Archives for October 2006

Yesterday, I pulled the Dad card and a gal at church got me free tickets to go sit in the Patriot Chalet at the Miramar Air Show. Me, my 3 boys, and Aaron from my high school small group went to the show to eat, laugh, meet the pilots, climb around on machinery from all the armed forces,and be amazed by the crazy things America’s pilots can do. We had tons of fun. Here’s my observations on the day.

DAD DUTY: As a dad, I need to take my kids out of school to stuff like this again… it was tons of fun and a great memory.

FACTS OF LIFE: No matter how cool the tricks you can do in the air in a plane, it can’t expand the attention span of a 4 year old. Also there is a law when parenting young children I have discovered: if there is something good about to happen you don’t want to miss, someone will have to pee.

HERITAGE: There are men there who flew fighter planes in WWII and every war/military event since then. It’s pretty amazing to see how much mutual respect they have and how much they support one another.

PERSPECTIVE: You get a very different feel there on freedom in America than you get in most of the news today. It is good to spend some time pondering all sides of the coin. I wondered how I’d feel if my 3 boys followed these men and women in their careers with the military. I think I’d be proud. I’m not sure how you can walk around that base and not be.

CONCRETE: there is a lot of concrete on those runways. I didn’t know there was that much concrete in the world. I think I noticed cuz I put like a thousand bucks worth of concrete in my front yard recently.. and I think there is like 10 million bucks worth on the ground there. Not in the buildings, just the stinkin flight path.

TECHNOLOGY: we have fighter jets that can take off, fly a route, hit a target, return and land all by computer with the pilot there as an accessory and while breaking the sound barrier if they want to. Craziness.

If you have 8 minutes and need a good laugh… then enjoy the crib video one of our high school students made of my casa for a series on defeating the comparison game we all get stuck playing called “compareanoia”. Anyway…it’s good times.

If I was God, I’d smite some people. I know that sounds judgemental but God is our judge and judgemental is part of his job and maybe I should have been smited a long time ago… but here’s my top two lowly suggestions for today.

1. Smite the entire Westboro Baptist Church who plan to protest the funerals of the little girls killed in Amish Country and who claim that they brought it on themselves by denying God and living Amish. I really want to start cussing now. Instead, I think God should smite those who, in my humble opinion, falsely represent him. I mean these are the poeple who sponsor godhatesfags.com. AHHHHHHH!

2. The clowns that decided to market a statue of St. Joseph as a means to sell homes. Yes, believe it or not, you can pay 10 bucks and buy a 4″ figurine, complete with burying bag and then when you claim your property by the spirit of the saints, your house will sell… and lots and lots of people do this! Yippee for free market, the web, and stupidity.

I’m stuck in a room in downtown El Cajon waiting for my name to be called. Believe it or not, they have wireless in this small room with a plug and a wobbly table we can sit at. I’m supposed to feel honored that I’m keeping our freedoms strong and doing my part to uphold the greatest justice system in the world… I think I’d rather be a cop.

Well,

We started landscaping our front yard last week. Something I’ve been wanting to do since we moved in. The front of our property has looked kinda nasty for a while and we began the process of moving our fence out to the front and building some retaining walls and planters and such. Diego and his friend Samuel have been doing most of the concrete. I do the sprinklers and electrical and whatever else Diego tells me to… He’s the man. I’m enjoying working with him and practicing my Spanish.

Here’s some photos of the work so far… I’ll keep you posted as progress continues.. but it’s a side job for Diego so he only works weekends on it. Looks like it will be another month or so before we’re “done”.