He said, she said

I received a call from the office at our apartment complex this morning. One of the maintenance people found a cell phone near our old truck and took it to the office. The woman at the office then figured out that it might be my daughter’s and called me! Keep in mind that we live in Building 30 of the complex so that is some pretty good figuring there.

When she told me the story, I asked “Is it pink?”

“Yes.”

“Is it missing a cover?”

“Yes.”

“That is probably hers.”

Since my wife didn’t work today, I called her and told her that the office called because they found Cakes’  phone.

From there, it gets funny.

My wife called my son on his cell phone and asked him to go get Cakes’ phone at the office. However, he was at school! She thought that I meant the office at SCHOOL.

Big A went to the office to get Cakes’ phone

“Do you have a pink cell phone that was turned in today?”

“Noooo…”

However, my son forgot to call my wife back to tell her that they didn’t have the phone. Soooo…

When my wife picked up my daughter, she greeted her cheerily with “So you got your phone, huh?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You know, your phone…”

Cakes responded with a blank stare.

My wife continued. “The office called Dad, Dad called me and I called Big A to go to the office to get your phone.”

Again a blank look

My wife pressed on, “Dad described the phone to the office and Big A went down to get it!…”

“I’ve had my phone with me all day.”

When my wife returned home, the maintenance worker happened to drive by and stopped to tell my wife that her phone was at the office.

And then it all started making sense.

Toooo funny!

Posted in Parenting | Tagged | Comments Off on He said, she said

He must be a little insecure

My youngest daughter sure is the center of attention these days.

Tuesday is the day her Great Books class convenes on the Internet through WebEx. The Internet traffic from the inauguration was so heavy that it delayed her initial login for 40 minutes. Then 30 minutes later the whole class was knocked out of its session!

My daughter, bumped off the Internet by the President! I have been telling her how great she is but I had no idea…

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | Comments Off on He must be a little insecure

Not quite so fast

Cakes got a little disappointing news today.

The “little” mechanical problem on the VW Cabrio convertible turned out to be more complex than originally thought. It looks like I am back to looking for a second car.

Posted in Cars | Tagged | Comments Off on Not quite so fast

Ummmm, now what?

Change is hard to deal with. It cuts against our nature.

I am dealing with a nice change but it is still change.

I just finished my second week of work. I am back into the routine of being gone Mon-Fri for nearly 12 hours every day. After I pick the kids up from school, I have about two hours before I have to get to bed.

Those five long work days provide a very familiar backdrop to Saturday. What is very different are my Saturdays…

I have nothing to do on Saturday morning. I mean that I don’t HAVE to do anything.

There is no car to work on, no appliances to fix or rebuild, no major construction project to start or finish, no yard to mow, no fruit trees to prune and no rose bushes to trim. I have no money left to invest and since we put our television in storage, I don’t even have any sports to watch!

You might say, “Lucky for you!” I will not argue with you. However, it is a dramatic change.

I am going to have to re-read Spencer Johnson’s little book on the subject of change called “Who Moved My Cheese”. I should have seen this coming and prepared for it. For two weeks in a row, I have layed in bed trying to get my bearings and figure out what would be the best use of my time. I feel like I am fumbling around.

But, I have to admit, it is nice to have the time to do that!

Posted in Work | Comments Off on Ummmm, now what?

Much more than I had hoped for

I have once again been amazed at the goodness of God!

In previous posts, I have told you about the dramatic changes that God has been bringing about in my second daughter. As profound as the last big change was, it turned out that it was just the next big step.

As a father, I know how fast life will come at my children because I have seen it in my own life. Therefore, I continually push them to mature, to accept responsibility, to develop good character and habits. Their foundation needs to be solid before the storms of life start beating against their house.

In my eyes, Kimba’s wandering cost her dearly. Time was lost. Bad decisions were made. To her credit, rather than running or pretending, she is turning and facing the consequences. I am so proud of how honest she is being with herself.

Although she asked Mom and I to once again exercise authority in her life, I don’t feel the freedom to begin barging into her life. I much prefer to be invited.

However, there is much ground that needs to be recovered. Where should I begin? How do I bring it up?

It turns out that I don’t have to. God has done more in the last two weeks than I could have hoped for in the next six months!

When Kimba went back to work at The Macaroni Grill after Christmas, she cried when she learned that the manager who hired her and has really believed in her was being moved to another location. However, her new manager is more than a manager at a local restaurant. She is a gift from God!

She has a history of helping young people achieve their dreams in life. I don’t mean just succeeding in their work responsibilities. I mean life! She has already sat down and pressed Kimba to tell her what she wants to accomplish in her life and what practical obstacles she is facing (debt and education!). She is working with Kimba to develop a practical plan to achieve her dreams and then to walk it out!

How much better is that than hearing your father bring up painful areas in your life?!

God is doing more in her heart than I had hoped for much faster than I could have imagined. I have decided that I will just continue to stay in the place of prayer and stay out of His way!

Posted in Children, Parenting | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

The front page hits home

Two days ago, my oldest daughter, Bean, called me to tell me that her roommate was laid off with no severance. Her company, Nortel, declared bankruptcy.

She had worked there for about one year right out of college. Her aunt, however, had given the company 20 years of hard work. Although she had earned 11 months of severance pay, she got none! Her heart is broken.

Unfortunately, (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) I can sympathize with them. I was laid off this very week one year ago. I too had worked VERY hard for the company for 11 years. What made it a little surreal is how it happened.

In October of 2006, I received a promotion and a raise in pay for outstanding performance. In March of 2007, I was the apple of the GM’s eye. Then a new CFO came in, demoted the GM, hired a new one who made it obvious that I was not in his plans. 10 months later, I was told to clean out my desk.

My story is not unique. Neither is theirs. It happens all of the time. However, it is one thing to read about it or hear about it. It is quite another when you are in the story.

