Dad was Right

2011-07-05T08:38:00.001-07:00

And, I'm spent

2006-09-17T08:27:00.000-07:00

So, this weekend I have spent almost all of my time up on campus because we opened our halls. Last night, Cambra went out with some lady friends of hers from church and I got to spend the first quality time with Will that I have had in a while. He is really developing a personality....and he is incredibly curious. I think all of dady's drumming on Will's tummy while reading him the drumming book (one thumb, two thumbs drumming on a drum, dum ditty dum ditty, dum dum dum) may end up impacting Will to be a drummer because he loves to beat on pots and the coffe table with objects.

Will can now crawl under the coffee table and through our chair we use to pen him in with us so we can play in an enclosed area. As well, he can now open drawers and has several times powered off the TV or totally started a reorganization project of mommy and daddy's movie collection.

So, I am hear for another long day of work today. I hope my Cowboys can bounce back and beat the Redskins tonight. OSU killed Cincinnati yesterday. All is right with the world.....

So I have to be the worst blogger in the world

2006-09-13T11:15:00.000-07:00

I have to say, it has been an extremely long time since I wrote last. This has to do with a few, small details, namely:

1) A son who is so darn adorable and fun that any "free" time I used to have is spent playing and being with Will

2) My grandfather passed away this past Spring. He was the last living grandparent....I lost my last three in the last two and a half years. Because of some work committments and do to cost issues, I was not able to make the trip to W.Va. with the family for the funeral. My family was very gracious with me for not being there, but they were also hurt and disappointed in me for not making it happen. Nothing said outright, but I know it's there. Hell, it's there from me about myslef too. I think I have been avoiding writing on the blog to avoid openly dealing with the feelings of hurt and loss.

3) The fact that I have had six new full-time staff members start over the summer. The training and development of my staff team has taken as much energy and time as I knew it would (they are all fantastic by the way).

4) The final preparations for opening our residence hall system with 150 more students than we planned to have. (Can anyone say, triples?1$&%^)

5) Football season has started. OSU killed Texas this past weekend. Dallas choked. I have been working my officiating assignments and having a ball.

6) A trip home to Oklahoma and the St. Louis area this summer. Three weeks in the midwest during the June/July heat. Fun. Actually, it was a great time....a little long. Lots of good times with family...got to see a Triple A ballgame in OKC (really nice ballpark) and also got to watch a game with Dad in the new Busch stadium. The Royals did in the Cardinals in extra innings.

7) Have I said that we have an 8 month old running around the house?

8) Have I said that football has started?

I guess the other two reasons why I have not had time to write is that things that used to be sooo easy to get done (dishes, taking out the trash, vacuuming, picking up the dog's poop in the backyard) now seem like herculean tasks with everything else that is going on. And then, of course, things stack up and the job gets harder. We have definetly initatied the "it's clean enough" rule in our house!

The second reason is that every minute I am not over working on the job or playing with Will is spent trying to continue to have a coherent and somewhat connected relationship with Cambra. This is the one piece I did not fully expect...I thought going through the child raising experience would almost automatically draw us closer together. In many ways it has. But the sheer time and attention demands make it difficult to find alone time...mental, physical, spiritual alone time with each other incredibly difficult. We are working hard to make this a priority and things seem to be going well/better....every aspect of my life is so much better when I am fully connected with Cambra!

So, I hope this serves as a good update. Check out the pics of Will. He is getting so big, so expressive, so hilarious, and still so beautiful! I hope to write more regularly as I try to figure out a way to make all of the rings in the circus work together better.

Gender Matters?

2006-02-23T11:35:00.000-08:00

I have been reading a fascinating book written by Leonard Sax called "Gender Matters". It is the first truly compelling book on the subject I have read to date. Typically, books on similar topics either bash cultural influences on gender roles (and some even say everything to do with gender is nothing but a social construct) to trying to convince you to use gender stereotypes, both positive and negative, in raising and educating children. What I find fascinating about this book is that it does neither. It also does not bemoan the beleaguered state of male education or the cultural stereotypes that still foster pay inequities for women, the glass ceiling, etc. It acknowledges all of these things as forces, but the content is focused purely on the scientific and biological difference in all primate species between men and women. It does not preach absolutes....Individuals are individuals. It does, however, lay out a series of scientific facts about the ways men and women are different (it goes to great lengths to use the word different....not better or worse, but just different) such as:

