Shallow Thinker

This blog is now in Vacation Mode!  I’m going to the beach and have decided to allow the wife and kids to come, too.  I don’t think that there’s internet access at our location, so all three of my loyal readers will have to wait a week before I post again….please, try to find a way through it.

Last night, while Kelley was finishing some work on the computer, I went upstairs and got ready for bed. Within seven seconds of my head hitting the pillow, I was sound asleep. (That’s probably my most amazing talent in life. Come by sometime…I’ll show you.) I don’t know how long it was after that - 10-15 minutes, maybe - I was awakened by someone poking me in the back…it was my wife.

Kelley: (in a quiet whispering voice) Butterfly is in the hall. She’s asleep at the top of the stairs
Me: (still groggy) What? Why?

I looked into the hall and sure enough, there’s Butterfly curled up into a little ball and lying face-down. Usually, if she needs to go potty during the night, she’s just awake enough to come get me and tell me, but still too sleepy to do it all herself. At any rate, I walked over to her and knelt down…

Me: (in a soft, gentle tone) Butterfly….do you need to go potty?
Butterfly: Shhhhhhh! I’m hiding -

I think she said this in her sleep. At Kelley’s bidding, I picked Butterfly up and carried her back to her bed and covered her up. She slept through the whole thing.

My fear now is that my daughter will start to do (and say) things in her sleep - because I do that. One of my wife’s favorites is when I wake up with bugs all over me and the bed. So naturally, I jump out of bed, rip the covers off, and swat at these things. The downside to that is that Kelley doesn’t see them and is unhappy when I wake her up with this sort of stunt.

So when Butterfly wakes up in the middle of the night swinging at invisible bugs, her daddy will come help her squash those spiders until it’s safe to sleep again. I know how pesky those things can be.

It’s been my intention for sometime to create a page on this site to discuss the books that I’ve read and to solicit input for future books. The intent for doing a page on the site was so that it doesn’t become lost in the posts and random readers can give suggestions. But, I’ve hit two major problems:

(1) I haven’t gotten far on putting the page together. Usually actually creating the page is helpful when trying to create a page.

(2) I don’t read much. Again, this is problematic when trying to get some reading done.

I went through a spurt around the end of last year where I did a pretty good bit of reading. Our current interim pastor let me borrow a few books that were not only well-written, but were very helpful in helping me wade through some of the murkiness in my mind. I enjoyed these books more because they helped me to refine my thought process instead of defining exactly what my thoughts should be.

So even though my reading have slowed down, they still move. I’ve always enjoyed the stories of history (as opposed to all the dates that were taught in school), but I’ve never really had a method for learning more. And to be honest, my generation is removed a bit from the World Wars, so we don’t really have that point-of-reference that leads older generations to dig and search for the stories behind the dates.

My in-laws gave me Flags of Our Fathers for Christmas. I’ve only gotten a few chapters into it, but I do like what the writer has done. He has spent a good portion of his adult life researching the lives of the six marines who raised the flag on Iwo Jima. (The picture only looks like four, but if you know where to look, you can see the other two.) His desire to dig comes from the fact that his father was one of the six, yet he rarely mentioned the event. The book interweaves details of that battle with accounts of the how those six boys (most were younger than I am now) got to where they were.

When I finish this book, I probably won’t know many more dates than what I know now. And, I probably will have added only a few names into my memory bank. But what I will have is a much deeper appreciation for six men that have been frozen in time by a photograph. That is the way history should be taught.

Thursday marks the start of Round 3, so here’s the recap on how my picks did. I gotta be honest, this is about the best I’ve ever done this deep into the tournament. I have 12 of the Sweet 16 remaining, 6 of the Elite Eight, and all of my Final Four. Then again, that could all change starting around lunch time Thursday.

It has been said that “the clothes make the man.” While the pureness of this statement can be debated, it certainly carries with it a good lesson. How you dress defines a lot about what people think of you.

I think that this also holds true for one’s vehicle. Your accessories say a lot about who you are. So, to me, it’s important to choose just the right amount of “decoration” and each thing needs to speak clearly about who you are. For instance, the old car with 600 bumper stickers says to me “I don’t care what you think because I can’t decide what I think.”

