The Holidays, Houston Style

Two pictures and a quick story for your holiday edification.

The first picture is Austin and one of his best buddies Gibby, preparing for a little No Limit Texas Hold 'em poker action. The glasses are to prevent the other players from telling when you are trying to bluff, and the posturing is part of the male psych-out ritual which boys seem to have learned by age 10.


The next picture is of Braden playing in the "snow". Our neighborhood has an annual Holiday party which includes having human-made "snow" dumped on the ground near the clubhouse, one patch for the pre-schoolers to enjoy and one patch for the bigger kids. Here is Braden with a couple of kids on their patch (approx. size 10' wide x 25' long). Please note green plants and grass in background.


Finally, Saturday night we enjoyed our annual Christmas tradition of going to Starbucks for coffee and hot chocolate (5 words: Chai Egg Nog Latte - yum!) and driving around looking at Christmas lights. After a half hour or so, Braden shouts from the back seat "Look Ma-ee - it duh "kay-no". (Proper spelling would be 'cano.) We had him repeat this several times, as no one could figure out what he meant. It was not until several blocks later that we realized he was saying "volcano" in reference to the strings of light people had placed in their yard going from the ground to a tree that looked like an upside-down cone. To him this obviously looked like a volcano, so the rest of the night we all took great pleasure in pointing out the Christmas 'canos in people's yards.

"But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy." - Luke 2:10

Thanksgiving, Approx. 9,000 Words

Halloween, 2005

In a highly unusual turn of events, weather has impacted the Horst family in Cypress, Texas. The skies opened up and rain fell in sheets starting at about 5:00pm tonight, or about a half-an-hour before we were set to unleash the pirates upon the neighbors for a good old-fashioned ransacking.

Dawn brought over her 2 boys (JP - the older boy and Miles) who hung out with us for awhile, joining us for some Mummy-dogs and spooky juice. After pictures, the Moms grabbed their umbrellas and set out to do some trick-or-treating or else...

With All Due Respect to His Uncle Steve...

Have you ever seen a finer pirate in your entire life?

This is Braden's costume, which he wore on Friday night for the carnival at his pre-school. He tells us that he looks "boo-key" (spooky), an assessment with which all of us are inclined to agree.

Austin will also be going as a pirate, so we should have pictures of the two scurvy sea-dogs up later in the week.

Playa de Carmen es Muy Bueno!

Most of you have probably heard about our vacation to Playa de Carmen from the standpoint of narrow escapes from the Hurricane Wilma. As the above picture shows, it was not all hand-wringing over the weather.

The Sandos Gala Playacar where we stayed was a beautiful, all-inclusive resort with a number of really good restaurants and a beautiful, long stretch of beach. Our room overlooked the ocean, and our front door opened up to the courtyard with the fountain in the picture - beautiful. We explored the rock formations down the beach from our hotel, turning back at the rock with the words "nudist beach" painted on it (for obvious reasons).

The iguana is "Fred", a native who we ran across during one of our walks. (Sheila named him Fred, and I'm not exactly sure why.) We got to dress up a little for dinner, and snorkle and lay out on the beach and take naps - a real vacation.

At one point, the locals taught me how to spear fish with a sharpened bamboo pole, which I demonstrate above. I caught a 27-pound mexican grouper right after that picture was taken. Shelley was so busy helping me club the great beast into submission that we both forgot to take a picture of it before giving it to a local family for their supper.

And just for the sake of meteorological accuracy, I should note that the clouds in the picture on the bottom row are from an outer rain band of Hurricane Wilma. We didn't get any rain until the shuttle ride to the airport, but man did they get rain after we left.

Where to Begin?

Since my last post, the following has happened:

* Shelley and I went on a vacation to Playa de Carmen, and narrowly escaped the wrath of Hurricane Wilma by getting out 2 1/2 hours before they closed the airport in Cancun. We would literally still be there today (a week later) if we hadn't gotten out when we did.

* My personal computer at home was all but wiped out by a nasty virus named Trojan.Vundo, which was finally removed Tuesday night but has left my computer with a severe case of the "slows". I will be re-loading Windows XP this weekend and hoping to recover all the files which seem to be lost for now, hopefully recuperating my ability to work on my business, as well.

* Did I mention Shelley and I are both taking two antibiotics each for the dysentery we picked up in Mexico? Dysentery, according to the dictionary, is an amoebic, parasitic infection of the intestines usually transmitted by contaminated water. [Note to self - next vacation must involve an area safe from hurricanes where the primary language spoken is English and the water is safe to drink. Consider trip to St. Paul, Minnesota to see "world's largest adirondack chair".]

* The Astros won the National League pennant for the first time in their history, but tickets to the games locally were $1,000 each, pricing Austin and me out of the market. Just as well, since they lost both games in Houston while being swept by the Chicago White Sox. Disappointment reigns at my house, but we are encouraged that maybe the souvenir t-shirts and pennants will come down to a less-obscene price over the next several days.

Finally a story intended to bring a needed smile to my sister. Three weeks ago, Braden asked Shelley out of the clear blue "where'd Aunt Julie go?" Shelley told him she was at her house in Oklahoma, with Uncle Jeff, Jefferson and Jacob. Braden looked at her, puzzled, and asked "Homa-homa?" which made Shelley laugh. And because she laughed, we spent the next week having our 3-year-old run around the house repeating "Homa-homa, Homa-homa" while all of us fell about in stitches. Eventually Shelley would try to correct him - "no baby, it's OKLA-homa" - to no apparent effect.

This morning, because such things were woven into our everyday lives by Mom growing up, I was singing the lead song from the musical "Oklahoma". (Except I was doing it to torment all the groggy people milling around my house trying to get going.) Braden interrupted me from his usual spot on the bar stool at our kitchen island to say "id not Homa-homa da-ee, id Okla-homa". So it is baby - so it is...

You're in our prayers, Sis.

October, 2060

Three men and five children sit together in the media room of a comfortable home watching a Major League Baseball playoff game. The three boys range in age from 5 to 10, the two girls are 8 and 11. The two 30-something aged brothers are the fathers of these five, and the oldest gentleman is the patriarch of the entire bunch.

The game is tied through 10 innings when the youngest boy questions no one in particular how long the game will last.

His father answers "until someone is ahead at the end of an inning".

The 10-year-old, a blue-eyed wisp of a boy with an insatiable curiosity, wonders out loud "what's the longest playoff game ever"?

After a brief silence as the two middle-aged men look at each other, the tall, thin, handsome old man speaks: "18 innings - nearly 6 hours."

"Wow Grandpa - that's a long time," says the youngest daughter. Her father, well aware of the old man's tendency to embellish the truth from time to time for the sake of a good yarn, asks "how do you know that, Dad?" To which the old man, a sparkle in his sky blue eyes, responds "because I was there". All heads in the room turn to the old gentleman as he relives that beautiful fall afternoon from so long ago.

"I was your age David" he starts, nodding at the rapt 10 year old. "It looked like the Astros would lose that day for sure, as the Braves hit a grand slam off our starter in the top of the 3rd. Their starter was mowing our guys down - we could only score one run in 7 innings. In the 8th, we got the bases loaded and Lance Berkman hit a grand slam that made an already electrified crowd explode. It was the only time in playoff history 2 grand slams were hit in the same game.

Still behind by one run in the bottom of the 9th, we had two outs when our catcher hit a massive home run over left center field to tie the game and cause your great-grandfather to lift me off my feet and hold me over his head while 43,000 fans screamed and clapped in ecstacy."

"For the next 3 hours, neither team budged. Their pitchers were stingy, and ours were persistent. We used Hall of Famer Roger Clemens to pinch-HIT in the 15th inning, laying down a perfect sacrifice bunt. He then came into the game, on 2 days rest, and pitched 3 innings of inspiring relief. The presenter mentioned that game the day he went into Cooperstown."

"Then suddenly, with 1 out in the bottom of the 18th inning, a rookie, who was called up to the major leagues on my birthday that year, hit a 2-0 fastball over the left field fence and we erupted in one final, exhausted, thrilling celebration. That game clinched the National League division series for the Astros, who went on to play in the World Series that year for the first time."

By now the old man's wife has entered the room, and she sighs "Austin are you telling that story about the Astros game AGAIN?" The kids, (their spell from the story broken by their Grandmother's arrival with Rice Krispie Treats), fall out laughing as Grandpa Austin rolls his eyes at them all.

And once more, the glory of sporting achievement bridges the generations, even if just for a moment on a cool autumn afternoon...

Austin Won!

Austin found out today he was the winner of the election for Mrs. Reese's student council class representative! He was very proud, as are his parents, and he was hamming it up pretty good on the bus ride home. ("I'd like to thank everyone who helped make this possible, etc...")

Finding out this news was quite a turnaround from yesterday's talk about how he is not popular enough to win, the other candidates have more friends, etc...

Happy day for everyone here today - tomorrow the difficult work of representing his constituents begins!

His Father's Son

Thought you all might like to see a copy of the speech Austin gave today at Hamilton Elementary. [The picture is from his campaign poster last spring. Imagine it cut into the shape of a diamond with the caption 'vote for Austin - he's your ace' and you have the general idea.] He is running for student council representative from his class, and as part of his candidacy he had to give a speech to the entire 5th grade. Some of you will recall earlier that he had to give a speech last spring which did not go so well. Today's speech went great, with kids laughing at his jokes and several students and teachers giving him feedback that he had done very well.

