Sportin' a 'Tude

Have you heard the phrase, "Sportin' a 'Tude"?

In our household, this phrase is particularly apt right now for two completely unrelated reasons...and in both cases, the reasons are, I'm here to say from the get-go, not genetic.

Let's start with the whole sportin' thang. See, I'm not really a sporty kind of guy. Generally speaking, if you made me choose between watching a Superbowl game on television, or having a cavity filled at the dentist, I'd be hard-pressed to pick the Superbowl game. I just don't like to watch sports on television unless it involves being timed to some sort of music. And gymnastics. I like to watch gymnastics...although, perhaps that still counts, since many of the events in gymnastics are, in fact, timed to some sort of music.

Anyhow, my boys have seemed not to inherit my distaste for televised sports, and so last night, while my wife and I were out in the living room watching House, MD, my three sons were all cozy on our bed watching football. And when the football game ended, they watched basketball. As I headed off to bed, I had to kick them out, to which they protested, telling me the game wasn't over.

So?

But, alas, they were absorbed into it. (I still kicked them out, however. It was late and they needed to be in bed. Or at least I needed to be.)

Sportin'.

Now, the 'Tude part involves our daughter, who recently arrived at the tender age of three. And, in due form, threw the biggest tantrum I've ever seen any of our children ever throw in their lives. Tantrums just aren't part of my parenting experience, really. Yet, there's my daughter, so upset because I wouldn't let her play Polly Pockets in our bedroom that she refused to move. I gave her a warning: come out, or go into your crib.

The next twenty-five minutes she spent screaming from her crib, so loudly that every time I saw tail lights passing by outside our living room window, I was sure it would be followed by two police officers knocking at our door.

Fortunately, she gave up, and I got her out, and she was sad and made me hold her and play Polly Pockets with her, and I had one of those pathetic parenting moments where I thought that maybe I had done the wrong thing, just see how upset she was, yada yada yada. Until she started Sportin' a 'Tude again a few minutes later, quickly quelled by a threat of going back to her crib. She seemed much happier after that.

A 'tude.

And this morning, I went to make myself breakfast, and there sat my family at the table, family room television tuned to basketball highlights, my daughter all upset because no one was getting her a drink.

Sportin' a 'tude, indeed.

I'm Thankful...Really.

I'm a dweeb. Or else I'm just busy. Not sure which it is, actually. But definitely one of those.

Why? Well, because a week ago I posted how I was going to spend all of last week talking about being thankful. And a week later, I have not made a single new post.

So I'm a dweeb.

But I really am thankful. I'm thankful for my wife, my kids, my family, my friends, my dog. Okay, not my dog. I don't have a dog. But I used to have a dog, and I used to love that dog, and he was a constant companion that I could turn to anytime I needed a listening ear. So I'm thankful that I used to have a dog.

Mostly, I'm thankful for a God to loves us...you and me...so much to overlook my dweeb-ness and offer forgiveness and salvation anyhow. I'm thankful for the opportunity to be thankful to Him, and for the ability to praise Him. I'm thankful for the ways he has guided my life, my decisions, and even bonked me on the head (spiritually speaking, of course) during a time when I wasn't talking to my wife (well, before she was my wife) and told me to get back together with her. He's a smart guy, God. Turns out, my wife is the most wonderful person in the world, and I wouldn't trade her for anything, and she completes me as a person like no one else could. I'd be a complete dweeb if it weren't for her, but because I married her, now I'm only an occasional dweeb.

I'm thankful for life's lessons, for unexpected directions, and directions very much expected and appreciated. I'm thankful that, even though my wife ended up in the E.R. overnight a few days ago fearing she was having a heart attack or something, that it turned out to only "potentially" be something worse, but ended up being relatively minor. (Well, minor in the grand scheme. To call excruciating pain "minor" when you're in the throes of it would probably result in her calling me a dweeb or something, so I feel I should clarify that.) So, yeah...my wife's fine and her heart is in good shape.

I'm also thankful that with each passing year, I'm simultaneously becoming less and less a dweeb in many areas, and more and more a dweeb in others. Ah well. I guess I should be thankful for that, because it means I have opportunities for growth still ahead of me. It would be boring if I had "arrived" and was completely dweeb-free.

So, this post is to let you know that I'm thankful...really. I just was busy last week.

Or I was a dweeb.

Give Thanks Where Thanks Is Due

For those of us in the United States, we are just a few days from Thanksgiving Day. So, I thought it would be a good time to, you know, be thankful and stuff.

So this week I'm going to talk about things I'm thankful for...even those things that aren't easy to be thankful about. But before I begin, I was thinking about the act of being thankful, and how it requires that there is a receiving end. I mean, what point is there in thankfulness if there is no one to thank.

I might say that I'm thankful for having a house. But really, what did the house have to do with anything? It isn't really about the house. It is about all the opportunities I had growing up where I learned, got a good education, eventually a job and income to pay for the house. It is about all the people who buy cars who need the parts that my company makes, which gives me a job.

I might say I'm thankful for my wife. But what that really means is I'm thankful for all the effort my wife puts into being my wife, for loving me, loving my children, even when I'm acting like a doofus. It means I'm thankful for the parents who raised her to become the person she is today, as well as all the other people who helped shape her.

I might say I'm thankful for living in this great, free nation. But that means I'm thankful for the men and women who died to not only protect this country, but for the men and women who didn't die, as well as those who had the intelligence and vision to draft our constitution, etc.

