last Morning

As everyone was getting ready to leave, I packed up our van with the final items. After I was done, I jogged up to the beach and took this picture:

We’re Back

After a week at the beach, we’re back in town. I’ve got a couple of things on my mind to write about, but just need to find the time. It always seems like it takes a week to catch up after vacation. I’m behind at work and at home.

However, I’ll leave you with the following:

Sunset at the Beach