Hi my name is Austin Horst. I am here ask for your vote as your student council representative. Here are some things that I promise to do if you vote for me:
1. I will represent Mrs. Reese’s homeroom with pride.
2. I will listen to all your ideas and suggestions and use them to make our class better.
3. I will use my skills and knowledge to help in any way that I can.
4. I promise to attend every student council meeting and be on time. I also promise to wear my hearing aids so I actually can hear what people are saying.
5. I will do everything I can to do what YOU want me to do to make our class the best.

I think that I would be good for this job because I have shown responsibility in the past. For example I wrote the letter to Mrs. Crabb explaining kickball, and I would be more than happy to stand up for class again. Whether or not you vote for me I will still do everything I can to help out in our class. I will be the type of student council representative you can look up to and not just because I am one of the tallest in the class!

We are naturally quite proud of him for "getting back up on the horse" and running for office. Combine that with the fact that Braden has learned his "A B C D's" and we're busting at the seams.

Enough's Enough Already

With all the bogus spam comments being posted on my blog, I have added something called "word verification" to the comments section. If you want to make a comment about something you've read, (which I love reading, by the way), please feel free to do so. You will be asked to confirm you are human (and not spam) by typing in a word which will display on your screen. It is very easy and very effective in stopping the bogus comments.

Because I can take Blair's quasi-legitimate comments promoting such TV product nonsense as The Clapper. In fact, I applaud his spunk.

But these other, truly ridiculous postings need to stop.

Out of Harm's Way

Thought you all would enjoy seeing a shot of the boy's safely out of Rita's way in Ft. Worth this weekend. Too sleepy to write much - will check back soon.

The Calm AFTER the Storm

Aside from the fact I'm wandering around the hospital gathering up linens used by the staff to sleep everywhere they could - and on a Sunday to boot - today feels very normal in the hospital. I'm not sure normal has ever felt so good.

Everyone on the staff who wanted to go home last night was able to go home, with less than 10 employees needing to sleep over in the hospital. People working today no longer have that "Night of the Living Dead" look about them, which is a good thing. People look clean and rested and grateful and familiar, like we just licked a hurricane together (which we did).

Austin waited up until I got home last night at 10pm, and we sat and had a bowl of cereal together, visiting a little about this and that before going to sleep. Could we all just take a moment together to appreciate sleep? And beds? And ceiling fans? And my wife? And my children?

Had a little time this morning to wrestle with Braden before coming in to finish up with my responsibilities here, and will be home tonight in time for dinner with my family. Can we all take a moment to appreciate dinner with your family? And encouraging comments on your blog from family? And...oh, you get the idea.

Phillipians 4:4 "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice."

The Power of a Shower

I just got back from making a quick trip to the house - the family is back safe and everyone looks beautiful. The power was out for just a few hours at our house, and everything is in fine shape. Took a shower, talked with Sheila for a bit, and got extremely sleepy.

Poured a Coke Zero (which is delicious, fyi), let the caffeinated goodness of it wash over me, and back to the hospital. I've got a lot of bone-tired staff who are coming off the day shift, and we still have a disaster code in place so none of them can go home tonight. It could be a very interesting evening.

I've been told I am released to return home tomorrow at noon, barring any unforeseen circumstances. I can handle that...

So far, Rita owes me a shower and a good night's sleep

I saw the Director of Rehab walking down the hall earlier today, and he was spraying air freshener out of a bottle about every 2 or 3 steps. I asked him what he was doing, and he said "this place is starting to smell like people". I don't think I've ever heard that expression before, but it described perfectly the condition within the hospital.

Everyone is trying to get this placed cleaned up now, more family members are leaving and it could almost, sorta fell normal around here again by dinner time. Of course, it will still be unusual to be roaming the halls later with a clip board making sure we have mattresses available for staff and only one employee per mattress. That won't be normal.

But I usually only have the chance to put people to sleep in new hire orientation!

And the Crowd Goes Crazy

There was an eruption of applause and laughter in the cafeteria when the power came back on at lunch around 1:00pm. I know it is entirely psychological, but I actually felt cooler as soon as the lights came back on. Crazy, I know.

After a mad rush to close all exterior doors and windows which had been opened this morning, it's back to business. Most of our family members and visitors left before lunch. A bad night's sleep on the floor, waking to no air conditioning and apparently safe travel around town, and away they went.

I remain hopeful that I will be able to go home for a little while tonight, especially since Sheila and the boys are headed home already! That's my baby!!

Things are looking up.

Still Rita

Things remain a little chaotic. The air conditioning being out has stressed patients who do not have the strength to handle more stress. Staff are tired but performing magnificently.

We have had all our weekend staff call to say they will not be here, so the clinical staff we have are going to have to stay until we get relief staff. No patients appear to be going back to their evacuated hospitals today.

After-rita

The power went out here last night at 1:00am, and we went on generator power. No a/c, and the phones have gone out also. Night staff, visitors and family are free to leave the hospital if they like.

Minimal debris in the parking lot, no flooding, hardly any rain at all, lots of power out throughout the city.

Everyone is safe and well, if not smelly and grouchy. I will tell more when I can.

Love to all.

The Little Storm You Can Take With You Anywhere!

Sheila sent me an hysterical email today and I wanted to share it, because the story she told is the real reason I started the blog, not to update you on the weather.

It seems Shelley and Jamie took Braden to the park in Fort Worth today. While they were there, he met a little boy and began to play. Come to find out, the boy was with his Dad and his Uncle, and they were from Houston, too. The Dad and Uncle came over and starting flirting with, er, talking to Jamie and my wife about the hurricane, and that caused a little storm of its own.

Braden, sensing that his Dad would want someone to intervene, walked over to the four of them, placed his hands on his hips and sternly warned the men to "QUIT TALKING TO MY PARENTS"! Everyone had a good laugh at the cute little guy, until he told them to quit talking or he was going to punch them in the "tummick" (stomache). Sensing that words alone were not getting the message across, he picked up a rock and threw it at one of the men.

And that was the end of their trip to the park.

[Note to self: take Braden to Baskin-Robbins the first night they get home from Ft. Worth.]

Rita 7

Got to make this a quick post as my money has been invited to a poker game in the cafeteria.

We have had a tiny amount of rain today, and the wind is blowing a little bit, but we haven't seen anything worthy of the time and energy we've put into preparing for this gal.

I have earned a reputation today as a mean, mattress-stealing rat for leading a mattress-squad around the hospital taking extra hospital mattresses (about 20 in all) that had been pigeon-holed all over the place by visitors. Took four from a very hateful family who had taken over an entire waiting room, earning me at least one f-bomb and considerable grumbling. The two guys on my mattress squad are my same size though, so they didn't grumble too much!

Took four from an employee's family and hurt their feelings so bad that the employee (maintenance man) and his family left 15 minutes after my visit. I was painfully polite and apologetic, all the while wanting to suggest that maybe their 3 teenaged children didn't need the mattresses as much as the 50+ year old ICU nurses that are asleep on them even as I blog.

I was in charge of employee bed control, making sure that all the mattresses we have were used by employees in patient care areas and not surly teenagers. That made me a very popular man for about 1 hour ("hey, I understand you can give me a bed") and a sorry son-of-a-gun for the next 2 hours ("what do you mean there are no beds left"). I think only 5 or 6 of about 50 clinical employees sleeping here tonight do not have a bed, and they are the younger rehab staff and a couple of strapping young respiratory therapists. Oh, and the diva blonde nurse who "needs a king size bed and a ceiling fan to sleep", who refused my offers of a cot, a stretcher, a sleeping bag and a fully-reclining neuro-wheelchair. I refrained from offering her a minute or two alone somewhere to get over herself, demonstrating that I'm not quite out of patience yet. (By the way, how often do you see a list of things to sleep on and "a stretcher" looks like the best option? Only during a hurricane, I guess.)

Wish there was something more colorful to share about the weather, but all I have is these goofy vignettes of human behavior under stress. My next blog will surely be more weather related. Surely...

Rita, Rita - Wherefore Art Thou, Rita?

1:00pm and no sign of bad weather. The trees are starting to sway a bit, and there are a few more clouds, but it still looks like a normal September day.

We locked the doors to the hospital at 12:00noon today - only people allowed in at this point are family members we were notified to expect and staff. Staff have shown up in enough numbers to cover the weekend, so we are going to be ok. There are easily 100+ family members of staff and 100+ family members of patients in the hospital in addition to the staff.

Everyone will miss their beds at home, but there are plenty of places to sleep tonight, though not everyone will be able to sleep on a mattress or cot. I expect to hear grumbling at bedtime as the cots and mattresses run out, but there's not anything we can do.

We got an order of Ozarka water this morning - lots of it - so water will not be a problem. Seems to be plenty of food, so if we don't run out of coffee, I will survive!

Seems awfully strange to have been busting it under our disaster code for the last 48 hours and we still don't have any sign of the disaster! Was joking with Mom yesterday that a tornado would almost be easier to deal with from a disaster point of view. "It's coming, 'everyone duck', it's over let's assess the damage." All this sitting around waiting is enough to make you go crazy independent of the storm we're about to face.

Finally, there are two distinct subgroups starting to develop among our visitors. There are the ones volunteering to help, and there are the ones complaining about their choices for a free lunch!