*The construct of the type of receptors in Male and Female eyes and how this impacts how we see color, shapes, objects in motion, etc.
*The differences in male and female ear construction that lead to more acute senses of hearing at different volume and wave lengths between the two
*Differences in behavior around risk taking
*Differences in how we interact in single gender groups (How male monkeys play with male monkeys, females with females, etc.)
*Differences in aggression and the effects of brain chemistry
*How sexual orientation has no impact on many of the biological differences in gender (gay men see and hear the same as "straight" men, for example)
*And more

All in all, it is a fascinating book and one I highly suggest all parents read. It talks a great deal about how to use both single sex and mixed gender classrooms, using what we know about gender differences in learning, to make math and science more accessible (generally speaking) to women and writing and art more accessible (generally speaking) to boys. In general, it talks about how to continue to improve the educational experience for both females and males. It also talks about how to work with children who don't seem to fully fall within the pattern being described. No overt political agenda have I found yet, which also makes it an truly enjoyable read.

Responsibility and Fatherhood

2006-02-19T19:46:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since my last post. I am not sure why it has taken me so long, but I think it is because I have literally been thinking about the topic I am posting on today. Will is six weeks old tomorrow. He is changing so incredibly fast as anyone who is paying attention to our family photo album knows well. I have been thinking a great deal about the responsibility I have as a father. It's a lot and on somedays I feel up to it and on others I don't. I guess if all I had to worry about was being what our more "sensitive popular culture" defines as a good father (supportive, participative, coddle them, give them memories, teach the citizenship, expose them to the world, etc.) things would not be too bad. And, it's not like culture's list is a) a bad list or b) an accomplishable list. In many ways it is a spectacular list that outlines the resurrgence of the necesarry role of fathers in the lives of their children. In many ways, it is almost undoable.

Here is my issue with what culture is currently defining as fatherhood. It focuses entirely on the role of the father in the life of the child rather than a set of outcomes that we would like to see for the child. It's not: "raise children who play well with with others" but "spend time with your child". It seems prescriptive to me. If we take care of our responsibilities and make sure to do everything right, things will work out fine for the kid. In many cases, this may very well prove to be true but it makes you wonder about what society has in mind when they think about the outcomes we want for the children we raise.

This takes me to my last point and the real reason I am writing this message today. As a Christian, I have a much larger calling as a father than what society has stated. I am responsible for the spiritual upbrining of my son. That means that on my day of judgement, God will hold me accountable for my actions in this most crucial role. Of course, God is gracious and we all make mistakes, and yadda yadda. I guess the bottom line is that as I have been thinking about how I can work to raise a son who loves Jesus, I have become extremely aware of two things 1) How weak I am spiritually and 2) How little I actually have in terms of an intimate and intensly personal relationship with Jesus. I have great belief and faith in Christ and His promises and glory. I have great knowledge about His word and commandments. But do I love, really love, the being that is Christ. What do I do that seeks out a real relationship with Christ? Isn't that the whole point? And, to this point, how do I help my son have a real, meaningful, alive, thriving, and personal and loving relationship with Christ?

I think this is my highest calling as a father. I'm not sure how to do it. I'm not even sure where to fully start. I'm not sure that I can even fully commit "everything" in this pursuit yet. But, this is a pursuit that begins as I open myself up to Christ each day and it is one I will begin pursuing with earnest.

Things with Will are fantastic. He is verbalizing more and moving around more. He has amazing head strength and is already holding his head up pretty well. He is also going a little bald on top....I hope it is not a sign of things to come. It is absolutely amazing to me how much I love him. I did not think I had this much love in me to give, but God has given us this wonderful gift of a son and with it he gave us the capacity in our love tanks that we needed.

Well, that is all. Sorry for the soapbox. I am in football withdrawal by the way :o).

Joining the Darkside

2006-01-28T15:09:00.000-08:00

Dad was Right is please to announce that Michael Houston, a father to be in a few weeks, has himself turned down the dark side and started a blog. You can find Not OK anymore at:

http://notokanymore.blogspot.com/

He writes in one of his initial posts about how Iraq has really been all about Iran. We have long agreed and actually surprised each other that we had come to the same conclusion. Iraq and Afghanistan places us right next to and surrounding the two largest and longest state sponsors of terrorism.....Syria and Iran. Hence our desire to go into Iraq.