I could say I'm thankful for my diabetes, because my life has grown out of that part of me. I am who I am because of a disease. But the disease isn't something worthy of thankfulness. And perhaps I'm not thankful for the disease at all, but to a God who helped me to grow strong in the adversity that diabetes brought me.

I guess the point is to give credit where credit where credit is due. Give thanks where thanks is due. Think about the things, people, and circumstances you are thankful for...but don't leave it there. Think about those who made those things, people, and circumstances possible.

I'll have more thanks to share tomorrow.

Why I Write, Part Two

So you have this idea. This really great idea. But you know, like all great ideas, unless you do something with it, it will eventually be forgotten...until someone else comes along and actually does something with the same or similar idea, at which point you are hitting yourself over the head for not having done anything with the idea when it was your own!

Did you follow that?

I get ideas all the time. Once, when I worked at a Little Caesars pizza place, Little Caesars decided to introduce flavored crust. So, they shipped these giant rolls of stickers with the letters C, B, S, and P on them. When someone wanted, say, poppy seed on their crust, you stuck a little "P" sticker on their ticket so the person making the pizza would notice.

Thing is, there were four giant rolls, and we often had four people answering phones at the same time, and the stickers would end up unraveling, getting in the way, or we'd lose one of the sticker rolls or something. So, one evening when business was slow I started tearing apart a cardboard box and folding it this way and that, stapling it here and there, until I had created a dispenser that held all four rolls of stickers very neatly.

One of my co-workers was in awe. "How do you come up with ideas like that?"

(Honestly, it was no big deal.)

But that question seems to be a common one to authors.

"Where do you get your ideas?"

Well, you see, there's this idea factory... Okay, okay. Who knows? Ideas just come. Some times they come by purposeful observation of the world around you, and sometimes they just sort of pop into the head out of nowhere. I think everyone has ideas. But what makes an author an author is that they don't just brush off the idea. They file it away, or nurture it, and grow it until you have an entire garden of ideas to draw from.

And if an idea is strong enough, it doesn't leave you alone, and you either have to ignore it, or write it down.

I think any writer will also tell you that not all ideas that they write down are necessarily good ones. I have a folder on my computer full of short stories with ideas that I thought were good, but when I bothered to write them down, they were rather disappointing. Of course, I keep those files around in case someday I wish to revisit the idea, maybe placing a new twist on it.

But regardless, exploring those ideas is really a huge part of why I write. It is asking, "What if?" and then playing it out, seeing if it can reveal something unique, or entertaining, or profound. Often it doesn't. But sometimes it does.

Why I Write

I once read somewhere that in order to be a good children's writer, you have to still be a child at heart. The idea stuck with me, because in many ways that's true. I still find myself drawn to the things of my youth...yet at the same time, I definitely see how some of that childhood has eluded me as I've aged. It helps to have children of my own, though.

My wife once noted how when a little girl asks to play Barbies with an adult, for the adult it pretty much amounts to bouncing the Barbie-doll around in front of the child while she plays along, acting everything out. It's true, too. In fact, it made me self-conscious of the fact that I tend to do the same thing with my own daughter now. I guess grown-ups have a harder time getting into the roll of Barbie and really playing it out.

Yet, when I was a kid, my friends and I would spend hours with our Matchbox cars, which it seemed could talk to each other...except that we knew that it was the little people inside the cars talking to each other, despite the fact that there weren't any little people inside the cars. Imagination.

All this is leading somewhere. Because I thought I'd share a moment from my childhood.

When I was a kid, as I wrote in a previous blog entry, I was fairly obsessed with superheroes. My next-door neighbor, Shelley, was also my best friend, and we played superheroes practically daily. (Either that, or "kidnapper", for some reason.)

Anyhow, there was a time period where the two of us tried to convince the other that our superheroes were real. Not just constructs of our minds, but real, in-the-flesh people. It started innocently enough, having our imaginary super-friend that we, of course, could only see. But it grew from there. I remember once going into the bathroom and having this conversation, loud enough for her to hear, with myself. Of course, I disguised my voice, which I'm certain fooled her into believing my superhero was with me. Soon, she did the same thing.

And then, there were the infamous "Autograph books". Do you remember those? It seemed that everyone had one...expensive books with nothing but a bunch of blank colored pages to have your friends (or famous people, I suppose, if you knew any) sign. So, my superhero signed my autograph book. I disguised my handwriting, of course. So there it was...proof of the existence of my superhero.

Except she didn't believe me...so I had to sneak and swipe her autograph book and sign it using the same disguised writing, never letting on that I had gotten my hands on it.

This whole thing went on for an entire summer. Neither of us would budge, and both of us became increasingly clever at how we were trying to prove how our superhero existed. I revealed facts and secrets about him that of course only a friend of a superhero would know. She did the same.

And finally, the day of revelation...the day we both fessed up and admitted it was all a hoax, which we both already knew anyhow. Yet we believed that we had made the other believe it all.

Isn't that so typical of childhood imagination? Not just the worlds and situations we imagine...but the self-delusional things as well. Truly believing that we have convinced someone that something is true (in this case).

Sometimes I miss that...because I think that it is a power far greater than super-strength or being able to fly. It is the power to exist in a whole other world.

And that is why, today, I write.