We are full of patients, but what we are all going to need more of is patience!

Two personal notes if you will permit: Blair, please feed the spider while I am here this weekend; and Sheila please check your email for a weird-good message.

Rita 5

When all this is over, remind me that I want to do some research on the origins of coffee. Aaaaah, sweet coffee. The taste of it on my lips this morning is like an angel's kiss.

No sweat getting home last night - there wasn't any traffic on the roads I took. All the stores and restaurants are closed, but most of their outside signs were still lit. Looked strange to see restaurants and bars that would have still had lots of customers that time of night with completely empty parking lots. The only businesses open were a few gas stations, which I guess were selling cigarettes and fountain drinks, cause their is no gas to be found between my hospital and our house.

Had a leftover steak and green beans for dinner, watched SportsCenter long enough to see that the Astros had beaten the Pirates 2-1, (behind a strong pitching performance by Galveston native Brandon Backe), then slept quite well until about 5:30.

On the drive into work, I only saw three places open for business: a couple of gas stations (cigs and cokes), the Eskimo Hut drive through beer/wine shed (with customers, I might add), and Dunkin Donuts. God bless the brave doughnut makers of Dunkin Doughnuts, who had customers lined up out the front door at 6:45am buying their little fried circles of love this morning. [Note to self: after hitting your target weight, celebrate at DD with 2 chocolate glazed and 2 french cruller doughnuts plus large joe.]

The sun was just coming up as I drove in, and there is just a little bit of cloud cover overhead, with more noticeable in the southeast sky. A very slight breeze doesn't even hint at trouble in the gulf, and obviously we've not had any rain yet.

I have my sleeping bag, pillow, suitcase and Austin's cub scout knife (Julie - no time to make a special hurricane trail mix, plus probably wouldn't have found a store open) so I am here until they tell me to leave.

Will check in as I can.

Rita 4

I feel like I should apologize for how drab these titles are, but I'm too tired to be clever.

Long day, 10pm and I am about to go home. I have the chance to sleep in my bed, with my ceiling fan, TV on, clean sheets, privacy - and I'm going to take it. Will be back here tomorrow by 6:30am, and don't expect to be able to go home again until Sunday night.

Today was a lot of preparation and a lot of waiting. Watched employees kids, set up sleep rooms for staff and their families, served dinner to staff and patients, unloaded a VERY LATE food delivery into the walk-in freezer/refrigerator (reminded me a little of my Sirloin Stockade days, 53 years ago when I was a teenager). Being in the freezer for half an hour was my favorite part! (Hot, bloody hot.)

Main problems today were staff who cancelled, staff who had been working 16 hours and needed to be relieved, staff who are from the evacuated hospitals who don't know where we keep the ___________ (fill in the blank). Staff, period. Record number of patients - extremely limited and tired staff.

Speaking of tired staff, I'm going home now. Hope I have better luck than the nurse who spent 18 hours in her car driving 40 miles to get here from Clearlake (one of the evacuation areas). At least she didn't bring a bird...

Rita 3

Someone who has lived in Houston all their life said it always get hot right before a hurricane. Not normal hot, which is pretty bad, but HOT. With record high temperatures yesterday and today, I'm in no position to disagree with her. Went out to my car at lunchtime and it is hot, humid and still - the air has a great weight to it.

Conducted a bried experiment at lunch. It started out as an attempt to sneak out for a little food to pigeon-hole in my office, but turned into an "experiment" when I saw the condition of the grocery store. One of the two sets of front doors was closed, so traffic was limited to one side, with people at the front watching you come in and watching you leave. Empty boxes were all over the floor by the registers, people were 7-8 deep in each line, carts full of the weirdest assortment of the remaining food in the store. Lots of chatter, a great deal of energy in the lines, cashiers and sackers working furiously to try to get folks through.

Where are all the courageous restaurant owners? IHOP - closed, Chili's - closed, McDonalds - closed. My bank was closed and the ATM was turned off. Most gas stations either have taken the numbers down off their signs indicating no gas, or put up zeros. Those that have gas had cars at every pump and lines of cars waiting into the street.

The hospital is much more calm today, with the hectic work of admitting patients and setting up their charts completed yesterday. Staffing is still a concern, as the nursing agency we use to supplement staff called at 1:00pm to say all their nurses had cancelled and were either evacuating or committed elsewhere. We've seen the staff split into two groups: one who are dedicated to being with their patients, and one who are dedicated to being with their families. I cannot feel any malice toward those who have refused our request to come in, but am very grateful for those who are here for the duration.

Our food supply truck made it in last night, but our nursing supply truck has called to say they aren't coming. We have a good amount of inventory on hand, and what we don't have we will re-use after washing or improvise. So the good news for patients is their nurses are the most passionate of the bunch, but the bad news is we may run out of supplies.

Crazy stuff going on already. A nurse came with her bird insisting that we keep it in the hospital or she was going to keep driving north, with the bird. So we are bird-sitting in nursing administration. We are offering to keep caged pets in the boiler room as a last resort, but so far it's just the bird. An employee called to ask if she could bring 19 members of her family with her for the weekend. Answer - only if they are all your children and your shoe is in a low-lying area. (OK, I made the shoe part up. "The little old lady who lived in a shoe" - anybody?)

The bosses are starting to get bossier, and Brad is starting to get crankier. We have the corporate COO, the corporate Compliance Officer (don't ask), VP of Quality, (again, don't ask) and 2 other corporate employees. Our local group of folks is doing great - we all work together fine. But some among us want to be Rudy Giuliani and so they are trying to tell everyone what to do. The rest of us are just trying to get our work done.

The storm appears to be headed east of Galveston, which would put us on the "clean" side of the hurricane (front left quadrant) instead of the "dirty" side (front right quadrant). I'm not sure why they designate them clean v. dirty, but the TV people are all saying it. All I know is clean is better than dirty (Mom taught me that, I think) so we're encouraged. Right now, everyone is planning on going home tonight, and then returning early Friday morning to ride it out until Saturday night or maybe Sunday. We expect sustained winds of 75-100mph (a first for me, I believe) and 10 or more inches of rain (nothing compared to the 23 inches in one day from Tropical Storm Allison)!

Still, keep us in your thoughts and prayers, as we will likely have 20-30 children here Friday night/Saturday morning when Rita gets into town. Hopefully they will sleep through the worst of it.

Shelley promised to come home and throw a huge block party if we dodge any house damage - at least we know the carpets will be in good shape for company!

Rita 2

Okay, enough already with the "worst storm to ever hit Texas" stuff on the news. Good grief. Everybody is plenty freaked out here. Every gas station on the way home from work was full of cars waiting for gas, most stations with the digital price signs had at least one grade of gas with $0.00 indicating, I assume, they were out of that level of gas. I filled up last night with mid-grade, because most of the stations near our house were out of regular.

Sheila and the boys arrived safely in Ft.Worth this afternoon with only one incident. Sheila was stopped for speeding this afternoon. When the troopers (one on each side of the car) asked her if she was evacuating, she tried to maintain her composure (wink, wink) as she told of her husband working around the clock at a Houston hospital caring for the sick and dying, and how she hated leaving him behind, etc... As she was about to squeeze out a fake tear, a young man (it's always a young man) came speeding by at 100+ mph (Sheila's estimate). The one trooper literally tossed her driver's license back in the window, yelling "drive safe" as he ran back to his car, with the other trooper a step behind. Sheila passed them with the poor speeding lad a little further down the road, but not before she realized that he had been caught speeding in a work zone. (For Oklahoma residents other than Steve, who will be VERY familiar with the Texas Highway Patrol regulations, that means double the fine!)

You are probably seeing pictures tonight of cars lined up forever on all major roads out of Houston. Glad my family got out ahead of all that. And they closed Austin's school for Thursday and Friday, which means no bad marks on his attendance record! With more than 1,000,000 evacuating, it's already starting to feel strangely quiet.

Our hospital had 80 patients this morning at 7:00am, and 129 by 7:00pm tonight when I left. All the patients from our "at-risk" hospitals were safely evacuated, and the hospital is well prepared for the worst.

Spoke to Austin tonight, who had 87 questions about this contingency and that probability. Tried to answer them all patiently and thoroughly, because I know he is going to be anxious until he gets home to see for himself that the house and I are still standing.

Shelley, whom I adore more tonight than ever before, is anxious too, but tired and busy being brave for the boys. If I could tell you only one story about her that would shed the most possible light on her personality, it would be this. Sunday night she started freaking out about the storm. Monday, after printing hurricane preparation tips off the Internet, she had a sit down planning meeting with me to get our important documents in order. Tuesday am she went to the grocery store, Costco and a number of other places until she felt like she had all the necessary supplies. Tuesday night, after I told her I had to be at the hospital all weekend, we decided she would leave with the boys Wednesday. So up to the attic to get baby pictures, clothes worn when we brought the boys home from the hospital, all precious keepsakes. Wednesday she picks Austin up early from school and leaves Houston, fully prepared to never see her house and her belongings again. But not before she vacuumed all the floors. I suspect if time had been a little shorter, she might not have vacuumed, but I can't say for sure. And that tells you everything you need to know about, and why I so love, my Shelley.

I'm packing clothes to last through the weekend tonight to take with me to the hospital. I expect to be able to come home tomorrow night before spending the next 2 or 3 days at the hospital, but can't be sure. Brought in all the stuff from outside (lawn furniture, potted plants, bird baths) and put it in the garage. We had a lot of stuff outside, I decided!