This weekend, I adorned our minivan with those cool little stickers that have a stick figures for each member of the family. (We had a tough decision on whether to put Ladybug on as a baby or as a little girl. Ultimately we went with the little girl since she’s walking now….well, that and because I don’t want to have to peel the baby off and put the little girl one on later when I’ve lost the little girl sticker.) These stickers not only give information about our family structure, they indicate how important the family is to us.

So that’s all sappy and good, but I’ve been trying to decide on what my car (The Green Goblin) needs to say about me. The first choice has revolved around the front tag. Originally, I had one on there that advertised the dealer, but it was made of very thin metal and couldn’t withstand the rigors of being scrubbed when I washed my car. (Maybe I’m working out too much!) So what should my front tag be? Here’s the thought process:

1) “I Love Jesus” - while this would be great, I think that it probably wouldn’t be appropriate for when I’m tailgating someone and blowing my horn at them. The other driver might think to themselves “hey, this guy loves Jesus. He’ll forgive me if I keep going slow in the left lane or if I cut him off.” And it probably doesn’t make Jesus look very good when I’m slinging the car sideways around curves. Let’s see what my other options are…

2) “Move Over You Old Windbag!” - This one does help me with explaining my desire for slightly greater speeds from the other drivers. However, when I pull into the parking lot at church, I would probably offend a lot of the old windbags blessed saints. My car would probably get keyed a lot…

3) Picture of Fuzzy Bunnies - No, I didn’t consider this one for even a minute. I don’t know how it got into my shopping basket. Seriously, I didn’t even notice those cute little faces. Each one making a different facial expression. And I certainly didn’t give them names like “Flopsy”, “Mr. BunBun”, and “Dennis”.

4) Car Logo - To be honest, I’ve never understood this one. If I’m driving a Nissan with the emblem right there on the grill, do I really need a tag that tells people that I’m driving a Nissan? I’ve often thought of getting one that says “Lexus” and putting it on my Nissan, but I figured no one would get the joke. Except Lance…he loves my stupid jokes.

5) Toby - To the innocent passerby it says “hey, look at me…some college was dumb enough to give me a degree.” To the other Mercerians, it says “I don’t support my school financially, but I will buy a pretty tag.” But most importantly, to the slow-poke in front of me it says “RAAAAAARRRRR - I’m a mean bear and I’ll eat you so MOVE OVER….RAAAAAARRRR.” Yes, this is definitely the one:

Apparently, little Ladybug has another bronchial infection. It causes her to cough and thus, prevents her from sleeping soundly. Around 11:00 last night, Kelley woke me up and we worked on settling her down. Then again at 4:30, she was crying out because the cough was preventing her from sleeping. Around 5:30, I tagged with Kelley and let her rest*.

Almost immediately after I positioned her in my arms, Ladybug drifted off into a deep sleep…but not deep enough to where I could lay her down. (Believe me, I tried it several times.) But, I gotta be honest with you, I didn’t mind holding her while she snuggles up against me. I sat there and rocked her gently as she snored the night away. As the sun came up, I think I started to fade. Around 7:45, Ladybug was rested enough to talk to the decorations in her room. We made our way down for breakfast which Ladybug called out for excitedly “NAH-NUH!” (banana).

That’s when I learned what the * is for….apparently Butterfly went fluttering into our room a little after 6:00. So much for letting Kelley rest.

After breakfast, I talked the wife into going upstairs and getting in a nap while I played with both girls. It was a great treat. Ladybug spent 30 minutes playing in a miniature rocking chair laughing and calling the names of toys for me to hand her(which I did). Butterfly climbed over all of the furniture and then climbed over me. Eventually we decided that the best course of action would involve finding every toy in the house and then scattering them all on the floor in the den. You’d be surprised how quick we did that. But mommy eventually woke up and my fun was over.