Heroes, of the Super Kind

From the time I was six years old, I've been fairly obsessed with superheroes. It started with Superman and Wonder Woman and Batman, of course. I mean, how could it not? I even watched some of those old black-and-white Superman reruns where the guy is filmed laying on a table with a fan blowing his cape, and made to look like he was really flying. Of course, to the eyes of a six-year-old...he really was flying.

And a year later, my next-door neighbor and best friend and I moved one to creating our own superheroes. (Actually, you can read more about that on my website under "About".) But my love for superheroes that weren't my own creation never waned, and I was drawn to not just superheroes as people, but superheroes as in vehicles. Lemme see, there was Airwolf and Knight Rider and Street Hawk and Blue Thunder and, of course, the Transformers. Oh yeah...and this weird cartoon about this teenager who accidentally drove into this beam of light some scientist was working on that made it so that he and the car sort of became one and he could transform from human to car and back anytime he wanted. As stupid as it sounds, I really loved that show. Nevermind, I have no idea what it was called.

Anyhow, as I grew up, I never lost that love, and to this day, I rarely get more excited for a new movie than one involving superheroes. Even bad ones, like the recent version of The Fantastic Four. (Sorry...but come one guys...you can do better!)

A few weeks ago, I stumbled on the show Heroes. You know. "Save the Cheerleader. Save the world." Now, I had seen some ads for the show, but I never realized it was about superheroes, and so I felt a bit put out that I missed the first six episodes as a result. But I tuned in to the last two and I'm really really enjoying it.

But, I'm also really really hating it. Because I swear the writers of this show are stealing my ideas. I've now had no fewer than 4 specific ideas that I either have used or plan to use in my own books. What's up with that? And by the time my book is published (eh-hem...and of course it will be published one day...I hope), people are gonna go, "Oh, he's just copying that show Heroes." But really, I'm not. Because I started working on this thing like three years ago.

My story is my story, however, and so I must swallow my pride and except the fact that I'm not entirely original in everything I do. *Sigh* So, I'll sit back and enjoy Heroes, and hope that the seeming popularity of the the superhero genre will be a boon to my book. I hope.

Visiting Heaven

Several years ago, my wife and I splurged and bought ourselves a new, king-sized bed. It was wonderful having a decent mattress, for once.

And by "decent", what that really means is, it was relatively cheap. We got a great deal on it, going to this little mattress shop that insisted that their mattresses are identical to the big-name mattresses, only cheaper. The folks were friendly, and so we...eh-hem, I mean I...I decided to go ahead and buy from them.

A few years later, of course, we learned the hard lesson that you get what you pay for. This finally came to a head last week. See, my wife hasn't really slept in our bed for quite a while. It is too painful. I've tolerated the bed, but even I was waking up throughout the night having to take ibuprofen. It was getting ridiculous. So, we took a trip to a real furniture store. One that sells real beds made by brands you've heard of before, like "Sealy" and "Simmons" and "King Coil".

Now, I must interject here that prior to visiting said furniture store, my wife and I did some internet research. And you know what? It turns out it is really hard to come to any firm conclusions on any given mattress. A mattress that one person loves another hates. Take the Sleep Number Bed. You know, the bed advertised by Lindsay Wagner? I've heard a few people say how they love theirs. Then I check into more reviews, and it seems to be almost universally loathed by others. Fine, check that one off the list.

Then we looked into the Tempurpedic "memory foam" beds. Good reviews, bad reviews, and not to mention prohibitively expensive. Traditional beds? Same thing.

Fortunately, we got to actually try out the beds in the store. We even got to try out this cool computerized contraption that you lay on which measures your personal pressure points and figures out which bed would be best for your body. My wife and I were analyzed, and we found an absolutely wonderful bed.

But then, we tried a natural latex foam mattress by King Koil. Wow. It was like visiting heaven. The bed sort of just enveloped you in luxury. Of course, the salesman declared that he just convinced his own parents to buy that very mattress. Sure...and had we chosen the Sealy Posturpedic, he probably would have told us how his brother just bought that one. Regardless, it was an incredible mattress, well beyond our price range. So, of course, we bought it. Delivery in a week!

The hope is, of course, that my wife and I will be able to sleep comfortably for years to come. So, watch this space in about 20 years and we'll let you know how it goes.

The Curse of the Vocal Cords

Sometimes I think I've been cursed. And I don't even believe in curses.

See, next Wednesday, our church is having its annual all-church Thanksgiving dinner. And part of the evening includes a concert presented by the ensemble group I sing in. And two of the solos in the concert are mine.

I love to sing. I even had vocal training from my very own brother, who is a professional vocal instructor. And, as this concert approached, I felt a tad nervous. Why? I'll tell you why. Because it seems that every time I'm scheduled to sing anything at church, be it a concert on Thanksgiving or special music on Sunday morning...I seem to come down with a cold.

So, what do you think happened to me starting two days ago? Yeppers! I came down with a cold. And, with advice from my wife, I started popping Cold-Eeez right away. Yet, this morning, I woke up able to sing so low that humans can't even hear it. This wouldn't be a problem if I were a bass. But I'm not a bass. I'm a tenor. Tenor mean I sing high, not low.

I tried to squeak out one of the songs I'm scheduled to sing during my drive in to work today. It sounded an awful lot like Peter Brady when the Brady Kids sang, "A Time for Change."

And so, the curse strikes again.