I am hoping to be able to blog throughout the storm, as several administration computers will be running off the generator even in power goes down, which we all expect. We'll see how that goes.

Rita

For the second time this summer, my family is evacuating in the anticipation of a hurricane. It is an understatement to say that this time is a little different.

I found out yesterday that the hospital has activated its disaster plan for weather effective immediately. We are asking all staff who are able to come to work Friday to bring with them clothes and personal items to last three days. We are providing childcare in the hospital for those employees who need to bring their families with them. We are accepting patients from the Triumph Hospitals closer to the Gulf of Mexico, specifically Clearlake, Victoria, Baytown, Channelview and possibly Downtown. We are licensed for 115 patient beds, but may see 125 patients or more in the hospital this weekend. In addition to patients, we are anticipating dozens of staff and dozens of patients' family members and dozens of staff's family members in the hospital over the weekend.

We do not expect to be in store for major storm damage. The storm surge does not threaten this hospital, but does potentially threaten the ones I mentioned. We anticipate a loss of electricity and localized flooding or tree damage/debris which will make travel to and from the hospital too dangerous or perhaps impossible for our staff.

I was just notified that there is a Code Yellow in place, which means no employees may leave the hospital unless cleared through the command center. Patients are being transferred starting this morning, because the local authorities are expected to commandeer all ambulances later today for evacuations.

I want to stress that I am not expecting to be in any danger from Hurricane Rita. I am going to be spending the weekend at the hospital coordinating staffing and supervising the care for staff's family members. Since I have to be at the hospital this weekend, Shelley and I agreed last night that she and the boys should head north. We don't want either of the boys to have a childhood memory involving sitting in the dark for hours while 100 mph winds rage outside. She hasn't decided yet whether she's headed to Tyler or Fort Worth. She has her cell phone with her if you need to reach her. They are leaving early this afternoon to avoid getting stuck in heavy traffic with everyone who is having to leave Galveston. We packed precious baby clothes and pictures in the car last night just to be extra cautious.

Saying goodbye to them all this morning was really tough. Braden has no idea what's going on, which is exactly the way we want it. He's getting to go bye-bye to visit aunts or grandparents and that's all good. Austin was in tears when I hugged and kissed him goodbye. I'll keep everyone updated as I can.

Hey Amy - You Want Duh Wrestle?!

Seeing post-facelift Kenny Rogers on TV day and night promoting "TimeLife.com Superstars of Country" has been fun, because it reminds me of the concerts we went to when I was a wee lad: Barry Manilow, John Denver, Kenny Rogers, B.J. Thomas, Amy Grant. Amy Grant was still just a teenager when I saw her in concert (with Dayna Bridges - aaaaaagh!), and I may still carry guilt from the dark, powerful, adolescent longing I felt for her even while she was singing contemporary Christian songs on stage! John Denver put on the best concert of the group, though I can remember thinking during the Barry Manilow concert "every single song he's singing has been a #1 smash hit in the last 12 months - how is that possible?"

Of course, I loved seeing KISS live the best, even though Dad nearly got into a fight with some stoned loser at the Lloyd Noble Arena which would have ruined everything. At some point I remember him telling me that "all the songs sound the same", which was asinine, of course. Until I had the opportunity to hear those songs years later, when they - needless to say - all sounded the same. I've become my father. Hoo boy...

Father to whom, you might ask? Why, to a 3-year-old whose favorite expressions right now include "zip it", "dat a bad choice", "huh-duh-doc-doc" (helicopter), "dat shark, duh cut you leave baaaaad boo boo, bad boo boo" (always 2 bad boo boos, never just 1) and various obsessive descriptions of "fie hi-dents" and "fie eh-sting-sirs" EVERY TIME we see a fire hydrant or fire extinguisher.

It may sound weird, but one of my favorite B-things right now is how he goes to the bathroom. He stands in front of the toilet/urinal, pulls his pants and underwear all the way down to his ankles, lifts the bottom of his shirt and tucks it under his chin, pushes his belly way out, and then proceeds to pee wildly from left to right, top to bottom all over the inside of the bowl. I think it's the holding his shirt under his chin that tickles me most, though that belly sticking out business is cute, too.

We spent this past weekend alone together while Sheila and Austin went to Ft. Worth to get stuff they had all planned on selling in a father/daughters garage sale but which will be donated to the folks from Louisiana instead. Braden spent much of the weekend asking "da-ee you want duh wrestle?" The answer was almost always 'yes', so we spent a rainy Saturday rough-housing in the living room.

Sheila got her hair professionally done while Austin ran around downtown Ft. Worth with his Uncle Jeff Z. Austin was able to get in a few digs about the Astros sweeping the Phillies last week, (Jeff's team) pushing them out of wild card contention, for now. He also took several photos of Jim and Sheryl's new house in Ft. Worth (the Pecan Plantation is home no longer). Curiously, many of the shots include extremely close-up self-portraits of Austin making bizarre expressions. (Note to self: monitor the 10-year-old when he asks to borrow the camera.)

Floam!

It is definitely too early to tell if this is a flash in the pan or the real deal, but Grand 8 Marketplace is definitely moving the Floam now. I don't want to jinx them, but the commission the parents stand to earn this month with this breakout product would be payable in a check around the middle of November, just in time for Christmas. How cool would that be?

To see how they are doing it, go to Google and search for "Floam". They actually have two listings in the top seven as of tonight. It could all change tomorrow, at Google's discretion, but so far so good.

From Moonwalks to Boardwalks

Here is a group of pictures of us at NASA and the Kemah Boardwalk taken over the course of a very busy Sunday. If we look tired, sweaty, ragged or disheveled in any other way, it is due to the nature of trying to corral very busy young children all day. That's all.

We got to the Johnson NASA Space Center shortly after they opened at 10:30, and spent most of the day checking out all the interesting stuff they have on display there, from the Apollo days up to Space Shuttle information. Took an informative tram ride to the area where they train astronauts on a full-size mock version of International Space Station modules - very nice. The highlight was the hands on climbing, handling, seeing, hearing activity area, where the kids all roamed freely (under supervision) for at least an hour, probably more like 90 minutes. They didn't want to leave, either - it was the parents who were worn out by it all.

The smallest boys finally took a nap later in the afternoon, and we wound down at NASA around 4:30. Drove 15 minutes to Kemah Boardwalk, were we had a nice mexican food dinner and enjoyed the amusements, rides and ocean views until 8:30ish. The drive back to Cypress was long and sleepy, but that didn't keep Labor Day from starting around 6:30am for the "Brothers Dervish". We all look forward to the day when they are old enough to know what "share" means and want to do it on occasion with each other. For now, it may be best that there are several hundred miles separating them!

Click on the image for a larger view of us all!

PS. Since we just got a digital camera, look for more and more images on the blog, for better or worse...

The Smallness of Man

Looking again at my post from Monday, the tone seems too jovial - almost flippant - in the face of a terrible disaster. In my defense, at the time of my post the full extent of the destruction was not yet known. I did not mean to be disrespectful.

It seems like a long time ago since that post - the sights I've seen and the stories I've read since then are horrifying. This natural disaster is of a scale I am not able to grasp fully.

But it is the breakdown in the social order that is truly terrifying. I don't believe there is anything wrong with taking water, food, diapers or medicine in the face of the deprivation the poorest citizens in New Orleans now face. But the wanton looting of electronics, jewelry, clothes; the violence committed against the first line responders (police, guardsmen, paramedics); commandeering vans from nursing homes; breaking into hospitals - why? It's disgusting, horrible behavior.

And it really bothers me that every racist in America (and beyond) is looking at the images from New Orleans and saying 'see there - those n***ers are savages'. I actually know of someone who observed 'you can take the people out of the jungle, but you can't take the jungle out of the people'. That type of behavior is disgusting, too.

There will be plenty of time to evaluate the lessons from Hurricane Katrina, and there are millions of reasons to try to figure out how to be better prepared. Impressions just a few days into this tragedy include the smallness of man in the face of nature, and the importance of public officials respecting those they represent, honestly committing all their personal resources to their work. Public service should be a humbling privilege, not a narcissistic exercise in self-promotion.

The poor, suffering people of New Orleans appear to have been failed by those elected to represent them. Shame on them.

The Glory of Old PU

Thought you all might enjoy a photo taken on the morning of Father's Day. The boys got me the Phillips University t-shirt for a Father's Day gift. As I was modeling it for them, the shame of having a dad who went to a school with a skunk as a mascot (Lil Hay) became too much for Austin. He's the one with the paper sack over his head.

Sigh...

Hurricanes and Bubble Baths

We've been watching the hurricane for the last couple of days, along with most folks in the southeast part of the country. It is especially odd watching reports from towns along the gulf coast we were in this summer, even if it was just passing through on our way to Destin. I was in New Orleans 3 years ago, staying at the Hyatt hotel next door to the Superdome. There have been pictures of that hotel on CNN today with windows broken out, curtains flapping in the wind - eerie.

Few of you will know that the Superdome was the sight of my finest adult athletic achievement (post knee surgery). At a regional HR meeting, I ran a 5k race (around the Superdome several times) in under 25 minutes. I'm sure I could have run it quicker except for the 2 Hurricanes and 1 cigar I had enjoyed at Pat O'Briens the night before. That and the fact I went to bed around 2am and the race was at 6:30am - though it was already about 125 degrees with 99% humidity when the race started. I never tried to pretend those HR meetings were strictly business!