Ladybug did remind me one last time how much she loves me and how much like me she is. As I finished my shower, she crawled into our room and I held her until it was time to walk out the door. As I placed her into her mother’s arms, she began to cry for “DaDa.” Knowing that I wouldn’t go to work if she didn’t make me, Kelley ran into the kitchen and distracted Ladybug with a graham cracker. Her tears of sorrow for “DaDa” turned into squeals of delight for “CaCah” (cracker). It’s good to know that her affection for others can be overcome with an edible treat. She takes after her father.

My wife constantly tells me that eating breakfast is good as long as it’s the right kind of breakfast.  I think that one of the things shem mentioned was eggs.  That’s good because I like eggs.  Here’s this morning’s day-starter…

This weekend was very relaxing for me. I moved around a lot and did a lot of things, but I got some great quality time with my family and some friends, and that always leaves me feeling recharged.

Friday night, we had a light supper and then we went to Marble Slab for ice cream. Friday was Ladybug’s first birthday and although we had a party for her last weekend, we needed an excuse for ice cream wanted to honor her on the actual day. Kelley got “birthday cake” with caramel, Butterfly got “bubble gum” and I got plain ‘ole vanilla….but I got to share mine with Ladybug. That was the real treat.

Saturday morning, Kelley took Butterfly shopping for Easter clothes, so Ladybug and I spent the morning chasing each other around the house and throwing toys onto the floor. Then in the afternoon, Ladybug made a trip with Kelley for groceries, so Butterfly and I fluttered around upstairs reading books, being Minnie and Mickie, and then being doggies. I tried to help with the laundry a little bit during this time, but the puppy didn’t care much for it so “fodder doggy” abandoned all hope of helpfulness and returned to making pillow houses. Somewhere in all of that, I managed to cut the grass/weeds.  And to end the day, Kelley and I settled down to watch a movie together.  And I only fell asleep once or twice!!

Poor little Ladybug seems to have either bad allergies of a slight cold. Either way, she was clingy to her daddy all day. And I gotta be honest, I didn’t mind it at all. At one point, I was putting her down on the floor so that I could run do something and she looked up at me, poked out her little lip….and she was in my arms again. I’m not very good with discipline or will-power. The spoiling part? I got that handled.

This is probably the best that I’ve done in a long time. I got 75% of the first round games correct (picking the highest seed would have yielded the same results), 14 of my top 16 are still standing and all of my elite 8.

Saying goodbye is never easy…but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be fun. We have a longstanding tradition at work that requires us to belittle, insult, and generally make fun of the person who is leaving. It’s not an easy task, but we do our best…well, actually, that’s not true. We probably only give it about 75%…unless they leave on a Friday, in which case we give about 20%, which is pretty good effort for a Friday. At any rate, the departing parties sometimes get custom songs, slideshows, and poetry. Heck, one lucky lady even got a calendar of some of our most out-of-shape guys wearing tight, sleeveless t-shirts. She cried…I guess she was really happy.

I came across this picture that was taken when someone left us this past fall. When he arrived on his last day, this is what his office looked like. Sure, we missed some spots, but like I said, we put just enough effort into it to get the point across and then we went back to surfing the internet.

Now you can compare my bracket with Lance’s. It looks like he and I have 11 similar picks for the “sweet 16″, 5 for the “elite eight”, 3 for the “final four”, the same top 2 and the same overall winner. One year I had 3 of my top 4 out by the end of the first round, so I’m hoping this year is better.

At the end of each round, I’ll post nothing about the tournament in hopes that you’ll forget some of these predictions:

Today marks the beginning of one of the most awesome sporting events in the year….March Madness.  College basketball is good by itself.  But when you have about 75 games going on simultaneously, it’s awesome.  Never before have so many people around the nation cared about small schools like Belmont or St. Mary’s, but they do today because their office bracket depends on it.  Me?  I gave up participating in brackets a few years ago.  Now I organize them.  It’s a lot easier to embezzle the money that way.

But, if you need anything from me after lunch today or Friday…or Saturday or Sunday, or next Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday….then you might want to send an e-mail.  I’m gonna be a bit preoccupied…

And for the record, my bracket looks exactly like how the tournament is going to play out.  Honest, I’ve picked all the winners and the upsets.  Don’t believe me?  I’ll post a copy when the tournament is over.