Dad Was Right welcomes Not OK Anymore to the blog world. Excellent......(Mr. Burns voice)

Settling In

2006-01-26T22:06:00.000-08:00

Things are beginning to settle in. Will is falling into some fairly normal routines. He has been known to sleep for 2.5 to 3.5 hour chunks of time at night and in the late afternoon, so all is good. My Mom and Dad are in town and it has been fun to visit with them and to see them interact with Will.

It has been particularly challening trying to balance work with home. Working halftime is kind of a joke....I have meetings for the entire time I am in the office (10 am until 3 pm) and have no time in the office to accomplish anything. My meetings stayed with me and I lost my get stuff done time. Yuck! My parents leave on Tuesday evening and so I will be taking next week off completely so that Cambra can have some more time to adjust before she is home with Will for extended periods of time by herself.

On a completely different note, I find it quite amusing that John Kerry announced today his plan to try to garner support for a filibister of the Alito nomination for Supreme Court. It is clear the votes are not there to support the filibuster and numerous recent polls showed that the between 65-75% American people believe that Alito should be confirmed by the Senate. You can't get 65-75% of the American people to agree on anything it seems. And, it is clear by the vote counting that the filibuster has no chance. Ed Kennedy has also joined in in vocal support of the filibuster. So, either Kerry and Kennedy can't count or they are simply interested in propping up a Kerry 2008 presidential bid by blatantly pandering to the extreme left wing of the political spectrum. As if the Democrats have the guts to nominate anyone other than Hillary in 2008. Mark it down folks, it will be a Hillary Clinton running with either Barak Obama, Henry Ford, or Mark Warner as her VP nominee. If the DNC had half a brain in its strategy, they would understand that the current electoral map is so tilted to the South (where the Republicans rule the day) that they simply have to nominate a candidate who can break that block. The Dems have not been able to elect anyone who came from outside of the South (LBJ, Carter, Clinton) since JFK. If the Dems had vision, they would nominate a ticket of Mark Warner (Moderate Democratic governor (socially progressive, fiscally conservative) of Va and pair him with Barak Obama from Illinois (pacify the extreme left flank of the party) or Bill Richardson from New Mexico (Richardson could help break into the Mountian West....New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Nevada). The Dems just don't have that kind of vision (at least it does not look like it right now). They would rather run a true blue, Northern, urban liberal and lose than run a moderate and win. They are making the same mistake the Repubs did when they ran Bob Dole.

Enough politics for now. Will needs to go to bed.

Life is Already Getting Crazy

2006-01-17T23:14:00.000-08:00

Well, I got home from work today at 3:30 pm or so. I have an incredible job that is basically allowing me to work half time for ten weeks total and also have an additional two weeks off completely. Since my mother-in-law is still in town, I have been working so as to save my time completely off of work for when all parents and such have already left.

Anyway, I got home from work at about 3:30 pm or so and for the next seven hours, all I did was hold, take a nap with, feed, change, and basically hang out with Will. Pretty amazing to me that he is so darn sweet. He is a pretty laid back baby until/unless he wants/needs his food and/or a diaper change.

It has been crazy trying to balance being a dad and also being at work. I have a hard time being away for the time that I am, and yet I also feel some relief when I go to work. I don't know how Cambra is able to do it....to give herself completely over to the baby. I am so in awe of her and how wonderful a mother she is already. I feel guilty about feeling relieved to be at work....but I also miss Cambra and the baby tremendously while I am away. Lots of mixed emotions on all of this.

I'm not sure how things are going to go once all of our help is gone. Thelma leaves on Saturday and then my Mom and Dad come on Tuesday for a week. It will be a good trial run for the two and a half days in between parental visits/support. We need to figure out ways to be with Will and also get stuff done.....we are looking for a play pen to have and also another way to have him strapped to us while we work (we currently only have a Baby Bjorn chest pack).

The biggest thing I guess I am trying to give our son right now is time and attention. I know these moments will be gone so fast. I want to be truly present for as many of them as possible. Not sure how all of this will work once I am back to work full-time. Cambra and I have been in some discussions about how to work her back into some of the things she needs/wants to be doing as well....stuff with her friends, church, and her crafts (Cambra does not work currently). She will need her sanity and time away from the house too.

I guess it is all of these issues that make family life and parenthood the wild ride that it is.