We had a wild thunderstorm come through town Saturday night, knocking out our power from midnight to 8am. Around 10:45pm, Shelley came into Austin's room (as we tried to read the last chapters of Harry Potter) and said "you have to see this lightning". It was amazing. Huge strikes hitting the ground in the distance, crackling white streaks shooting across the sky, branching off in all directions like highways on a roadmap. It rained buckets, and I was happy to have mowed and edged the yard earlier that day, knowing it was soaking up the rain and I wouldn't have to slog through it on Sunday. Concerned that food in the freezer might spoil, I finished off the pint of Blue Bell Cookie Dough ice cream, which was fine.

We had an "organizational" meeting for Austin's Cub Scout den on Saturday, though I use the word "organizational" in quotes because it was anything but organizing. The parents in this group drive me nuts, because they don't listen and they don't follow directions and they visit with each other during meetings, leaving their boys to be wrangled by yours truly. Shelley and I prepared for 2 hours for this meeting, and we would have been better off staring at the sun for 2 hours, no more good than it did getting these parents to FOCUS! (I'll never forget the soccer coach "training" I went to in Amarillo. The leader assured us the boys would not be a problem, but the parents would make us want to pull out all our hair. Turned out exactly that way!)

Speaking of wanting to pull your hair out, a few tidbits about Braden are in order. The best trick I've got to get Braden into the bath is my offer to let him squirt in the bubble bath liquid. The first several times he did this he went berserk, squirting in way too much bubble bath with lightning-quick speed. After hearing me shout at him several evenings in a row, he has now taken up the habit of squirting in a tiny amount and asking "dat penty?" I'll say "no Braden, a little more". He'll squirt in a thimble-full and ask "dat penty?" "A little more." Out comes another tiny drop. "Dat penty?" "No, a little more please!" After about 5 to 10 rounds of this, I'll finally agree "yes, that's plenty", and he strips off his clothes, hops in the bath, and shakes his hand violently back and forth in the water to stir up as many bubbles as he can given his carefully rationed bubble bath liquid. It doesn't take much imagination to figure that the bathroom is usually a wet, soapy mess by the time he's done with his bath.

Bathtime also features one of his many endearing habits. Everytime I ask him to lay down in the water to get his hair wet (or to rinse out the shampoo), he starts to babble "da da da da da..." once his ears go underwater. I can remember as a little boy being fascinated by the muffled, distant sound of my own voice while talking with my ears under water, and it obviously entertains him, as well.

And special thanks to Aunt Kerry, who is the cause of my 3-year-old walking around the house all day declaring "here comes the big bad bunny, I come duh take all your money". If you make the mistake, (which I do, frequently) of replying "I don't have any money - all I have is this circus peanut" - or block, or remote control, or whatever I happen to have - he'll say "I take dat" and he removes whatever from your custody and marches off, asking "is no one safe from duh big bad bunny"?!

Austin and I went with Jeff Zirbser (Jamie's hubby) and Gibby (Austin's best friend) to an Astros game weekend before last. Not only was Austin able to get another baseball while leaning onto the visitor's dugout after the game, but he and Gibby were also on the Fox Sports SW national telecast of the game. Our neighbor was watching TV at home and saw him and Gibby leaning onto the dugout after a post-game interview on the field, in a close-up shot of the boys that lasted a full 5-10 seconds. (He had the shot on TIVO when we got home, and Shelley, Austin and I all went over there to watch - cool!) That was after their pictures were displayed on the big screen behind center field during the game holding up the "Go Stros"** poster Shelley and Austin made. Sometimes I think that kid is living a charmed life...

**Note to Mom: "Stros" is an abbreviation for "Astros", the nickname of the Houston Baseball franchise. I know how you disapprove of the use of mascots/nicknames when referring to sports teams, so I hope this helps clear that up. Love, B

La Porta Chicken

Since we just had this again this weekend and enjoyed it thoroughly, (its one of the very few meals we don't have to coax Braden to eat, spaghetti being the other), I thought I'd share this recipe with the world!

La Porta Chicken
(Named for a restaurant by the same name on the San Antonio Riverwalk)
Serves 4

Ingredients

3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
chili powder

Guacamole
4 avocados
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 lemon
4 Tablespoons picante sauce
1/2 Tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro

Fresh fruit

Directions

1. Sprinkle chili powder on the chicken breasts before cooking them on the grill. Allow to cool slightly, then slice into bite-size pieces. Set aside.

2. Make the guacamole by using a fork to mash together the avocados, garlic powder, juice of 1/2 lemon, picante sauce and cilantro. Add salt and pepper (or more of the other ingredients) to taste.

3. Combine chicken with guacamole in a serving bowl.***

4. Serve with bite-sized pieces of seasonal fresh fruit. We like pears, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, apples, white grapes and/or kiwi fruit. (Try to include the kiwi fruit - it just looks so cool.) 3 or 4 choices of fruit should be plenty.

Serve with tortilla chips and picante sauce (obviously!) and a bottle each of cerveza w/lime for the adults.

The only way to make this dish any better is to eat it outdoors on the patio.

***Since the boys don't like avocados (Braden calls it "crock-amole"), we let them have the grilled chicken without the guacamole. No extra work for Sheila or me and the boys get some protein with their fruit.

Do It All Fass

Updates on the boys.

1) At 3:00am this morning, the door to our bedroom slammed shut, waking me and Shelley from deep sleep. The "Fight or Flight" reflex triggered immediately in me as I jumped out of bed and, heart beating furiously, began walking to the door to see what manner of home invasion I would need to fend off. Shelley asked "what was that?" as I got to the door, and I answered "I have no idea". "Wait-" she said, "the baby's here." Her eyes had just focused enough to see that Braden was standing stealthily at her side of the bed. "Braden, what are you doing?" she asked. "Eh trying to get me" he answered, crawling on top of her with his ever-present blanket. "What tried to get you?" Shelley asked. "Duh monter," came Braden's sleepy reply. I opened the bedroom door, checked for monsters and returned to bed, where Braden was very nearly asleep already on Shelley's chest (and torso, and legs) as she soothed him with head stroking and whispered assurances that he was safe with us. My heart beat so hard as I got back in bed I whispered that the boy was trying to kill me. She chuckled softly as she carried him back to his room.

2) At bedtime, (which regular readers will know is about my favorite time of the day with the boys), one of Braden's two favorite books currently is "Busy, Buzzy Bees" (a gift from his Aunt Kerry). Last night at dinner, Braden began quoting parts of "Busy, Buzzy Bees" at the dinner table, cracking us all up. "Oink oink," said duh pig "do you wanna have some fun?" "Bzz bzzz," said bees "we duh make a sweet surprise!" The whole book consists of these questions and answers, with various farm animals asking the bees to play and the bees secretively hurrying off to work. Of course, the lines B recited didn't go together (the answers rhyme with the questions), but the way he mimicked the voices I use when I read it to him was priceless. The more Shelley and I laughed, the more he cracked up, too. "Woof woof," said duh dog "wanna chase duh butterflies..."

3) When we read his other favorite, the short Halloween classic "A Dark, Dark House" (a gift from his Grandma), he always asks me at the end to "do it all fass?" At his Bible study class, they had a few songs they sang that they got to sing and act out the hand motions to "all fast", (which he loved, of course). He has since expanded that experience to reading books and anything else he can think of. So I always re-read the "Dark, Dark House" 'all fass', causing us both to fall out in hysterics.

4) Needless to say, bedtime reading routines at our house now include a chapter or two of "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" with Austin. He was gone for a week with Shelley & B right after we got the book, so we have only made it to Chapter 7 or 8, but so far it has been funny and interesting, with only hints of the "kissy-kissy" stuff that makes Austin squeamish. Harry in mortal danger from the dark Lord Voldermort we can handle: his awkward teenage interest in girls tends to be a little too much!

5) Austin got to go shopping for school clothes in Ft. Worth last week with his "totally cool" Aunt Tiffany, former store manager of a hipster clothes store in a mall in Arlington. They made stops at the Gap, Abercrombie & Fitch, and other stores too fabulous for me to even know their names. His prize find is probably the shell necklace he wears constantly, or the Nike sneakers, or possibly the "Vote for Pedro" t-shirt styled after a similar offering in the strangely hilarious movie "Napoleon Dynamite". It all adds up to a wardrobe that has him looking more and more like a teenager and less and less like a little boy. Appropriate, I suppose, for his LAST YEAR OF ELEMENTARY SCHOOL BEFORE STARTING JR. HIGH SCHOOL!

As long as he still wants to snuggle with me while I read to him at bedtime, I think I'll be ok. But the day is quickly approaching when he will become too big for that, and I will have to go into a period of great sadness for awhile when that happens. But not tonight - tonight Harry, Hermione, Ron and all the rest of the Hogwarts' students prepare for their return to their 6th year at school, amidst the increasingly dangerous civil war among the wizards and witches. Muggles beware!

Much Depends on Dinner

Families don't sit down to eat together anymore. Something has been lost.

BY CAMERON STRACHER
Friday, July 29, 2005

(The above article was printed in the Wall Street Journal today, and is available online via the link above. Here is my response, which I posted on the author's website Dinner With Dad as well as below.)

