Listening Recommendations...

I told you about the Zune that I got for Christmas...

My first reaction was to load a bunch of music on it, but then I started subscribing to podcasts. For the last few days I've been listening to Andy Stanley. When I was living at home I watched his dad on TV -- "if you miss church, its ok if you watch Charles Stanley on TV ;-)"

Andy is amazing though, I highly recommend the series called "The Sinai Code". It is about the 10 commands and the purpose for each one. The thing that really struck me was the 4th commandment. Do you know what the 4th commandment is? The first three are about God. 1) You will have no other gods before me 2) Don't try to make anything that represents me 3) Don't misuse my name. What was the most important thing on God's mind after those 3? You will take a day off every week. hmmmm....

Listening to it will change your perspective on the Old Testament and New Testament law. Go here to subscribe via an iPod or go here to listen with your computer.

Catching up....

One of the big events this Christmas....Kathy broke a bone in her foot. It happened before the holiday and she's been hobbling around ever since. It was my fault because she was trying to call me while walking down the stairs. I'm afraid to mention it because next thing you know we'll have laws restricting cell phone use on the stairs. She can be a little stubborn determined at times and was convinced that she still needed to do all of the cooking that she normally does at this time of year (she is an awesome cook). Anyway, she's now concerned that she is going to have to continue wearing the brace after the next doctor visit. We'll see.

Yesterday, I accepted a position with Oakwood Systems Group. Oakwood is a consulting company based out of St. Louis. They have an office in Brentwood. I believe that this is a good step for me at this point. I am excited about starting after the first of the year.

The youth group at Church is encouraging the kids to read the New Testament out of 'The Message' between the first of the year and the end of school. I am going to try to do the same, I desperately need to get back into regular Bible reading.

For Christmas this year, I asked for and received a Zune (Microsoft's version of the iPod). Pretty cool device. To be honest, I've not listened to whole lot of music on it yet. My idea was to get it to listen to when I travel. I quickly realized that it is a tremendous training tool for both professional and spiritual training. I've heard of podcasts for a while, but I didn't have a device that could do it, so I didn't pay much attention. Real quick, a podcast can be thought of as an audio blog. You subscribe to a podcast with your device's software, and when new posts are made, the software automatically downloads them to your device. You can then listen to them any time. I started using it yesterday and I've subscribed to two professional feeds (.NET Rocks and The polymorphic podcast) and four spiritual feeds, two from Ravi Zacharius and two from the Northpoint Church (Andy Stanley). Any of you podcasters out there, let me know if you have suggestions about what to listen to.

Well, 2007 is about done with. To be honest, I'm not really sad to see it go. I don't really have resolutions, I used to set goals for the year, I've pretty much stopped that as well. At this point, I live from day to day. I think that's scriptural. I'm amazed at how God taught the Israelites to trust him, day to day. The manna came every day, you can't collect enough for tomorrow, just today. You must trust...you must believe.

Have a good day.

A Christmas Story...

I heard this story a year or so ago. I fell in love with it. There is a version that is set to a musical background. I searched for it but could not find it. If anyone can find it, please let me know where it is....

Now the man to whom I'm going to introduce you was not a scrooge, he was a kind, decent, mostly good man. Generous to his family, upright in his dealings with other men. But he just didn't believe all that incarnation stuff which the churches proclaim at Christmas Time. It just didn't make sense and he was too honest to pretend otherwise. He just couldn't swallow the Jesus Story, about God coming to Earth as a man. "I'm truly sorry to distress you," he told his wife, "but I'm not going with you to church this Christmas Eve." He said he'd feel like a hypocrite. That he'd much rather just stay at home, but that he would wait up for them. And so he stayed and they went to the midnight service.

Shortly after the family drove away in the car, snow began to fall. He went to the window to watch the flurries getting heavier and heavier and then went back to his fireside chair and began to read his newspaper. Minutes later he was startled by a thudding sound. Then another, and then another. Sort of a thump or a thud. At first he thought someone must be throwing snowballs against his living room window. But when he went to the front door to investigate he found a flock of birds huddled miserably in the snow. They'd been caught in the storm and, in a desperate search for shelter, had tried to fly through his large landscape window.