Fortunately, in almost every case, I recovered just in time to sing, although once I had to modify part of the song in order to hit the notes. But usually the cold hits about two weeks before when I'm going to sing. This time, I only have a week. A week! Even if I can get over my cold, I usually need a few days to strengthen my voice.

And so right now I'm wondering if I can convince the rest of the ensemble to lower the songs a couple octaves...

For Best Results: Drive With Eyes Open!

This post is about me. And I should start out saying that I was, in fact, driving with my eyes open...technically.

Okay. Let me back up a bit. I'm in this singing group at my church called OneVoice. There are eight of us, and we're doing a concert on November 15. This year is a concert all about praise. So, as you can imagine, most of our songs are either praise songs to God or about praising God.

For the past few months, I've been listening to the CD in my car that has all the songs we're performing in order to learn the lyrics. I'm horrible about memorizing words. Music? No problemo. But lyrics take me forever.

Anyhow, now that we are a couple weeks away, I have the songs mostly learned. Flash forward to this morning. I was driving along, singing along with the CD. I pulled up to a stop light. And that is where things got messy. Because I have this horrible habit of closing my eyes when I'm singing. See, when I sing, I'm singing to God. I don't like distractions, so I tend to close my eyes when I'm praising Him. Now, when I'm driving, I obviously must keep my eyes open. But here I was, stopped at a stop light, and so what did I do? I closed my eyes and started singing. I'm not sure how long passed, but next thing I know, the light is green in front of me, and there are cars behind me pulling around me.

None of them honked at me. At least, I don't think they did. But the cars that were in front of me at the stop light were long gone, and even the left-turn traffic from the opposite direction was taking advantage of me just sitting there.

So, I guess the only thing worse than a driver distracted by talking on the cell phone is a driving distracted by talking to God. Or singing to God, in this case.

Lesson learned here. For best results, drive with your eyes open. I'm sure your fellow drivers appreciate it.

Top Ten Disappointing Moments

My post yesterday where I revealed that I'm still bitter about Misfits of Science going off the air got me to thinking about disappointing moments you experience in your childhood. So, I thought I'd do a bit of Letterman here and list my top-ten list of disappointing moments experienced as a child. And, of course, in true Letterman form...just being I call them my top ten doesn't really mean they are my top ten. Just a random list of ten.

So, here goes:

1. It's summer, and your favorite television show is on at 8:00. Captain America! (Okay, okay...so I have this thing for superheroes.) So, you're out playing with your friends and then it starts to get dark. You hurry inside, check the clock and discover it is now 10:00! You played through your favorite show! You were out having fun when you could have been a vegetable in front of the television! And, since the summer months are all reruns, it means you won't get to see the rerun at all!
2. For a month, the family has been planning a trip to Cedar Point. There is nothing more that you look forward to. Then, you wake up early, ready to go...and it is pouring down rain. You click on The Weather Channel, hoping the rain hasn't hit Sandusky, OH...but alas, it has. You try to convince your folks that maybe it'll stop raining. Maybe by the time you get there it will be clear. But they don't listen. They never listen. And so, you have to wait another week. (Which, since the rain lingers for the next four days, turns out to be a wise decision on your parents part...but you'll never admit it to their face.)
   
3. You studied for your upcoming math/science/English/history test, and know the material backwards and forwards. This is the time you're gonna ace the test. This is gonna pull your grade up into A territory, keeping your GPA high enough to remain on the Honor Roll. You sit down to take the test, and nothing makes sense...as if you studied the wrong subject or something. You get your test back the next day, and it is a B-minus. A B-minus! Suddenly, your hopes of getting into your favorite college are dashed, and you know you're destined to wallow in mediocrity the rest of your life.
4. Finally, after months of bugging your mother to death, you convince her to buy you that box of Honey Combs cereal, because now is the time they have free bike license plates inside the box. The next morning, you race down to the kitchen and see a grin on your older brother's face because he already dug out the license plate for himself.
   
5. Lasers! There is nothing cooler than to think that you can own a real-live set of laser guns! The game? Laser Tag...and it is the top item on your Birthday list. You review the list with your folks, and they seem to get it. If they get you only one gift that year, you want Laser Tag! Then your Birthday arrives, and there is a big box there. Just the right size! You know what it is. You start to open it, and sure enough, there are the guns...then you peel away the rest of the Scooby-Doo wrapping paper, and find it isn't Laser Tag, but the "Laser Light Game Set." A cheap knock off. It barely works, and it doesn't even use lasers. And the next year, when you ask for Laser Tag again, your parents say, "But you never played with the one we bought you last year!" So, instead, they buy you a new pair of jeans.
6. The newspaper is holding a Thanksgiving Day Parade coloring contest. The best submissions will be displayed on live television during the airing of the Thanksgiving Day Parade. So, you sharpen your crayons, buy several copies of the newspaper for that day and start coloring. You pick your best one. It is incredible. You've never colored better in your life. Rudolph's nose is the perfect shade of red, and you really believe that Santa's belly is made from a bowl full of jelly. You send off you entry, and then sit watching the television screen, never even getting up to use the bathroom. But when they announce the winner, it is a pathetic-looking entry that only won because the kid who colored it has been a quadrapelegic for most of her life. Come on...it isn't your fault you aren't paralyzed from the neck down!
7. You sit down to watch Misfits of Science. But it isn't on. Week after week, you wait for its return. But three years later you try to accept the fact that it is off the air for good. Fortunately, I still had MacGyver to watch. (This disappointment was repeated several times with such great shows as Probe and The Whiz Kids.)
   