Enjoyed your commentary in Opinion Journal online. (Seriously, has someone really linked the decline in families dining together with the rise in illegal file sharing?)

I am fortunate in that my wife stays home with our two boys (10 and 3) and I work 45 minutes from home. Work days are rarely longer than 10 hours, so almost every night I am home for dinner.

Most nights my wife cooks our meals - some good, some not so much - and I cook, too, though not as well as her. There is a hole-in-the-wall mexican restaurant five minutes from our house with good, cheap fajitas and live music "Wednesdays with Juan" which is so awful it's fantastic. $5 pizza Mondays and a weekend stop at our favorite deli round out the majority of our evening meals together. Key word - together.

The mother who told you "it's just not fun to eat with them," referring to dinner with her kids, is right. She should also be ashamed for being so shallow and self-centered. My 3 year old spends most of the time at our dinner table crawling in and out of his chair and complaining that his food has "germs". My 10 year old, though better mannered, is a piddler, meaning his mother and I will be done with our meals just as he is getting going. Dinner with the boys is not (usually) fun, but it is too important to quit for the sake of something more amusing or satisfying.

I'm convinced dinner together is a comforting landmark in the terrain of our boys' busy, sometimes chaotic, lives. If sacrifices are required to provide them that sense of safety, or to impress upon them their place in a family, then so be it.

In a few years, peaceful dinners for my wife and me will common, and no doubt filled with conversations about when the boys will be home next, preferably with our grandchildren...

Best wishes.

The Calm Before the Storm

Quick update on Shelley and the boys.

They decided yesterday to check out this morning and drive back a day earlier than originally planned. When checking out this morning, a sign in the office indicated that officials had ordered a tourist evacuation of Destin ahead of Hurricane Dennis, (currently a Category 4 hurricane SSW of the Florida Keys).

Shelley and the boys went to the Taj to say goodbye, and were awed by how still the ocean was, with waves no bigger than you would see on a lake. This was especially striking after two days of rough water following Tropical Storm Cindy. They were equal parts glad to be going home and sad at missing being in such calm water on such a sunny, beautiful day.

As they left around 10:15am, they discovered that all gas stations on the island were either closed and boarded up, or had lines that were 25 or more cars deep to get the remaining gas. They crossed the mid-bay bridge into Niceville, and found a gas line with only about 12 cars in it. After waiting for 35 minutes, they ran out of Premium, the only type of gas that was left when Shelley got in line. Driving off, they found a gas station (with only Premium gas left) at I-10, and got the half tank of gas needed for a full tank.

While in line at the gas station they noticed that clouds had started making their way into the sky overhead, and Shelley and Jamie both got a case of the heebie-jeebies realizing they were in the literal "calm before the storm".

They are on Interstate Highway 10 now, heading West without any difficulties or heavy traffic. I expect them to be home around 10 or 11pm tonight.

Our prayers go out to those who must stay behind and face the wrath of this horrible storm.

UPDATE: 3:00pm, Friday - Shelley is in Biloxi, Mississippi. Traffic was heavy around Mobile, Alabama but has tapered off the further west they go. Gas stations are open and have regular gas.

Care for an Oreo?

Our family vacation to Destin, Florida with Sheryl's family was terrific, featuring white sand, blue water, fireworks and good food. We left for Destin with anxiety about sharks attacking just days before, and left Destin with anxiety about Hurricane Dennis arriving days later. It was an "Oreo" trip - time at the beach was the creamy white filling between two dark cookies (sharks and hurricanes) on either side. It was a Traditional Oreo for me, a Double-Stuf Oreo for Sheila and the boys, as I flew out of Destin Tuesday morning and everyone else is driving in tomorrow. Okay, enough with the cookie metaphors.

We drove 11 hours on Saturday to get to Destin around 8pm, and it was still light enough to see that the sand was whiter and the water bluer than anything we saw in Padre. The most interesting detail of the beach was the sand - it felt like brown sugar, bigger and "sturdier" than the sand in Padre. It's hard to describe but everyone commented on it. Sheryl's sister (Cande) rented a house on the beach for the week to help celebrate her husband Steve's 50th birthday. I immediately dubbed the house "The Taj Ma-Cande" because it was 3 stories tall, had 6 bedrooms, and easily (EASILY) cost $10,000 to rent for the week! We stayed in a very nice condo across the street from the Taj, which gave us access to a swimming pool as well as the beach. Good thing, too, because Braden and I were in the pool by 7:30am Sunday and Monday, giving everyone else a chance to get some more sleep as well as giving us some quality Father-Son time. His favorite things to do at the pool were dunking me under the water (no big surprise there) and throwing a rock into the pool, having me "fetch" it, and then letting him try to guess which hand it was in. I bet we played "fetch" for a good hour both mornings.

Cande and Steve had all three of their girls, with their husbands and their children (four in all) staying in the house with them, as well as members of Steve's family, and friends -- who can know how many there were? "Too many" would be the correct answer, and I think they started getting crabby with each other by about Saturday evening.

Sunday was beautiful, with the boys having a heyday on the beach, Shelley and I getting a private dinner at a wonderful restaurant with superb waitstaff, and me getting to go to bed early with the boys while Sheila, Jamie and the other family members from our generation went out to a club until ??am.

Monday was a repeat of Sunday's weather at the beach, followed by a catered birthday dinner at the Taj. The highlight was, of course, the fireworks, which proud Americans shot off up and down the beach as far as you could see in either direction. Austin led the discharge of the pyrotechnics in our party, (Steve Horst would have had a tear in his eye, and not just from the heavy smell of sulfur). I have to admit that the site of Austin in the moonlight with the waves crashing behind him and a burning punk clinched between his teeth made me a little emotional, too! Some of the fireworks had too loud a report for some in our party, but that didn't deter Austin from emptying our depot of all its treasure.

Tuesday morning I got up at 4:45am to make a 6:25 flight out of Ft. Walton Beach airport, with a scheduled arrival time in Houston (via DFW airport) of 10:30am. I saved $40 flying American Airlines through DFW as opposed to booking a direct flight on Continental into Houston. Here's how that worked out for me:

7:00am - Left FWB late due to rerouting and refueling to accommodate for weather in Central Texas;
9:15am - landed in Waco, TX while DFW was closed to ground traffic due to thunderstorms;
9:15 - 12:30pm - sat in the (small) plane on the tarmac in Waco because six AA planes had landed in Waco with us, creating a potential security problem if we all came into the terminal at the same time;
12:30pm - left Waco;
1:15pm - landed DFW;
2:15pm - pulled into a terminal at DFW after waiting an hour behind a dozen other planes which had landed ahead of us and waited for a terminal, too;
2:15 - 3:30pm - considered physically harming one or more human beings over the slightest provocation, as effective but ultimately counter-productive stress reliever;
3:30pm - left DFW;
4:50pm - arrived in Houston, nearly 11 hours after getting on the plane in FWB and at the EXACT SAME TIME I WOULD HAVE GOTTEN THERE HAD I RENTED A CAR IN FLORIDA AND DRIVEN BACK!
Wednesday, 9:00am - turned in PTO request for missing work Tuesday, which cost us a wee bit more than the $40 dollars we "saved" by buying the cheaper airfare. (Note to self: fly non-stop whenever possible.) Oh, and by getting to the house after 6:00pm, I was unable to get Snoopy from the kennel Tuesday night, costing us an extra $15 insult. (Note to self: #%^/~*@!)

Shelley and the boys had a carefree day on Tuesday, followed by a rainy Wednesday and a gorgeous Thursday. Thursday was marred only by a brief "incident" at the pool. It seems Braden needed to go to the bathroom, so he got out of the pool, pulled down his trunks, and began to pee into the water. Guests at the pool were described as "mortified", none less so than Shelley, who immediately raced towards Braden directing him to stop. Witnesses describe what happened next as an "intentional aim adjustment", resulting in his peeing on his Mother's head, arms and hands, no doubt as she waved them in horror at this wet assault. As is so often the case in these matters, Shelley (after surfacing from the cleansing waters of the pool) took Braden away for appropriate discipline, while Austin, Jamie and others laughed unabashedly at our little angel's latest caper.

Concerns about "evacuation" plans being broadcast in Destin prompted them to leave a day early, on Friday morning instead of Saturday. Jamie will help Shelley with the driving and the boy-management, and will return home to her hubby Saturday or Sunday.

And that's how I spent my summer vacation. Except the summer is only half over!

Next up: the Harris posse comes to town...

South Padre - The Final Chapter

Our final day at the beach was spent mostly under the shade of the beach umbrella after spending the morning at the swimming pool. The pool occupied the space immediately to the west of the condos, so we swam and played and acted silly in the shade of the morning sun. When mid-day hit, we went inside for lunch, an SPF full-body treatment, and then on to the beach. Sheila, who hadn't been feeling well all morning, became increasingly sick to her stomach and miserable. She stayed very still in bed while Braden napped, allowing Austin and me to build a sandcastle.

