Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Pulled the trigger

Well, there she is, in all her glory. We selected her from a gang of six a little over a month ago. The pickins weren't easy. Initially, Jack & Donna had their hearts set on the brown one while Joe and I wanted the black one. Then, because Jack is my little minion and Joe just likes to be difficult they flipped. Eventually we settled on this little gal. We named her "Cabela" after well, you know, CABELA'S. I figure a sizeable portion of my disposable income already goes to them, might as well honor them with something more permanent. We picked her up from the breeder in Lancaster on Sunday evening. For the first 10 minutes of the 45 minute ride home she squealed and whined and barked and generally made me remember why I was so hesitant to get a puppy. She settled down pretty quickly, though. Until 11:00 or so when we put her into her crate for the night and she fired up the whine machine again. She finally dozed off but was bright-eyed & bushy-tailed at 4:00 the next morning. I considered eating the sizeable price I paid for her and submitting her as a candidate for animal research. But my kids would have been mighty disappointed so I kicked Donna out of the bed so she could tend to her, pulled the pillow over my head, and tried to go back to sleep. When I finally got out of bed I had a heart to heart with the mutt and let her know that her behavior had already put her on the edge of a crumbling cliff. She apparently took me seriously because her behavior has improved considerably. There's been a couple piddle on the carpet incidents (mostly due to our failure to put her outside when she needs to go) and some minor nighttime squealing, but I'm loving this dog more and more. Look at this little cutey, how can you not love a face like that?

Friday, August 18, 2006

There really are heros in this world.


[Strongest Dad in the World From Sports Illustrated, By Rick Reilly, 6/13/2005]

I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to pay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots.

But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.

Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars--all in the same day.

Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?

And what has Rick done for his father? Not much--except save his life.

This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs.

"He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life;'' Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old. ``Put him in an institution.''

But the Hoyts weren't buying it. They noticed the way Rick's eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. ``No way,'' Dick says he was told.

"There's nothing going on in his brain.''

"Tell him a joke,'' Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain.

Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? ``Go Bruins!'' And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, ``Dad, I want to do that.''

Yeah, right How was Dick, a self-described ``porker'' who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. ``Then it was me who was handicapped,'' Dick says. ``I was sore for two weeks.''

That day changed Rick's life. ``Dad,'' he typed, ``when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!''

And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.

"No way,'' Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year.

Then somebody said, ``Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?''

How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried.

Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzzkill to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think?

Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? ``No way,'' he says.

Dick does it purely for "the awesome feeling'' he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together.

This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time'? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992--only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time.

"No question about it,'' Rick types, "My dad is the Father of the Century.''

And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. ``If you hadn't been in such great shape,'' one doctor told him, "You probably would've died 15 years ago.''

So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life.

Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every > weekend, including this Father's Day.

That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy.

"The thing I'd most like,'' Rick types, ``is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.''

Click the play button in the middle of the screen and the video will play. Be ready for your spirit to soar.


Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Guy time

Funny how four days can seem like an eternity at one time (like the first four days we had Jack & Joe home from the hospital) and yet feel like the blink of an eye at another. Last week's fishing trip fit into the latter category (thank God!). I snagged Jason from Burbank airport on Tuesday evening. He actually made it despite his flight being canceled and being cavity searched in Dallas before being allowed on the plane. We were on the road by 9:00 on Wednesday and pulling into our campsite by 3:00. What an incredible place. I'd love to be back up there at this very moment. Here's a few pictures for your amazement/amusement...

The whole crew:

We fished at Sotcher the whole time. First day at the lake Steve was The Man with a nice fish. Day two he had a near limit (sorry, no picture). I caught a single but both Jason and Milad put in a respectable showing with a couple fish a piece. Dean had one hit his line so hard that it darn near pulled his whole rig into the lake but he was busy scratching himself and it was gone. Which is a shame because that was all the action he'd get for the rest of the trip.