8. You sit down for family dinner and discover it is Pepper Steak night...again! (Which means spending the first ten minutes picking out each and every pepper by hand.)
   
9. Worse, you sit down for family dinner and discover that the menu includes sauerkraut.
   
10. You go to the doctor's office, your mother telling you that you probably have a bladder infection. This, because during the drive home from Florida the previous week, you literally stopped off at every single rest area between Michigan and Florida...plus a few stops alongside the edge of the road...to pee. Bladder infection. Just get some antibiotics and go. Until they inform you that you have been diagnosed with a disease. Diabetes! And, as any intelligent nine-year-old can tell you, having a disease means you are going to die a horrible death in a matter of days...or a few weeks at best! And then the truly horrible news: you won't be allowed to eat sweets any more!

Go ahead and share some of your disappointing childhood moments!

Tag, I'm It

Have you played tag recently? Actually, I did. With my kids, a few weeks ago. It was a very bad idea. I was sore for a few days afterwards. Apparently, running around when you're 33 isn't the same as running around when you're 10.

But, here I am, playing tag again. Fortunately, the only thing I have to exercise this time is my fingers, since it is Blog Tag. (Actually, giving my recent RSI to my hand, perhaps it isn't so fortunate.) I was tagged by Nichole.

Rules are (apparently) that I must reveal five typically unknown facts about myself, and then tag five other people. First part is easy. It's all about me! Second part is harder, because I don't got no friends! Let's give it a whirl.

Facts about Ryan you probably never wanted to know:

1. To this day, I am bitter that the television show Misfits of Science was taken off the air. It was, of course, a clever take on the superhero genre. At least, I thought so. Apparently the viewing public disagreed.
   
2. I didn't attend my own Prom. I didn't even want to attend my own Prom. Instead, I worked for double-time at Little Caesars. And despite the warnings from my friends that I would someday regret not going to my Prom, thus far I have yet to experience even the slightest tinge of regret.
3. I've dated exactly two people in my life. My wife, sure. But there was also this horrible moment during a time my wife (well, before she was my wife) and I weren't talking and this girl asked me to take her to Meijer (doesn't sound like a date...but it was definitely intended to be a date). I originally said no, but my parents told me I needed to go out, so I called her back and said yes and had one of the worst evenings of my life. We spent 45 minutes at Meijer, most of the time yelling at the store manager for the service charge of one penny by utilizing their mailing servies. I was so embarrassed. I'm glad I got back together with my wife, believe me.
4. In Junior High School, three years running, I won the "Standing Long Jump" competition at this annual class competition. Basically, there were various sport-related events such as wheel-barrelling each other across the gym, trying to knock down the most plastic bowling pins with a bean bag, etc. I was on the team specifically for my frog-like legs, and I usually outdid the other teams' best efforts by at least a foot. It was a proud moment, indeed.
5. I once sprained my ankle. (Actually, twice.) But it wasn't for anything noble, like scoring the winning kick in a soccer game or anything. No, instead, my friends and I were taking terms jumping off the roof of their wood-shed, seeing who could jump the farthest. It was about twelve feet high, and we had this nice three by three cushion to land on. We would move it out a foot at a time until it was somewhere between ten and twenty feet out. We'd run, jump, and land on the cushion. But then, one last attempt, I missed the cushion, slightly off center, and landed one foot on, one foot off. I ended up with crutches for several days, and a weak ankle for years.
   

So, there you have it.

As to five people to tag? Uh...let me think on that and get back to you. I'll edit this post later...

Okay...updated. Here are the people I'm tagging...ready or not!

1. Sandra Miller, A Shot in the Dark, http://artistmom2two.blogspot.com
2. Scott Johnson, Scott's Diabetes Journal, http://scotts-dblife.blogspot.com
3. Kerri, Six Until Me, http://www.sixuntilme.com
4. Martha O'Connor, http://marthaoconnor.blogspot.com
5. Kristin Nelson, Pub Rants, http://pubrants.blogspot.com

Now, Kristin probably is a long-shot. She's a busy literary agent...but I LOVE her blog, so I figure the worst that can happen is some of you might head over there and check her out! Many others I would have tagged appear to already have been tagged. That's fine...although, I think that means I'm one of the last in my social network to be tagged, which is kind of like being picked last by the captains of the baseball teams back in my school days. (Sniff, sniff.) It's okay. I'll get over it.

Something New...Kind Of

Did you know that November is National Novel Writing Month? See, several years ago, a small group of folks set up this idea of trying to finish a draft of a novel in a month. Tall task. The point wasn't to have something ready to be published, but to have something, period.

The movement has grown, and this year I know several fine writers participating in the event. Me? No way. Minimum word count is 50,000 words. There is no way I could write 50,000 words in a month...particularly a month like November when I'm busy with my singing group, and choirs, and Thanksgiving...not to mention all the other stuff that entails being a husband and father of four.

I do wish luck to those attempting the task. But I am participating in another sense. I've just about finished up my last round of edits to Mindburst, and so I'm jumping back into writing. I have two other projects in the works, but another that I decided I'm going to start. Something new. Kind of.