2006-01-11T18:59:00.000-08:00

Charles Willard Strawn (1/9/2006)

2006-01-11T18:58:00.000-08:00

Mom, going to the hospital 12 days after the due date to indice labor (Sunday morning 1/8/2006)

Charles Willard Strawn

2006-01-11T18:52:00.000-08:00

On Monday January 9, 2006 at 5:08 a.m. PST, Charles Willard Strawn (aka "Will") was born. Will was 22 inches long and weighed 9 pounds and .5 ounces. We named him Charles Willard to honor both our Dads (named Charles) and because Willard is a family name that is passed down in my family (Scott Willard Strawn).

The birthing process was pretty sureal and also awesome. Cambra had to be induced and little Will had the cord wrapped through his underarm and around his shoulder/neck which made for several instances where his heartbeat decelerated significantly. Ultimately, they had to use a vacuum to help get him out. Cambra was awesome. She went five hours or so of labor with no epidural before she relented. Induced labor is always longer and stronger....I was ready for her to get it before she was. She is my hero.

Anyway, all is well at home. We are working on adjusting and Cambra is doing well. More to come.

Told You

2006-01-04T21:37:00.000-08:00

I told you Texas would win. If this game was any place other than the home field of USC, Texas is two TDs better than USC. It's not that I like Texas, I just hate the arrogance of USC and how much ESPN and all of Hollywood just simply drool all over USC. How can you call a team that had yet to win the National Championship game one of the best of all time? Does that mean that this Texas team is the best of all time since they beat USC.....give me a break!

Cambra still has not gone into labor. We go in for more tests on Friday and will make a decision then and when to induce labor if we need to. So, we continue to wait.

Not Yet

2006-01-02T22:02:00.000-08:00

So, the baby still has not come yet. Cambra has a doctor's appointment tomorrow and depending upon how that goes, we may induce labor on Wednesday. If everything looks really good, we will give the kiddo until Saturday to come out before we induce. Our doctor does not want to let the kiddo go more than 10 days over due.

OSU won the Fiesta Bowl game today, beating the Dome heads from Notre Dame 34-20. Ginn, Holmes (who is going to turn pro), Smith, Hawk, Schlegel and Pittman all played wonderful games. The game was really not as close as the final margin of two touchdowns. If not for two turnovers in the red zone and two blocked field goals, it would have been a much larger margin. This seems to confirm my thought that Texas will beat USC on Wednesday....USC barely beat Notre Dame and Texas barely beat OSU (without T. Smith BTW).....OSU kills Notre Dame.....Texas wins by ten or more points.

The Cowboys did not make the playoffs.

I did win my Fantasy football league. The waiver wire addition of the Redskins defense was the difference in the final margin of victory. I have retired officially from Fantasy football and will be turning over full control and ownership of my squad to my son. More to come on this.

More to come tomorrow after Cambra's appointment. Happy new year!

Due date

2005-12-28T11:13:00.000-08:00

It's here...this is the day Cambra is supposed to give birth. Even though it seems like some progress is being made (the baby appears to be significantly lower in her belly- who knows what that means), it is pretty apparent that the kiddo ain't coming out for a while. First births are notoriously late births. So, we wait and wait.

With that out of the way, three important events are about to happen in the sporting world. One, the Cowboys will be playing the last regular season game of this season on Sunday evening. If the Redskins lose or tie, or the Panthers lose, or the Giants and Buccanears lose and the Cowboys beat the Rams, the Cowboys slip into the playoffs with the NFCs sixth, and last, seed. If they Cowboys win and do not make the plkayoffs, it will be the first time in like 18 years that a ten win team did not get in.

Second, I am going against my arch rivals, the Malibu Hucklebuckers in the Fantasy Football Championship game this weekend. It's a good thing that the Bengals (Carson Palmer is my starting QB), Giants (I start Tiki Barber at RB and Shockey at TE), Cowboys (I start Keyshawn at WR and Julius Jones at the WR/RB slot) and the Redskins (I am starting their defense this week in a shrewd waiver wire pick up for the championship game) are all playing in particularly meaningful games. As well, Shaun Alexander of the Seahawks (who I start at my other RB spot) is going for the TD record this week, so he should plau just enough to get me 10-12 points. Who knows who will win.....the funny thing about this is that I did not even draft this team.....I missed the draft and the auto draft did its thing. And here I am after a 11-3-1 run through the regular season (first place) and in the championship game.