On day two we took a ride into town for some supplies. We stopped to have a look at the Minarets. They're the pokey mountains in the far distance.
After our trip into town Jason and Milad decided to go for a hike to see the postpile and Rainbow falls. Here's a picture of the Postpile that I poached off somebody's site (whoever you are, please don't sue me, just tell me to take it down and I will) Here's a picture of Rainbow Falls (ditto on poaching the picture).

The rest of us decided to go for a nap. I know what you're thinking, ladies, but forget it. He's taken.


Day three found some interlopers in our spot so we moved to the opposite side of the lake and found a real nice spot on a sandy beach.
Here’s Jason, giving the thumbs up after dropping a very satisfying deuce.
Here’s me & Jason on the shore.

Here’s Milad, full of hopes & dreams about the big one he’s about to catch.

Here’s Dean, full of donuts & Yoo-Hoo, and without any aspirations to actually catch a fish.

Here’s Steve, full of anger & resentment that Milad has stolen away his title as “The Man”.

Here’s Kiko, stuffing his piehole with various cardiac arrest inducing treats.


Here’s Kiko consoling Steve, “Eets okay, Esteeve, jou weel catch a feesh. Jou are steel dee mang!”

When Kiko's attempts at consoling Steve didn't work, he tried to distract him with various gymnastic feats.

Meanwhile, Milad was taunting us by catching fish both big and small.


The sun was setting and it was time to call it quits.

We stopped for a final photo of Milad with his haul. A fisherman has been born.
We broke camp the next morning and hit the road. That drive always seems to take twice as long when we're going home. I occupied myself thinking about next year's trip, though, so it wasn't all bad.

Friday, August 04, 2006

A dream fulfilled.

VBS concluded tonight which means all the decorations had to be yanked down. Dean called me earlier in the day to tell me I could serve in a special way. Apparently a bunch of mylar balloons had come loose from their moorings and had floated the 50 or so feet to the top of the sanctuary. There’s no practical way to get them down and since they’re mylar (instead of the traditional rubber balloons) it would take a few months for them to make their descent unassisted. So I was charged with poking a few holes in them with my pellet gun. Hey, if something needs to be shot, I’m your guy. My new ministry, “Shooting things for Jesus.” Marksmen only need apply. I let everybody clear out (except my kids who thought it was the coolest thing ever) and took care of business. My two passions collided, God & guns. It was a blast, but I think I actually overloaded my redneck meter.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

When preschoolers attack

Our church’s VBS started this past Sunday evening. I’ve never been a really big fan of kids so I decided to leave the heavy lifting to an assortment of good people, sit this one out and have a little “me time” during the week. But as the saying goes, “The best laid plans…” Jack’s separation anxiety chose to rear its ugly head and about half-way through Sunday night’s session I had to sit in his class else he’d go into full meltdown mode. When I arrived at the preschool room there were probably 40 kids and about a dozen workers. I happened to show up at songtime. Music was playing and 35 or so of the kids were singing & gyrating. The rest were in advanced stages of hysteria and general tantrum-like behavior. Some of the adult leaders were enthusiastically leading the kids in song and dance while the others attempted to console the criers. It was, in a word, pandemonium. Just looking through the door I felt my BP tick up about 20 points. My palms got sweaty. I started to get a headache. My stomach gurgled and I felt like I was getting diarrhea. I wanted to yell at everybody to be quiet. If I’d had a noisemaker, I’d have been tempted to fire off a round into the air just to get their attention and tell them to BE QUIET. And yet, all the adults were smiling and energetic and just loving on those kids. I was amazed. By the time the night was over, I felt liked I’d been pulled through a knothole in a wood fence. Here’s an actual photo of me at the end of the evening:On the ride home I found myself just thanking God for such incredible people who are so faithful to His calling. People who don’t make a spectacle of themselves, just show up, serve, and go home without any fanfare. Our Lord must be so pleased.
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