Well, he couldn't let the poor creatures lie there and freeze, so he remembered the barn where his children stabled their pony. That would provide a warm shelter, if he could direct the birds to it. Quickly he put on a coat, galoshes, tramped through the deepening snow to the barn. He opened the doors wide and turned on a light, but the birds did not come in. He figured food would entice them in. So he hurried back to the house, fetched bread crumbs, sprinkled them on the snow, making a trail to the yellow-lighted wide open doorway of the stable. But to his dismay, the birds ignored the bread crumbs, and continued to flap around helplessly in the snow. He tried catching them. He tried shooing them into the barn by walking around them waving his arms. Instead, they scattered in every direction, except into the warm, lighted barn.

And then, he realized, that they were afraid of him. To them, he reasoned, I am a strange and terrifying creature. If only I could think of some way to let them know that they can trust me. That I am not trying to hurt them, but to help them. But how? Because any move he made tended to frighten them, confuse them. They just would not follow. They would not be led or shooed because they feared him. "If only I could be a bird," he thought to himself, "and mingle with them and speak their language. Then I could tell them not to be afraid. Then I could show them the way to safety ... to the safe warm barn. But I would have to be one of them so they could see, and hear and understand."

At that moment the church bells began to ring. The sound reached his ears above the sounds of the wind. And he stood there listening to the bells - Adeste Fidelis - listening to the bells pealing the glad tidings of Christmas. And he sank to his knees in the snow.

Griping Works.....

About a month ago, I was supposed to go to the Titans game, we were trying to get a demo done at Digital Dog, so I passed up the opportunity to go. I was angry about it and I wrote this post at the time. My good friend Tara knew of some tickets available for the game today and gave me the opportunity to buy them. Kathy and I talked about it, I bought them as part of my Christmas present. I offered Sarah(doesn't understand football) and Kathy(hates to be cold) the opportunity to go with me, both declined, Chris was jumping at the chance so we went. I took some pictures with my camera phone. It was fun, it wasn't a very exciting game, but the Titans won. Cleveland lost like we needed them to so now as Chris said "All we have to do is beat Indy in Indy and we go to the playoffs"...Oh boy...

We had to go to Goodlettsville to get the tickets, its about a 25 or 30 mile drive, some highway miles...I thought it would be a good drive for Chris to make. He did very well, we went to Rivergate afterwards, he drove there too, a few rough spots, but he's doing well. I can't get over the weird feeling of putting my life in the hands of someone whose diaper I used to change. See Tara's post about Ethan's first drive

I'm not sure which is tougher, Chris driving with me in the car, or me driving with him in the car. He loves to point out the cases where I just might be a skosh over the speed limit....or if I forget to use my blinker...or whatever infraction (minor I assure you) I commit while driving. He seems to think he caught me going 15 miles per hour over the speed limit, I introduced him to the concept of parallax which affects the perceived reading of a needle based instrument (such as a speedometer) based on the position of the observer (I didn't mention that a speedometer would read slower when viewed from the passenger seat). I assured him that his dad was a good driver and that the policeman that pulled us over on the way to soccer practice (when he was 5) was just having a bad day....

Has anyone seen my Ebenezer?

I am not a cook, I enjoy fixing food for my family, but cooking is not something I do regularly. The one thing that I do cook is breakfast. Last weekend, I decided to make pancakes. I got everything together, when they were finally ready, I called out "Pancakes Are Ready" and this little voice in the back of my head finished the old hymn by singing "...Come to the feast...".

That got me to thinking about the old hymns that I grew up with. A few years ago, I went on a men's retreat to see a baseball game in Atlanta. We stopped at a small local Church on Sunday Morning. One of the first songs they sang "Bringing In The Sheaves". It was a little bit jarring, I had not sung that particular song in a very long time. I can remember thinking as a kid, "What's A Sheave?", if we are bringing them in? where are they?

Even today one of my favorite hymns is "Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing", here is verse 2:

Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,
Till released from flesh and sin,
Yet from what I do inherit,
Here Thy praises I’ll begin;
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.