Third, my beloved Buckeyes take on the Irish in the Fiesta Bowl on Monday 1/2 at 2 pm PST. I think that ND and OSU are pretty much even, but I think OSU pulls one out. Here's why:

1) ND offense versus the OSU defense is the match up of this game. ND will score points, but will have to execute flawlessly do to so. OSU should be able to shut down the run. If the refs will actually call offense pass interference (ND runs a pleathora of illegal picks and screens in their pass combinations and their lanky and tall WR's both shove around defenders), our defense holds ND to around 20-24 points. We have the potential to have the figure be around 10 points if we get a few turnovers.

2) The OSU offense (I can't even believe I am saying this) should have a significant advantage against the ND defense, whose corners are quite suspect. I think the key here will the running of Troy Smith and Antonio Pittman because ND will not be able to load up in the box to stop the run because of Ted Ginn Jr. and Santonio Holmes. Running against a front seven that is strong but not dominant will take some patience, but should lead to our ability to have the play action pass and control the clock. Turnovers would be the only way we don't put up 35 points.

3) OSU special teams are significantly stronger than NDs across the board.

The only thing that can make this an ND win would be OSU turnovers or some out of their minds and body play by Brady Quinn and the ND defense. Charlie Weis is a great coach who will have his team prepared to play well (particularly with six weeks to prepare) but Tressel is 3-1 in bowl games and an OSU win sends out this senior class with three wins over Michigan and 4-0 in bowl games. I think OSU wins something like 38-17.

Now, if the kid will come out sometime soon, maybe I will get to actually watch the game live. (Thank goodness for DVRs.....)

For the record, I think that Texas beats USC in a shocker for the National Championship. I simply can't believe that ESPN is doing this ranking USC against the other great college teams when they have not even won the championship game. If this game was played any place else besides the USC home field, Texas wins in a walk. This game will not be as close as people think....Texas wins 38-24.

My Wife and Sports

2005-12-22T09:52:00.000-08:00

I think it must be something to do with the fact that a male is now fully entrenched inside her body. My dear wife, who has worked hard to both get to know and enjoy sports like football (she even comes to high school football games to watch me officiate) since our marriage actually used a current sports issue to make a point in a conversation. Honestly, I forget exactly what we were even talking about....all I remember is that she said "It's just like the fact that the fans in Green Bay have turned on Brett Farve."

I was stunned.

But mostly, I was proud.

In essence, she exhibited the type of integrated thinking around a subject that shows a level of mastery on a topic that we shoot for as educators. In essence, she was saying: how could you not know that Brett Favre IS the Green Bay Packers.

So, to all of those men out there who have wives who love them enough to learn all about the things they we men really love, even if it seems to take a long time, hold out hope. My wife is living proof that the dream is possible.

She is living the dream (my dream anyway!).

2005-12-16T23:41:00.000-08:00

Cambra at 38 weeks

Almost There

2005-12-16T23:32:00.001-08:00

Wow, we are almost here. T-minus fourteen days until the due date for our son. Of course, the due date is really only a mid point in a 21 day range of time where 99% of babies are born. So, instead of saying our due date is December 28, we should really be saying that our due date is December 28 +/- 10 days. But I'm not a math freak or anything.

Everything seems ready to go. All of our classes are completed (we finished our child birth class Tuesday), we have everything bought, our car seat and our travel bags are being prepared, and the house is clean. We need to do some laundry and buy a few minor things, but everyting is pretty much a green light. Well, except we have yet to agree on a complete name. Stay tuned to Dad was Right for an official announcement/release of our son's name.

I tell people I am not afraid or fearful of the upcoming child. I am apprehensive. I don't know how I can do all of the things I want to do. How can I be fully present at work (where I will be working only half time the upcoming quarter-SCU paternity leave policies rock), fully present as a Dad with a baby needing diapers changed and fed 12-14 times a day, and fully present as a husband to my poor wife who will be starving for adult contact and conversation while she goes through the biggest transition of her life right in the middle of the worst tsunami of hormonal changes she will ever face. Yea right. On top of that, I will be expected to be chef and custodian extraordinare. And, it's not like I am mister present at work, at home, and with my wife all of the time right now. How is this all possible? It's not. How can all of this work? It won't.

And I am ok with that.

It's not like we'll be totally alone. We will have visits from Cambra's mom, aunt, and brother. My mom and dad are coming out. We have friends and neighbors. Things we'll be fine. Things will be different, but things will work out. Sure, the house might be a little dirty and we might eat a lot of takeout, but we'll make it through just fine.