Actually, saying what Austin and I built was a sandcastle is really a bit misleading. What we did was dig a square hole about 6'x 6' around the base of the umbrella, leaving a 1' square in the center where the umbrella remained firmly anchored in the sand. "Umbrellaville", as Austin came to call it, was about 18" deep, or exactly the depth to which you had to dig to get to the tarry, black layer of petrochemical residue. To call Umbrellaville "quaint" or "charming" would be plain wrong. It would not be wrong, however, to call it a democracy. You see, Austin soon began to designate the larger shells we dug up as members of Umbrellaville's city council, which operated out of the 1' square in the center of "town". As duly elected guardians of the city, they were responsible for overseeing construction, as well as composing a pledge of allegiance, (with our help). We spent several hours working on the development of U-ville, only to witness it's massive devastation at the hands of - who else - Braden. In fairness to B's already sullied reputation, he was invited to help destroy our work with the help of his older brother.

After washing up, and with Shelley feeling slightly better, we went to our favorite place to eat in Padre - Louie's Back Porch. The food was so bad, even I had a hard time eating it, and their are cast iron skillets jealous of how solid my stomach is. To add to our misery, it was still unbelievably hot, we sat out in the sun on the patio (felt odd wearing sunglasses at dinner), our table was dirty and sticky, the cold foods were warm and the hot foods were warm, too. And NONE of it tasted good. All of this was no good for Shelley's belly, to say the least. The only bright spot, (besides the reflection of the sun off my ever-expanding forehead), was Austin's recollection of the time at Louie's that a sea gull flew overhead and pooped on Dad's face and glasses. I'm sure Dad remembers the incident with much less fondness than we did that night, but the memory of it still cracks Austin up pretty good.

After "dinner", we went back to the beach with our flashlights and proceeded to unleash the force of nature that is Braden on the unsuspecting sand crabs which foolishly wandered out of their underground safe havens into our path. It was dusk, so flashlights were required to see the crabs, but once they were spotted, Braden dropped to his knees and began scurrying about after them with surprising quickness. He actually caught a few before the toll his "handling" was having on the local crab population began to alarm his mother and me. Sheila then demonstrated the compassionate way to "catch and release" sand crabs, and Braden remained fascinated by the little guys until it became too dark to spot them, even with flashlights.

Back at the condo, there were more chocolate chip cookies to bake, more ice cream to eat, and more games to play before it was off to sleep.

The next morning we spent a little time in the pool before cleaning up, packing and shaking the sand off of our garmets (literally and figuratively) as we left town to return to humbler but happier confines.

The trip home took FOREVER, but there were a few highlights. We stopped at a roadside fruit stand north of Harlingen and bought three large jugs with which we intend to build a fountain/pond once the weather cools off a little. We cracked ourselves up at a Border Guard checkpoint several miles further up from Harlingen, "worrying" that they might ask us some awkward questions about why three sunburned Anglos would be travelling away from the Mexico border with a brown-skinned toddler onboard.

And, at Austin's pleading, we took a slight detour to pass through Goliad, site of the Presidio de La Bahia, the oldest, fully intact fort dating from the Texas Revolution. Here Austin recounted for us, with remarkable detail, the story of the Goliad Massacre. It was just outside this fort where General James Fannin and 342 of his men were executed by the ruthless Mexican General Santa Anna in violation of the terms of surrender they negotiated. It was a very interesting place with an incredible history, originally built by the Spanish to protect their territory against the pesky French wandering about from their Lousiana Territories. And I did not know it until this visit, but the battle cry of the Texas Revolutionaries at San Jacinto, (site of Santa Anna's defeat at the hands of a much smaller army), was 'Remember the Alamo, Remember La Bahia'.***

But the best part of our tour was Austin's demeanor, which was equal parts fascination and reverence. He became outraged - I'm using the word outraged here - at the site of some ketchup which someone had spilled at the base of the Fannin memorial, because it showed such a lack of understanding about the seriousness and importance of the ground on which we were standing. He was as respectful and solemn as a veteran the whole time we were at the fort and we absolutely love that about him.

Of course, the mood was completely lost when, on the walkway back to the parking lot, Braden stopped, pulled down his shorts and began peeing on the grass before any of us noticed he had fallen behind. Mercifully, no state employees nor fellow visitors happened to see his misdemeanor defacing of an historical site. It also goes without saying that NO ONE wanted to hear me discourse on Oklahoma state history, leaving my question 'who can name for me the five civilized tribes' unanswered and without an expression of interest in knowing the answer.

That was our trip. Glad I got that written so I can move on to July 4th at Destin, Florida. That's next time.


*** For those of you reading this who were taught Oklahoma state history (so therefore don't know much about Texas state history), and are furthermore inclined to believe that I would just as soon lie as tell the truth, I recommend to you this site, which will verify that what I have written above is, in fact, the truth. And shame on you, by the way...

There's a New Blogger in Town...

Congratulations to Blair for a) joining the blogger community - "flex those VRWC muscles!" - and b) for the news about their expected child being a girl! Condolences to Clark, though I'm guessing Miss Ryleigh is pretty thrilled that you got this one right!

Keep an eye on Blair's family, as well as As Seen on TV Products, HERE!

The South Padre Chronicles (Part 2)

Day 2 began with our making Julie's Cinnamon Pull-Aparts for breakfast - an interesting experience which leads me to remind everyone that an angel food cake pan is NOT a good substitute for a bundt pan when making this recipe. The butter/cinnamon from the rolls leaked through the bottom of the pan, filling our condo with the unforgettable smell of scorched cinnamon. (The terrible smell and smoke made me wish we had one of those Oreck Air Cleaners or even one of those Cheap Ionic Breeze Quadra Air Purifiers but alas, we did not!) Knowing we would have to scrub the bottom of the oven later only added to our upset over this completely avoidable turn of events. The rolls themselves were quite tasty, and the boys enjoyed them each morning we were there. Thanks Sis!

Once the breakfast dishes were cleaned up and juice boxes/snacks packed in our beach bag, everyone was basted in sunscreen and off to the beach we went. We rented a beach umbrella and two lounge chairs, set Sheila up with a good book, and Austin and I began to test the waves for "surf-ability". The current was stronger than I remember - locals told us later that a storm had passed through a few days earlier, stirring everything up. Austin would spend most of the day riding waves on his boogie board, a 3-foot long, half-surfboard flotation device upon which a rider places his/her upper body to ride the waves. He would ride waves awhile, the current would carry him north, he'd get out, walk south past where Sheila read, then get back in and repeat the process.

Braden played on the beach and in the shallowest part of the water, preferring the shells and gulls to waves and salty ocean spray. At one point around lunchtime, he got in trouble for something or other and went to Shelley for comfort. He crawled up in her lap on the lounge chair, and after about 5 minutes fell sound asleep. Sheila moved to the other chair, covered Braden with a beach towel, and proceeded to read uninterrupted for at least two hours while he napped! During most of that nap time, I was with Austin in the water helping him catch the really big waves. We think it was during this time frame when we both got so badly sunburned - him worse than me, since he hardly came out of the water/sun all day. He started looking pink to Shelley after Braden woke up, and she made him sit in the shade of the umbrella for about a half-an-hour, which he hated. But by the time we had all gotten cleaned up for dinner, he was clearly burned, worse than we could ever remember. There were several aloe vera plants in containers around the condo's pool area, and I cut off several pieces to harvest their pure, burn-treating goodness. He was really tired and still pretty sore as we left for dinner.

There are three places where we love to eat in Padre: Amberjack's, Scampi's and Louie's Back Porch. Scampi's is too nice (and pricey) to go and wrestle with a 2-year old, so we went to Amberjack's, saving Louie's for Saturday night. And thus began our encounter with the epidemic of surly, unhelpful service which appears to have overtaken the island. When we walked in, the hostess asked how many we had in our party. After replying, she barked "you know we don't have a full menu tonight - only the buffet and this limited ala carte menu", shoving an abbreviated, one page menu at us. Taken aback, I walked over to the buffet, and establishing that they had peel and eat shrimp and other acceptable fare, we agreed to be seated. Our waiter was moderately helpful, the menu items Shelley and Braden ordered did arrive quickly, but the stuff on the buffet line was just not very good. (Me to the dirty, disheveled buffet line guard: "What kind of fish is that?" DDBLG: (Rudely) "It's chicken." Me: (Cheerfully) "Oh, prairie fish! DDBLG: Vacant-eyed stare into space.) On the other hand, it WAS more expensive than we remembered!

Coming to the night's rescue, Shelley, a woman who plans for vacations like military generals prepare for battle, baked chocolate chip cookies (from the dough she packed with our other supplies from home) and we had warm cookies with vanilla ice cream back at the condo. We all played a couple of rounds of Animal Lotto (basically bingo with animal pictures instead of letters and numbers), more aloe vera, then it was off to sleep.

Good Grief

Sorry to be so cryptic, but I have been strictly forbidden from commenting on this particular subject matter.

Suffice it to say, one can only wonder what some people might possibly be thinking!

Love ya!

The South Padre Chronicles (Part 1)

Our family vacation to S. Padre Island has come and gone, and it is time to share some of what happened.

First, we were delighted that the drive itself took only six hours, with a 15 minute stop for lunch and 2 bathroom breaks. As we drove over the bridge from Port Isabel to the island, Shelley and I agreed that we could make that trip a couple of times a year if the opportunity presented itself. Sadly, by the time we left, several disappointments with the state of the island left us agreeing it might be quite a while before we returned.