So what's an Ebenezer anyway? (answer here) Do I have one? Why am I raising it? I loved the song, but did it really speak to me? not really.

My point here is....Jesus spoke to his time, I am amazed that whatever setting he was in, he was able to teach. On an open hillside he uses birds and flowers to speak of God's love and care. When speaking to farmers, he uses the concepts of planting and harvesting. When talking to fishermen, he talks about sorting a catch.

Christians now must speak to our time. Singing songs that use King James english will not speak to this generation. Many of the normal tools that Churches use to teach and communicate, will not speak to this generation. We must keep up with the times, we must adapt.

Here are some examples:

In my day, the big thing was to have a phone in your room. Today it must be a cell phone. However, phones are not to be talked on, they are used to text. How many youth groups are using this technology to communicate? How many Churches still have a phone tree?

Churches spend thousands of dollars in postage to mail bulletins to members. There is a certain segment of the population that will always expect a weekly bulletin. However, a growing group doesn't want information once/week, they want it as soon as it becomes available. Sending an email everytime an event occurs is complicated, however, RSS (the format used by Bloglines and Google Reader to 'subscribe' to a blog) would allow members to view the Church's information very inexpensively and quickly.

Churches are still struggling with putting together websites. Don't get me wrong, web sites are good, (I build them for a living) but the traditional Church web site is difficult to manage and goes out of date quickly. Using pre-built technologies like blogs or Facebook is much easier to maintain and keep current.

It's not just about Churches, individual Christians can do a lot using technology.

Blogs are cool, even though I've only been blogging for a short period of time, I've been able to see the readership grow. The thing I get most excited about is when I see that someone has reached my blog through some random internet search. This post that I did last August has gotten several hits from people searching for information about Euler's Identity. It is exciting to me that they found my post that said that it was proof that God exists. Did it have an effect? I won't know until the last day, but in my mind, the seed was planted somewhere.

Social networks are becoming very popular with young people. I have an account on Facebook and MySpace, I'm looking for people that I grew up with, there are not many, but, there are thousands and thousands of young people, college age or younger are Churches using this technology to speak to this generation?

Yeah, I'm a technology guy, I'm probably a bit myopic as far as this topic goes, but gracious, are Christians struggling to communicate the message in this day and age? Twelve guys were able to communicate the message with the whole world on foot. With what we have today, we should be able to tell the whole world instantly.

The most condemning item on this topic is...Satan knows how to use technology. (Click Here for some statistics).

This post has not turned out the way that I had planned. I really meant to just talk about the songs that we sing....how do we speak to the younger generation. It's got me thinking now though....hmmmm....

I need a job....

This is what happens when programmers have too much time on their hands...

A Nashville Tradition Revisited...

A Nashville Tradition Revisited...
Originally uploaded by DonnieHall

Hello gang....sorry that it has been so long. Between keeping a job and finding a job and hair-raising rides with a new driver, its been tough to get time to update everybody on what is going on.

So...let's see...
the job hunt is going pretty well, I'm getting a lot of interest from companies. I should have good news on that front pretty soon (hopefully).

I had a strange experience last Friday evening. We went to the FCS basketball game. This year the team is young, very young. Mostly freshmen and sophmores. It was almost surreal to me to see these boys on a varsity basketball court. I've been watching most of the play since they were 8 or 9 years old. It just didn't seem right for them to be out there.

I've been driving the truck pretty regularly....I love it. Something about driving a 5 speed pickup truck reminds me that I'm not all geek ;-)

Here's some pretty cool news. Chris (who at times is quite a ham) is doing live online play-by-play of the FCS basketball games. He loves sports, but didn't really latch on to playing basketball. But somehow, he got involved in doing the play-by-play. It's pretty cool. The web site is http://atwsportscast.com. I'll let you know when they are broadcasting. I'm just waiting for him to do his Waterboy impression during a broadcast...

We've been having some mobile phone troubles as a family, last weekend, we added a new phone to the mix which meant everybody switched around. I knew that was going to happen and was looking forward to it because I knew that I would get a phone with a better camera. Many times I've seen funny or interesting thing that I wanted to photograph and share. The camera on my previous phone was terrible, but now I have one that is pretty good. Blogger + Flickr + a good camera phone is cool for a blogger. (see comments)

Last night, I had to go to Nashville to install a new version of software at one of my client's office. I talked to Kathy before I left and she said that I needed to take the loop around Nashville because they had a sign on the old American General Building. It took me a while to get to where I could take a picture, but I thought I would share it.