On a more important note (the nature of which brings to light my ability to be fully "present" at all times) Go Bucks! Kick the crap out of those dome heads from Notre Dame!

Wow

2005-09-19T16:37:00.000-07:00

It's pretty unbelievable how big Cambra is already. I think she looks so big because she started so small and also because all of the baby weight she has added has been in her belly.

One of the things that I find fascinating is how blatantly interested people are in giving me advice these days. Even people who don't have kids find ways of making comments and suggestions for how to best raise a child. And, until you are having children, you may never know the whole "raise children the right way" industry that exists to profit off of your new found joy. How to this and how to that books, CDs, web pages, DVDs, and even Blogs! Seems like we as a species have survived for mellinia without all of this....I guess it is just capitalism at its finest.

I ask myself why is it that if we spend all of this time working so hard to be perfect parents, that our society does not show any signs of making significant improvements. I mean, college kids (who I work with all of the time) are certainly incredibly bright, motivated to do well, and knwoledgable....but they are also incredibly sheltered and totally unable to put into practice many of the indeals that they hold dear. I look at the new hipness of parenting and suggest that the outcome is not totally good....my students care more about being accepted than almost anything else. The highest virtue they hold is connectedness to each other. Everything else is an incredibly distant second. Not all good, not all bad either.

One of the "how to parenting" books that I like the best has a web site I linked to this blog called "Be Prepared". It is a McGuyver like book about fatherhood and I enjoy it, mostly because it is useful info presented in a way that makes me laugh out lowd. For example, there is a whole section in the book devoted to "Returning to Sex". This is, of course, a really important topic and a sensitive issue for many couples. One of the points it takes great effort to lay out is the one about my spouses breasts. It says, "I know it is ironic that when your spouses breasts are at their largest, fullest, and most tempting, that they are off limits to you, but they are. Your wife's breasts are on lease to your child. Treat your wife and your child well and after three to four months, you may be able to negotiate a time share arrangement with the ownership."

Wow, now that's good advice.

Anyway, all of this to say that I have decided to stop reading too much about being a perfect parent. It is already drawing my attention away from actually being a good parent/husband. I figure I have had great role models and I have a fabulous wife, how can I go wrong.

2005-09-19T16:36:00.000-07:00

Cambra at 24 weeks pregnant

2005-09-18T17:49:00.000-07:00

So, here I am starting this Blog. I've done so because my wife is currently six months pregnant with our first child. I am hoping to use this as an outlet to write about my experiences as a new father and to provide to our family periodic updates on our progress.

One of the things I do in my spare time is officiate high school football. I enjoy this activity very much, but I have a bad habit that I can't seem to fully shake. Several times in a game, I will be so intense and so focused on making sure that I cover a play, that I move in too fast and get to close to the players and the action that is taking place. Ideally, I would be stationary and taking in the entire action of the play at a reasonable distance. Ideally, I would be taking the "wide angle" viewpoint. When I rush in to try to make sure that I have everything under control, I miss out on all of the important action taking place just outside my field of vision. In an effort to control my circumstances, I lose the perspectrive I need to do my job as an official.

So, the wide angle view on life right now, as I prepare for fatherhood (which is really all ready upon me, it's just that the baby is locked up in the womb currently), is that I sure hope that I allow myself to not be too controlling, too involved in my son's life. I want our son to take chances, make mistakes, and develop into a well-rounded and independent adult capable of making a contribution to this world.

Another wide angle thought is that I sure hope to be half the dad that my father was/is to me. My dad always had time for us and that did not come easy. He made us a priority and it was not something that he just talked about, but he lived it every day. My dad taught me how to love...my God, my family, my wife. I learned it not by listening to my Dad, but by watching and being with my Dad. As Mario Cuomo once said, "I talk and talk and talk, and I haven't taught people in 50 years what my father taught by example in one week." That was my Dad too.

The last wide angle thought I have is that I don't want to get so consumed by our son (at least not over any length of time) that I forget to keep my relationships and priorities in order. God, Wife, and then family (another valuable lesson I learned from both of my parents). I can't be a the Dad I want to be without having my relationships in the right place.

So, these are some of the thoughts running through my mind these days as I think about the impending birth of our boy. Interesting how football teaches all of us incredibly interesting life lessons.

2005-09-18T17:48:00.000-07:00

On the top of Whistler mountain, February 2003