See, it all started several years ago while I was busy directing my choir and writing diabetes-related software. I had this epiphany of sorts for a novel. I have ideas all the time, and usually if I ignore the idea, it goes away. But this one didn't, and pretty soon, I had conceived the story line for three interconnected novels spanning about 200 years.

I did a bit of writing, but time prohibited me from doing much work on it until I dropped choir and finished working on my software. I started writing, and got about 15,000 words in when I came up with this great idea about kids with mental powers living trapped inside this asylum. So, I shifted gears and wrote Mindburst.

Along the way, I decided that I wanted to write for the young adult audience, which means my fabulous idea spanning 200 years was on hold, indefinitely. Flash forward a couple years to several months ago, and I figured out an entirely new story that utilizes some of the ideas from that original trilogy, but does it in a way that is aimed at young adults. A lot has changed, but I'm excited about it and so I've decided, after much indicision on the matter, to go ahead with it.

So, November, for me, is the start of Lockdown (working title). I won't get 50,000 words written. I'm not sure I'll get even close to my goal of 20,000 words. But it is always fun to jump into a whole new world and see what happens. (Actually, I know what happens...but that's beside the point.)

Anyhow, if you've always had some inkling of a novel rummaging inside your head, this is the month to sit down and just write!

(In the meantime, as my blog post from yesterday points out, you can read chapter one of my novel Mindburst on my website now. Go check it out!)

Mindburst, Chapter One!

I have a special treat for you! Well, I'd like to believe that. Actually, I've posted on my website the first chapter for my novel, Mindburst! You can read it, and then wait with hopeful expectation that I'll secure an agent, sell it to a publisher, and then read the rest in about two years.

So, go check it out here!

Pumpkin Day

Friendly reminder: If you are on an insulin pump, don't forget to change the time to reflect the change in Daylight Savings!

Tomorrow's the big day. The day my kids are really looking forward to. Pumpkin Day.

Oh. That's not what you call it? I know, I know. But we aren't really doing the same thing as a good portion of the world. Pumpkin Day is, in our family, a celebration of God's Creation...of the world he provided, including pumpkins!

There are no costumes for us. No trick-or-treating. No ghost stories. We just aren't into that. Instead, we go out to dinner as a family. Well, that's just the start...but let me just say that if you ever want to have absolutely no wait, go out for dinner on Oct. 31. Last year, we went to Bob Evan's, and there were only two other tables with people. I don't understand it. I guess people are busy doing other things. Can't imagine what.

So, we have a nice, leisurely family dinner. Then we head home for the carving of the pumpkins.

There is a book we read called The Pumpkin Patch Parable. It compares how the carving of a pumpkin symbolizes the salvation offered through Jesus Christ. We read this book together, and then carve our pumpkins, always in a way that is happy. No mean or evil looking things. We are celebrating, here!

Finally, we have our treasure hunt. We have clues. The kids have to solve the clues and find the next clue until finally, at the end of the hunt, we have a bag of goodies.

It is a wonderful family time, and my wife and I look forward to it every year...as do the kids!

And this year, we're planning on spreading the fun across two days. It really is too much to do in one day. Last year, we had to rush through the treasure hunt because it was so late. So, this year, we're having the treasure hunt on a second day. I guess we'll have to change the name to "Pumpkin Days".

A Definitive No

Controversy alert. This post deals with a subject that has raised heated arguments across the political field lately. However, my post isn't politically motivated, but personally motivated. I don't expect everyone to agree with me, but figured I should bring it up. This is, after all, my blog.

I don't support the ADA. I also don't support the JDRF. Kind of odd, considering I've lived with diabetes for most of my life. These organizations do a lot of good, I don't deny that. Yet there is one very strong reason I can't, in good faith, lend my financial support their way. Quite simply, it comes down to embryonic stem cell research.

Both organizations support it. I even called to find out if they financed such research, and the answer was a definitive yes. Which means my support is a definitive no.

I suppose if you don't share my views on "life begins at conception", then you don't see the issue. But for me, life begins at conception. Which means that embryonic stem cell research in any form is destroying one life to potentially benefit another. If you want to understand how it feels to me, consider this: if the issue were dealing with killing a newborn baby rather than an embryo, would it seem reasonable to say, "This baby's life isn't as valuable as the millions who might benefit from it's death."

Perhaps to you it isn't the same thing. But to the millions of people in this country vehemently opposed to embryonic stem cell research, that's exactly what it is. It isn't a matter of pushing our religious views on society, or taking a political position (although, granted, I'm sure there are some out there where that is the case). For me, and those like me, it is about saving a life.

Thing is, to date, all this talk about embryonic stem cell research is just that: talk. There have been no therapeutic advances made. Yes, part of that is due to lack of funding. But part of that is because progress is being made in adult stem cell research.

For whatever reason, that seems to be lost in the debate. Because today, there are treatments that make use of adult stem cells, and I'm constantly reading about new advances in adult stell cells which are showing them to be far more flexible than once believed. They may be harder to work with, but progress is being made.

If funds start going to embryonic stem cell research, then funds will be taken away from the adult stem cell research. That would be a shame, because there are actually reasons why adult stem cells might be the better route. One major reason has to do with rejection. If there is a way to harvest a person's own stem cells and use them for treatment, then you have eliminated a major hurdle in any kind of treatment. The body rejects foreign substances. If I were to be treated with cells derived from someone else, then my body will very likely attack those cells. Which means I would then need to be placed on anti-rejection medicine for the rest of my life, which has a host of health implications itself.