For those of you who "ain't from around here", this building was originally the home office for American General Insurance. When they were based there, they always had a sign on the building. As a kid, it was always exciting to drive around the loop at night to see what it said. Several years ago, American General built another building and moved to Brentwood. The office building was bought by the State of Tennessee. They don't put messages on the building much any more...but it seems like they do around Christmas.

If you don't stop by this way again before Christmas....Merry Christmas to you and your families.

An Angel in the Post Office

I've added Craig's List to my list of places to check for job postings. I had heard of some company's that post jobs there, I checked it out, it's pretty interesting. I found a couple of opportunities that I'm looking into. Anyway, Craig's list is a very simple posting service, some use it as kind of a community blog (if you will) to post messages to people that they don't know. The better posts appear on the 'Best of Craig's List'. I was reading through some of them (warning some are PG-13 or worse) but I ran across this post that was pretty touching. I thought that I would share it with you.

This is one of the kindest things I've ever experienced. I have no way to know who sent it, but there is a kind soul working in the dead letter office of the US postal service. Our 14 year old dog, Abbey, died last month. The day after she died, my 4 year old daughter Meredith was crying and talking about how much she missed Abbey. She asked if we could write a letter to God so that when Abbey got to heaven, God would recognize her. I told her that I thought we could so she dictated these words:

Dear God, Will you please take care of my dog? She died yesterday and is with you in heaven. I miss her very much. I am happy that you let me have her as my dog even though she got sick. I hope you will play with her. She likes to play with balls and to swim. I am sending a picture of her so when you see her you will know that she is my dog. I really miss her.

Love, Meredith.

We put the letter in an envelope with a picture of Abbey and Meredith and addressed it to God/Heaven. We put our return address on it. Then Meredith pasted several stamps on the front of the envelope because she said it would take lots of stamps to get the letter all the way to heaven. That afternoon she dropped it into the letter box at the post office. A few days later, she asked if God had gotten the letter yet. I told her that I thought He had.

Yesterday, there was a package wrapped in gold paper on our front porch addressed, 'To Meredith' in an unfamiliar hand. Meredith opened it. Inside was a book by Mr. Rogers called, 'When a Pet Dies.' Taped to the inside front cover was the letter we had written to God in its opened envelope. On the opposite page was the picture of Abbey & Meredith and this note:

Dear Meredith,

Abbey arrived safely in heaven. Having the picture was a big help. I recognized Abbey right away. Abbey isn't sick anymore. Her spirit is here with me just like it stays in your heart. Abbey loved being your dog. Since we don't need our bodies in heaven, I don't have any pockets to keep your picture in, so I am sending it back to you in this little book for you to keep and have something to remember Abbey by. Thank you for the beautiful letter and thank your mother for helping you write it and sending it to me. What a wonderful mother you have. I picked her especially for you. I send my blessings every day and remember that I love you very much. By the way, I am wherever there is love.

Love, God

Have a blessed day.

Woo! Hoo!

Sorry that I haven't posted in a while, I've been getting cranked up on a new project and trying to get caught up on some work that had been building up.

Anyway, here's what's going on...believe it or not, my pickup truck is road legal. Taxes, tags and everything. If you don't know the whole story, you can read about it here , here, here, here and here .

Chris' birthday was Monday. He's 15, you know what that means, that's right, learner's permit. Got it yesterday. We've been tooling around the church parking lot for several months, yesterday was the first trip on the road. We have some work to do, but he did pretty good. For those of you who know me, the red zone is about a 3 block radius around my house from approximately 3pm until 9pm. I'll update you when we venture further out.

Job update....I've been shaking bushes, waiting to hear from folks, Nothing definite yet. I've got some contract work lined up for a while. But I've got to get cranking on something permanent.