I wasn’t caught completely by surprise. I could see the writing on the wall. However, I just couldn’t bring myself to believe that they would actually make that decision. Bean’s roommate didn’t really consider other possible options as the company’s fortunes were turning because she would have had to take a pay cut.

Was it pride? Was I just stupid? Was her aunt naive to think that her loyal service would be requited? Perhaps. Life looks much different when viewed through the rear view mirror.

But you won’t get very far trying to drive through life while looking through the rear view mirror. You drive looking ahead. Most of the time, we make our decisions in the bright light of hope.

Sometime life unexpectedly turns that light off. Sometimes the road we have chosen has a section that is closed. Perhaps the last storm caused a mudslide, a sinkhole or washed out a bridge.

Our character determines how long that light stays off. After we come to terms with the fact that our plans didn’t work out, that we can’t get to our destination the way we thought we could, and that our schedule is messed up, we have to get back in the car, turn it around and figure out another way to get where we want to go.

Posted in Goals | Tagged | 1 Comment

It’s just not fair

I regularly run 4 miles and do not lose any weight. But I have no room to complain.

My wife ran a marathon a few years ago and didn’t lose any weight!

But my son ran three miles to school this morning and lost two pounds!

He had to run to school. Why? Because he had to lose 9 pounds in 36 hours to make weight this morning for is wrestling match tonight…

He lost 10!

…and then pinned the kid in the third period.

Growing older just isn’t fair.

Posted in Children, Physical | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The spoils of victory

As a human being, I want people to like me, to think well of me. However, as a father, if I am going to faithfully carry out my resposibilities, I frequently can’t indulge those desires. Many times I have to be the “bad guy” and make an unpopular decision.

In most of those cases, I am usually unpopular with my children. However, sometimes the outside world is not happy with me. 

My youngest daughter’s education has not helped my popularity since I have been here in Kansas. It seems that every few months, my decisions regarding this subject have caused somebody to be displeased with me.

In May, at the end of the last school year, the private school was not happy with me when I informed them that Cakes would be attending the public high school this year. They thought that I was making a big mistake.

The public high school administration was not happy with me one month ago when I informed them that she would be dropping her Comm Arts class (they don’t teach English composition anymore!) to enroll her in a course on the Great Books of Western civilization. They thought that I was making a big mistake.

Today, I got a nice taste of victory. Cakes logged on to her first session with the Great Books class and her new tutor. She was so excited that she sent me a text message during the class and followed up with a phone call afterwards. My 16 year old daughter is excited about learning! And just for your information, they aren’t reading romance novels. She is learning the history of Ancient Rome

I hope I made the right decisions…

Posted in Parenting | Tagged | Comments Off on The spoils of victory

We might have scored!

One of the keys to prospering financially is not letting people take your money. I might have had a major long term financial success today!

I have been looking for a reliable, economical car for quite awhile. To be honest, it has been difficult.

More often than not, after calling on a car and deciding that it is not quite what I was looking for, the seller would then inform me that they have another one or two that they are selling. After asking a few questions, I would discover that their husband or brother or cousin works at a body shop and the car that I originally called on is actually an accident recovery.

The other half of the population are slick used car salesmen. I have never seen so many “wholesale” car dealers. LA is child’s play! And they put their advertisements in the “Cars for Sale by Owner” category on Craig’s List. The call usually goes something like this:

“Oh, its a great car! You can’t find many of these!”

After finding out the cars “few’ flaws, “I don’t think that is what I am looking for.”

“Oh, well, I’m a dealer and I have another great car just like it…”

Then there are the beautiful cars that are SOOO CHEAP! But when you e-mail them, and it is always e-mail, never a phone number, you get an e-mail back informing you that the seller is in the military and the car was just shipped from London to Iraq and he would like to do the deal through E-bay because they offer the buyer special protection…BS…BS…BS…BS

Because of that, I almost didn’t call on a 2001 Toyota Solara with 144,000 miles on it for $3,650! It seemed another of those “to good to be true” scams except that it had a local phone number. I called only to learn that it was already sold! It had only been listed for a few hours!

I asked the seller why the car was so cheap. He informed me up front that he was a “wholesale” dealer. Anyway, to make a long story short, I liked the way this man did business. He seemed quite candid and transparent. It turns out that he is just getting started “officially” with his own lot in the not so nice part of town.

I liked him so much that I called him earlier this week and told him that I was interested in developing a long term business relationship with him. If he would sell me good cars at a good price, I would buy all of my cars and my children’s cars from him. He said that he was VERY interested.

Today, I took the whole family with me and met him face to face for the first time. I asked my wife if she trusted him and she said yes so we bought a nice black 1997 VW Cabriolet convertible with a cream leather interior with 90,000 miles on it AT HIS COST! No, it’s not a line. He showed me his purchase ticket.

I think we might have found a great source for cars here!

Posted in Cars, Money | Comments Off on We might have scored!

What to do?

I had a strange sensation this morning. I woke up and didn’t know what to do with myself.

For the past 9 months, Saturday morning was not much different than Monday through Friday. I just got up and resumed working on whatever I didn’t finish the day before. However, this Saturday morning had a very different feel to it. 

It was my first Saturday that followed a work week. That means that this was my first “weekend” since early March. And I realized that I didn’t have a clue what to do with myself.

Why? Well, for as long as I can remember (and I really do mean that), when the work week ended, I have awakened with years worth of construction projects staring me in the face. EVERY Saturday was completely spoken for as far into the future as I could see.

Until this morning…

I now live in an apartment. I have nothing to fix. What do most men do?

I ended up looking for a car on the Internet. 18 MPG for 60 miles of daily driving is not a good long term financial plan.

Posted in Work | Comments Off on What to do?