But I digress. Because I don't mean to go into all the benefits of adult stem cells versus embryonic, or vice versa...because ultimately, for me, it doesn't matter. What matters is the life that is ultimately destroyed.

As a diabetic, someone who theoretically could be cured by embryonic stem cell research, I just don't want it. I'd rather live my life out with all the risks of complications. I'd no more ask for a cure from an embryo than I'd ask some baby to die so that I could live a healthier life.

I honestly don't have ill feelings towards people like Michael J. Fox, who wants to return to a normal life, and so sees the embryonic stem cell research as their only hope. It isn't their only hope, of course...but I understand their position. But there are many, like myself, who also suffer from diseases, who don't want that kind of research done.

So, for me, that means foregoing support for ADA and JDRF.

I half expect there to be responses to this trying to "educate me" on the subject. Go ahead. But I'll just state that I'm not at all uneducated. I've read both sides of the debate quite exhaustively in the past several years, following advances, etc. So, talk amongst yourselves, if you want. I just wanted to clear the air on this, and make it clear that for a great many people, the "stem cell issue" is not at all political...an important thing to realize in this politically-charged time.

Being Disabled

I'm having some repetitive strain issues in my right hand, so my blog will be sparse for the next couple weeks as a result. I hope to be back in full form soon. In the meantime, I'm learning to type one-handed. I'm glad to know this is only temporary.

But it actually serves as a good intro to something a fellow writer asked from me involving disability. I suppose most of us take for granted that our children can choose from the million and one toys available from Toys R Us or Wal-Mart, etc. But parents with children who have disabilities have more limited options.

That is where AblePlay comes in, a non-profit creation that helps filter through the toys by providing ratings and reviews specifically geared towards special needs kids. Check them out.

And if you know anyone who has special needs children, please tell them about www.ableplay.org.

The Wide, Wide Weird of Sports

Professional sports events brings out the "weird" in people. Particularly big-time events such as the Stanley Cup, or World Series, or Superbowl.

Detroit is no stranger to such events. Well, okay...I don't know that the Lions have ever come close to the Superbowl, but we have won the Stanley Cup and World Series a few times, and both Michigan and Michigan State have been to the Rose Bowl.

Despite this, it still surprises me.

Several years back, the Red Wings were on their way to win the Stanley Cup, and apparently people were throwing dead octopus on the ice and driving around with brooms tied to their cars. I think the broom had something to do with wanting a "sweep", but I'm not entirely sure. The octopus? Not a clue.

My wife and I walked out of Meijer late one evening, and there were cars honking like mad driving along the road. It was my wife who realized it probably meant the Red Wings just won the playoffs. (She turned out to be right.)

Now, Detroit is in the spotlight again. The Tigers are in the World Series. Personally, I couldn't care less. But apparently, the rest of Detroit does care. And last night was one of the sightings of "weird".

There I was, sitting on a bench at church with my four-year-old, and in the hallway comes this big, burly, and balled-headed army man. That isn't a typo. I don't mean bald-headed. I mean balled-headed. (Although, he happens to be bald as well.)

He had painted his entire head white, with red lines curving around his face like the stitching of a baseball. My first reaction was he was trying out an early Halloween look, where Uncle Fester from The Addams' Family, must have had surgury gone horribly awry. But no. As he approached, I realized it was more horrific than that. It was actually a person turning their head into a baseball!

My four-year-old laughed at him, but as the balled-headed man walked away, he said, "That man's gonna scare someone!"

I just don't get it. It is a game. And painting our heads, or wearing giant foam-rubber hands or evening throwing out octopus onto the ice isn't going to make the team play any better. It is almost like people honestly think that the more excited they are for the game, the louder they yell at the television screen, the more people they have at their sports-watching party, the better the team will do.

I've tried to break to folks. I've tried to tell them that when their favorite sports team wins a game, they had absolutely nothing to do with it. They do not have any magical powers over the athletic abilities of the athletes. Nope. The athletes did it all on their own.

Yet, when the team wins, I notice it isn't, "The Tigers won!" Instead, it is, "We won!"

We? We. Weird.

It'll be interesting to see what happens as the World Series progresses. Not because I care one iota about how the Tigers do. But I am interested in seeing just how weird the weirdness will get from the Tigers fans.

How Gray Is Our Gah?

I'm in this ensemble group at church. We've been preparing for a concert we'll be performing on November 15, which means I've spent most of my time in the car listening to the songs and perfecting (eh-hem...or a reason facsimile thereof) the nuances of the parts I'm responsible for.

One of these songs is a praise song that is fairly popular right now called, "How Great Is Our God." Some of you with more contemporary worship services just might have sung it on a recent Sunday.

Thing is, I'm really irritated with this song. Well, not the song itself, but the artist who sings this particular song on the album. See, in recent times, the "breathy" sound in voices is rather popular. Sometimes it can give a song an ethereal feel, or a passionate feel, or a raw feel, maybe even a heartfelt feel. (Heartfelt feel? Hmm. Kind of redundant sounding.)

Anyhow, the guy who sings this has that rather breathy sound to his voice. But all too often, being breathy also means that the singer doesn't actually pronounce the words.

I'm fine with breathy. Really, I am. I enjoy to sing breathily myself. But please, make sure you actually a-nun-ci-ate your words. Otherwhy ih migh soun lie thih! (Translation: Otherwise it might sound like this.)