My friend Tim told me about something that I was really excited about. There is a restaurant in East Nashville called the Family Wash. It used to be a laundromat, but they converted to restaurant with live music. On Wednesdays, during December, they have a jazz ensemble that plays the music from a Charlie Brown Christmas. If you remember the music from Charlie Brown, it was always some jazzy piano licks. It was written by Vince Guaraldi. Several of the peanuts songs, particularly Linus and Lucy and Cast Your Fate To The Wind are now jazz standards. Kathy was a trooper and said that she would go with me, we got there, the place was packed. Kathy avoided the whole jazz thing again.

Well, I've got some work to do this morning...if you have some room on your prayer list, please put my job situation on there. Thanks.

The thrill of hope...

If you have even the most basic appreciation of jazz, you should buy this Christmas album (yeah, I still call them albums). I look forward to Thanksgiving every year because that's when you can start listening to Christmas music without feeling like a toad. This CD has one of the most stirring versions of O Holy Night ever.

Amazon has samples here.

My reputation as a backgammon instructor remains untarnished....

When I was in high school, we had a mini-backgammon craze at the school. I was given a set for Christmas one year and just about any free time that we had was spent playing backgammon. I thought I was pretty good.

Zoom ahead 10 years or so. Kathy and I were dating (we may have even been married at the time) and I found out (to my horror) that she had never played the game of backgammon. I dusted off my old set and taught her how to play. After beating her in her first two games (see her revisionist comment ;-), I never let the facts get in the way of a good story), I have not beat her since. It's amazing, I've come close, but never beaten her.

Sarah has been grounded from just about everything except oxygen. She is bored out of her mind. She asked if I would play her in a board game. What game do I pick? Backgammon. I won the first game....but she beat me in the second. I spanked her and sent her to bed (teasing).

It's starting look a lot like Christmas....

When I hear this song. Enjoy...

The mice in the piano....

Its been quite a day week month. I've been trying to write this post for several days. Here's what's going on: Friday was my last day at Digital Dog, on Wednesday the car that I normally drive (a Honda CRV) rolled over 100,000 miles. (I'm a run the wheels off of it, kind of guy. We don't trade very often.) Also, I just heard today that the truck passed the emissions test (yeah!)

Originally, I had planned to do a post about the car turning 100K miles. I took the camera along on the day that it turned over so that I could record the event for posterity. The most amazing thing that needed photographing, however, was the sky. For the last year or so, I've really started paying attention to clouds. They are like a beautiful picture painted on a huge canvas hanging over our heads. I wonder if God thinks of it that way. I was also struck by the blue sky behind the clouds, it was gorgeous. (I have a few more pictures here)

This reminded of a commercial years ago where a child asks a father "Why is the sky blue?" and the dad begins to explain the atmospheric absorption theory. Of course, the child has no interest in the scientific theory behind why the sky is blue.

It is interesting how we are affected by the color blue, I copied this from a page on the psychology of colors:

Blue

Physiological Effect: In contrast to red, blue proves to lower blood pressure. Blue can be linked to the throat and thyroid gland. Blue also has a very cooling and soothing affect, often making us calmer. Deep blue stimulates the pituitary gland, which then regulates our sleep patterns. This deeper blue also has proved to help the skeletal structure in keeping bone marrow healthy.

Psychological Effect: We usually associate the color blue with the night and thus we feel relaxed and calmed. Lighter blues make us feel quiet and away from the rush of the day. These colors can be useful in eliminating insomnia. Like yellow, blue inspires mental control, clarity and creativity. However, too much dark blue can be depressing.

But, the question really is...why is the sky blue? Does it all boil down to math and science? or does God use the physical laws of our world to paint us a beautiful picture or to calm us? I was reminded of a story that I heard years ago, I was able to find it through the magic of Google.

Imagine a family of mice who lived all their lives in a large piano. In their piano world the music of the instrument filled all the dark spaces with sound and harmony. At first the mice were impressed by it. They drew comfort and wonder from the thought that there was Someone who made the music - though invisible to them - above, yet close to them. They loved to think of the Great Player whom they could not see. Then one day a daring mouse climbed up part of the piano and returned very thoughtful. He had found out how the music was made. Wires were the secret; tightly stretched wires of graduated lengths which tremble and vibrate. The mice must revise all their old beliefs. Some, however, still held on to the faith in the Unseen Player.

Later, another explorer carried the explanation further. Hammers were now the secret, many hammers dancing and leaping on the wires. This was a more complicated theory, but it all went to show that they lived in a purely mechanical and mathematical world. Now mothers told their little ones about the myth of the Unseen Player.

But the pianist continued to play.
(from the LONDON OBSERVER)

As we learn more and more about our universe we learn that we live in a finely tuned universe. The slightest change in any one of many factors would mean that we could not survive. Are we here because everything just fell into place? We won some cosmic lottery? Or, was this universe made for the specific purpose of us being here? My belief is that we are here because God wants us here. The sky is blue because blue makes a beautiful canvas and the sunset is God's way of saying goodnight...

Connecting and Reconnecting

I am fascinated with the whole social networking scene. Blogs, myspace, facebook...it's really quite interesting. I've met several people via this blog that I would have never met any other way. I've also begun reconnecting with names from the past. I thought that I would try a 'release the helium balloon with your address' kind of experiment and post some information to see if any new connections result. I love reconnecting with people who I knew in the past.

Anyway, here are some details, either my network or random Google searches may reconnect me with some people.

I attended B.C. Goodpasture Christian School from 1970 to 1982. I was in the marching band from its inception in 1979 until graduation. We won 4 Class A State Championships.

Churches I've attended:
Lischey Avenue,Parkwood,Northside,Jackson Park,Woodmont Hills,College Street,Highland Heights,Maple Hill,College Hills.

Places I've worked:
Compton's Food Town, K&S Associates, Network Data Corporation, Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, The Medstat Group/Inforum, Metro Information Services, Investment Scorecard, American General Insurance, Dialogic Communications, Metro Nashville Davidson County, Digital Dog

Here are some random names of people that I would like to hear from, I only know maiden names for the ladies:

Keith Morgan,Randy Jones,Byron Oakley,Tina Parks,Sheila Freeman,Lisa Freeman, Vincent Horton,Larry Parsley,David Foley,John Megar,Lehman Garrett,Sam Williams,Janice Horn,Shelly Johnson,Brandy Boone,Cindy Vineyard,Vickie Vineyard,Randall Martin,Ginger McCoy,Seresa Terry, Carla Childress,Kelly McAffee,Lee Anne Filson,Terry Biggs,Rhonda Biggs,Mark Wright,Catherine Rainey, Dana Dye,Kim Graham there are many more, I'll add more as I think of them.

If you have any connection with me even, if even you are a random blog surfer, I'd love to hear from you. Leave a comment or I'm on facebook and My Space. If you are on both, I prefer facebook. Of course, my email address is also listed here.

Happy Monthaversary

On June 4 1988 God gave me an angel of my very own. On the 4th of every month we celebrate our monthaversary. Sometimes it's a card, sometimes it's a 'Happy monthaversary!', sometimes we forget. Today, it's a blog post.

Thank you for the most amazing how ever many months its been ;-)

I love you...

A whole new audience for my blog....

Thanks to Google Alerts, I found out that my previous post had been linked to by My Rap News - http://myrapnews.topmsrs.com. I'm sure its a site that automatically links to any blog post that mentions rap or specific group names. I guess this will bring a whole new audience to my blog though.....yo yo yo! Baby got backlink

Blogging and the job hunt
The whole blogging thing is sort of interesting. I had a job interview last Friday and the fellow that I was interviewing with mentioned that he had found and read some of my personal and technical blog. I had been somewhat uneasy about that as I look for gainful employment. How would a prospective employer view the fact that you blog. How would they feel about someone who expresses their spiritual views this way? So, I asked him. He said that he liked it. I don't know if others will, its an interesting thought though.