Anyhow, this guy doesn't enunciate. At least, not well enough. And as a result, rather than a praise song to God, it is a praise song to Gah! And Gah isn't so great in his version, but he is rather gray.

Fortunately, I know how the song is supposed to go, so I'm not so confused by it all. But I can't tell you how many songs I've listened to where the artist doesn't pronounce their words clearly, and I end up listening to the song for months never quite sure what they are saying.

Of course, there are plenty of other songs with similar problems. Have you ever wondered, for example why people are "Bringing in the Sheets"? (After all, that makes more sense than "Bringing in the Sheaves" to this generation, doesn't it?)

Or have you wondered just who "Jose" is when you sing the Star-Spangled Banner? ("Jose, can you see?")

Anyhow, I'm still trying to figure out just how gray our Gah is. Let me know if you find out. Oh, and if you want to read more funny misheard lyrics, there is a website devoted to them. Check out http://www.kissthisguy.com for a lot of laughs.

Father-Son Not Equal To Father-Sons

As any parent will tell you, parenting is hard work. And if you don't think so, then you just might not be parenting hard enough.

I say that last part with a bit of self-accusation, because in the last few weeks I have started to see that I was missing out on a fundamental part of parenting. That would be alone time.

No, no. Not me having alone time (although, now that I mention it, I certainly would love more alone time), but me having alone time with one of my sons (well, or daughter).

As we have told our kids, there are positives and negatives to having a relatively large family (and by "relatively", I mean we have four kids, which by today's standards seems large, but historically speaking is quite small). One of the positives, of course, is always having a sibling or sibling to do things with. A built-in friend, so to speak.

The downside is that we have a lot of laundry. And dishes. And just generally, not enough room. But even more than that is the time factor...the opportunities for Dad (that's me) to spend time with each of his kids individually.

For quite a while now, we've had "Boys' Nights", where my wife goes out with a friend I get to spend supposed "quality time" with my boys doing the kind of things boys like to do.

But, as it turns out, a father spending time with his sons is very different from a father spending time with his son. My oldest son had made this increasingly clear with some rather pointed statements (nicely disguised under his keen sense of humor), and requests to do something alone, like playing a game of chess.

So, I sat down with my wife, as we often do when something is nagging us about the state of our parenting, and discussed the issue. I love to talk to my wife about these things. She is absolutely the greatest mother on the face of the planet. She just has this sixth-sense about how our kids feel. Me? Well...I'm ashamed of the times I've dismissed their feelings just because I wanted them to get the playroom straightened up.

Anyhow, my wife helped me determine what was missing in my fatherhood, and then we worked out a game plan...how to have more father-son time on a regular basis. Fitting it into an already tight schedule is difficult, but I consider the effort worth it.

And so, this week began the one-on-one time. While I enjoyed the ability to connect with my boys on an individual basis, the true joy came in just seeing their faces, their excitement, just to be with Dad. And I'm looking forward to getting to know my own kids at a whole new level, carrying forward, hopefully, into adulthood. Because I don't want my boys to grow up one day and wish they had known their father better, or that I had listened to them more. Time to start, today.

Questioning My "Real Man" Status

There are certain times in my life that I fear that maybe, just maybe, I'm not a Real Man.

Oh, I've fathered four children and all that goes along with that, and I am instantly turned into a zombie the moment a television turns on within ten feet, but there are a few nagging issues.

One has to do with who is going to the World Series this year. Or, more specifically, the fact that I don't really even care. The only reason I know that my home team of the Detroit Tigers made it is because at work and at church and even at my physical therapy, that's the subject of conversation.

"Did you watch the game?" is the frequently asked question from the last few weeks.

I try not to look like an idiot. I mean, it is one thing to not watch the game. It might even be okay to not necessarily want to watch the game. But to live in Michigan and not even know that the Tigers are playing...well, your manhood is thrown into question.

I'm a rare breed, I know. A few years back, the Associate Minister was teaching a Bible School lesson. He was quite a jokester with a wry sense of humor. Anyhow, for reasons that allude me, he said, "Wild horses couldn't drag it from me!"

My first reaction was, "Cool! An Anne of Green Gables fan." But then I realized he said it with a tone of contempt. And he quickly added, "Boy, do I absolutely hate that movie."

Apparently, his wife adores the movie...and his knowledge of Anne was the result of her punishing him by making him watch it. (He really is a sweet husband, though. He ended up suprising her with a vacation to the real "prettiest plot of land on the North Shore".)

See, I love Anne of Green Gables. I even watched it with my boys a few months back, figuring I should enrich their lives with good and virtuous movies. They claimed not to like it, mostly because there were no light sabers or explosions, but I'm here to tell you that they were fixated on it while it was on.

Anyhow, the point is, my love of Anne-girl is another mark against me and my right to being called a "Real Man". "Real Men" don't love Anne. They loathe her. Instead, they are supposed to skip out on ER visits to watch the big game. (Seriously. There was an article on www.msnbc.com about it last week.)

But I do take relief when my wife says something to me, and I can give an appropriate grunt in response while absorbed in the latest Geico commercial, only to have her ask me to repeat back what she said, and I can only say, "Hmm. I got nothing!"

I guess I am a Real Man. After all, I bet my wife hasn't noticed that the gecko from Geico has a different accent now than it did a few years back. And that's important information. At least to a Real Man.