I had a hot date with a younger married woman
It used to take an act of Congress for Kathy and I to have a night out alone. Now, sometimes it just happens unexpectedly. Sarah was staying overnight with a friend. Chris wasn't feeling well, so Kathy and I went out to eat alone! It was interesting that several times during the evening Kathy would say "Don't blog about that"......."Not that either".....I did ask if I could blog about her telling me what not to blog about....she said I could ;-)

Dinner Conversation
Chris likes learning, he would never admit, but he does. Whenever he's interested in something, he'll ask us a question to see if we know what he knows. The question last night was 'Do you know how they know what the Carbon Dioxide levels were in 1960?' My first guess was tree rings...that wasn't right, my next guess was to take core samples of the polar ice cap. That one was correct. (Trust me, all of our dinner conversations aren't this cerebral) Anyway, that lead to a topic that I have some interest in....is our earth billions of years old? or is it thousands of years old? I know that evolutionists need the earth to be billions of years old to give evolution the time that it needs. However, there is evidence that our earth is very young. One evidence was a story that I told the family last night. Some warplanes from WWII are trapped in the polar ice in Greenland. The fascinating thing about it is that this gives us a very good time reference for the accumulating size of the polar ice caps which speaks directly to the issue of the age of the earth. There is a very good, though quite heady explanation here.

Missing the Rodeo.....

Rodeo was my brother's nickname. He got that name because he could do everything on a softball field. He had speed, good glove, good arm and could hit the ball a ton. I remember watching him play on a field with no fence in left field. He was the lead off hitter and hit the first pitch of the game over the left fielder's head and it rolled a mile. The umpire called it a 'no pitch' because he didn't have his mask on before the pitch. Everybody gets reset, the left fielder backs up (obviously) and then, Steve hit the next pitch further than the first.

Steve passed away in July of 2003. Both of my brothers have passed, but Steve and I were the closest. Sometimes he would call me, and we would talk for hours. I miss that. He's was the kind of guy that people just naturally gravitate to. He loved to play golf, loved to hunt and fish, but nothing was more important than family.

He had an infectious smile. In many ways, I think Chris is just like him. Not long after Steve passed, Chris got his braces off. Whenever he smiles, I see Steve. One time, I was hitting grounders to Chris in the backyard, I hit one harder than I intended, it took a bad hop and Chris made a fantastic play on it. He knew he had done something good...he flashed that smile...I saw Steve. For the rest of the day, it was like Steve and I were playing in the backyard again.

I was the baby of the family. There's at least 13 years difference between me and any of my siblings. By the time I was old enough to walk and talk and and know what was going on...they were driving. Steve fell in love with a girl named Vonnie. So did I. When they were going on a date, I would beg and plead to go with them. Sometimes, believe it or not, they would take me.

Here's a couple of my favorite Steve stories...

Steve married Vonnie and they have two children. Thomas and Christi (Christi is the baby in the picture, she's 22 now and absolutely gorgeous). Anyway, when Thomas was about 9 or 10, rap music was the thing. He wanted to see Run-DMC when they came to town. Steve couldn't stand the stuff, but said that Thomas could go if I would take him. I agreed. Thomas invited one of his friends and whenever Steve saw the other boy he would tell him "my little brother is going to take you"...."my little brother is going to take you". On the night of the concert, I walked in. I can clearly remember this 9 year old boy standing at my feet and looking straight up. Steve said "You ought to see my big brother".

Steve was a good golfer. For a time I thought I had the time and money to take up the game so I started playing. One morning, he and I went to Montgomery Bell to play. We were on the first tee at 6am. As we were getting ready to hit, two deer walked out of the woods and stood in the middle of the fairway. I was puzzled and said "Why did they do that?" Steve's response...."They know that they are safer there".

Steve loved nature. He loved to hunt and fish. One time while he was hunting, he found a baby squirrel that had been orphaned. He brought it home, raised it and let it go. I can remember seeing pictures of him standing in the backyard with this squirrel climbing on him like he was a tree.

When Christi caught her first fish, it was small of course. But they brought it home, and kept it for a long time. He kept two kiddie swimming pools one had the fish, the other was getting ready for the fish. He would transfer the fish from one to the other so that it had clean water. He spent so much time on it, the fish was not scared of him. He could stick his hand in the water and the fish would swim to him and he would catch it and move it to the clean water.

As you can imagine...the are a ton of memories and stories to tell. I always remember him this time of the year. The holidays are just not right without him and his family.