Instead of staying at the Sheraton Hotel on the south end of the island, as we have every time before, we decided to rent a condo for our stay. Meals in the room for breakfast and lunch, as well as a reasonable cost for the room itself, made the trip more economically feasible than the hotel plus all meals out. When we got to the condo we rented, brave faces (for the children's sake) hid our horror at the condition of the unit. Without going into too much detail, it smelled bad, looked dirty, had badly soiled and worn furniture and was much smaller than advertised. As the boys looked at the ocean from our balcony, I proceeded to call the property management company and, using my David Horst voice, demanded a clean replacement. To their credit, they put us in a 2-bedroom condo which was very recently remodeled and a very nice place for us to stay. We unpacked all our stuff, including loading the refrigerator with all our food and drinks, and put together a simple picnic dinner to eat on the beach (the reason, after all, that we were there).

It was dinner time, so nearly everyone had left the beach for us to enjoy privately, which we did. The boys had little interest in eating any of the food we had packed, opting instead to pick up shells, run around in the water and chase the occasional sea gull. Shelley and I were pretty content to have a couple of cervezas, sit on our blanket and watch the boys be boys. If you consider how much these two enjoy their 5' by 5' sandbox, is it any wonder that they seem completely free and happy to be running around our little section of South Padre? Austin can entertain himself for endless hours at the beach, and did this evening. Though Braden checks in with Ma-ee and Da-ee quite frequently, he played non-stop too, needing only to be watched closely to prevent him from (fearlessly) trying to go out into the ocean as far as Austin.

Once it started to get dark, we went back to the condo, got the boys showered and settled into their room (2 twin beds) and then went to our room to watch tv until we fell asleep. Overall a good start to our trip.

Back soon with Day 2...

In the meantime, there is a hot new product online which requires your attention: White Light Tooth Whitener System. The White Light Tooth Whitening System will help remove stains caused by coffee, tea, fruit juice, smoking, aging, cola, and more using the speed of light! Only $29.99 plus s&h.

I Don't Think So

2 Braden stories, 2 Austin stories, 2 Product pitches - how tidy!

Yesterday morning at breakfast, Shelley asked Braden to eat his food so she could take him into his room to get dressed before getting Austin to the bus stop (the usual morning routine). Braden said, for the first time anyone of us had heard it, "I don't fink so, Ma-ee". I regret that it is not possible to convey the inflection in his voice, because it sounded just like Shelley when Austin or I ask her something she deems preposterous.

At dinner time, right before we ask God to bless the meal, Braden has started reciting the schedule for his day at Blessed Beginnings Mother's Day Out (he went on Mondays this school year - is done now). "Dub duh pay pills (play with play-dough), duh pay puzzles, duh dub uh duh knack (snack), pay ow-sigh (outside), dub duh uh seep (naptime) and Ma-ee comes back!" Then, having informed us of the daily regimen, he is ready to bow his head and pray. Who knows why...

Austin had some trouble with his campaign speech for Vice President of Student Council yesterday. He tried to memorize the whole speech (about 1 1/2 minutes) and was doing a very good job giving it to me and Shelley Tuesday night. But the staring sea of "poker faces" he described on his 4th grade constituents Wednesday afternoon lead him to forget what he was supposed to say about half-way through. He said he stood there silent for about 30 seconds before coming up with something to say. He was not as disappointed at losing as he would have been had not 1) his best friend Gibby lost the Presidential race, 2) his good friend Cameron won VP, and 3) his good friend Trevor won President and had a victory swim party at his house Wednesday night, which Austin attended and enjoyed thoroughly. He plans to run for classroom representative to the council next year, and this will have been good experience.

The Hamilton Tigers (baseball team) lost their first post-season game on Saturday, forcing them into the loser's bracket game tonight. With us trailing by 2 runs in the 3rd inning (of 4), Austin came up with the bases loaded and 2 outs. He was down in the count 1 ball, 2 strikes, when the pitcher threw a wild pitch. The boy on 3rd stole home, but the pitcher blocked the plate, and, with the throw from the catcher, tried to tag our boy out as he came up short of home. Their pitcher dropped the ball, and was literally sitting on our boy trying to gather it up, with our boy's foot less than 12 inches from the plate. Austin grabbed our boy's foot and tried to pull him to safety onto home plate, which resulted in an "interference" call by the umpire, and an automatic "out" for our boy. And THEN things got crazy.

Our parents were apopletic, the kids were upset and crying in the dugout, and our head coach got so out-of-control that he got thrown out of the ballpark. Don, the other asst. coach, and I gathered the boys up, told them to go out and play baseball, and sent them onto the field for the top of the 4th inning. Our pitcher, who had been wild up to this point, struck out the first 2 batters he faced and, after walking 2 boys on, struck out the final batter of their half of the frame.

So bottom of the 4th, we trail by 2 runs, Austin comes up to bat. Strike one, strike two, ball one... I am about to throw up in the first base coach's box, because if we lose this game, our season is over. Did Austin strike out? I don't fink so! The very next pitch he hit as hard as any he has hit all season, left-center field, all the way to the fence on 3 or 4 hops. Stand up double.

Next boy up hits a scorching line drive to right field, scoring Austin, and scoring himself on a throwing error. Game tied. Next boy up gets thrown out at 1st base, the next boy walks, next hits an infield single. 2 boys on base, one out, game tied, bottom of the final inning. Umpire yells "time has expired". Boys and parents begin to freak out (again)!

(Remaining) coaches gather up at the pitcher's mound, umpire asks the coaches if we know what the playoff tie breakers are? Their coach says "1st tie-breaker is defensive outs, 2nd is a coin toss." Umpire - "That's right, coach. The Tigers have 12 defensive outs, the Cardinals have 10." Their coach holds out his hand and says "good game coach". Tigers win! Tigers win!

Are we done with the post season? I don't fink so! Next game, Saturday, noon! By far the wierdest, wildest, least predictable game of the season. I'm exhausted but had to tell you all the story, especially since I know Mom checks the blog on Thursdays and Fridays when she is at the church.

Speaking of Mom (and Dad), the shameless product promotion two entries ago has already generated over $100 of sales - long story, some other time - so in an effort to increase their odds of getting to New York this year with a couple of bucks in their pockets, a gratuitous plug for Huggable Hangers by Joy Mangano, for sale at Grand 8 Marketplace. These handy hangers help save space in the closet and make small spaces seem bigger. Buy several today!

Finally, Thyrin ATC for Weight Loss has become a big seller of eShop Til You Drop, and I hope you will consider the Buy 2 bottles, get 1 Free promotion while we still have it.

Ya'll don't mind me plugging all these TV products do you?

At least we know what Braden would say!

Seven Weeks

...Weeks before (Pentecost), Peter and the Disciples were holed up together in a room, scared for their lives, full of doubts. Luke tells us their initial response to the women who had returned from the tomb to tell of His resurrection was disbelief – in fact, the women’s words "seemed like nonsense". When Jesus appears to them in that room later the same day, they were startled and frightened, prompting Jesus to ask them “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds?”

Yet in seven weeks time, they chose to forfeit their former lives entirely, and to risk their lives for the sake of proclaiming Christ! Their choice is where our faith comes to rest. Because they could have chosen to go home and we would not be here today. They could have returned to their homes, their carpentry shops, their fishing boats, their families – the lives they had before they encountered Jesus. They could have - but they did not.

Seven weeks. From scared for their very lives, hiding in a room, to raising their voices to proclaim the gospel to everyone who had ears to hear it in the middle of Jerusalem.

We’ve had quite a lot going on in our lives the last seven weeks, too. These events going on around us since Holy Week must cause us to take notice, to question, to decide as Christians how we are to respond...

Read the rest of the sermon here or listen to it online here.

In, Not Of

That is the working sermon title for my message this Sunday, May 15th at Cypress Creek Christian Church & Community Center. The reference is to John 17:14-18, where Jesus describes the disciples as "not of the world" but sent out "into the world". The message will discuss various ways Christians have understood the relationship between their faith and their culture, as described in the wonderful book "Christ and Culture" by H. Richard Niebuhr. We read it at PU, and it was a classic even then (20 years ago!). Any and all who read these words are welcome to come. I will be posting an outline on Good and Faithful Servant, and the church will have the audio version available within a couple of weeks.

Austin is well. He is running for VP of Student Council next year, and gives a speech next week. His campaign poster is shaped like 4 very large playing cards (aces, naturally) with the slogan "Vote for Austin, Your 'Ace' for VP". His baseball team starts post-season play this Saturday, and we hope to make a respectable showing. By wins and losses this team has not done too well, but they have improved all year long and had fun, to boot.

Tuesday was our last scout den meeting of the school year, and we held it at a local fun park called "Mountasia". It was $10 Tuesday, so miniature golf and all arcade games were $10 for unlimited access the whole night. Steve will be happy to know we purchased the $7.50 upgrade for unlimited go-karting, as well. When we got there, there was nobody in line for the go-karts, so the attendant told Austin and me to "go as long as you want - I'm not going to wave you in". So Austin and I had a 20-minute, uninterrupted race, which was totally unfair due to the 175 pound payload difference between his car and mine. Clearly I was the superior driver, (clearly!) but Austin was wildly aggressive, not only cutting me off but the few teen-aged boys who happened to be on the track, also. I fear for the day the State of Texas issues that boy a driver's license!

Braden is already as brown as a coffee bean and loving the unusually mild Spring we have been having. Though we had tons of rain on Mother's Day (moving our picnic into the living from the park near our church), nearly every other day the last few weeks has been cool in the mornings & evenings. Braden (or just "B" as Shelley has started calling him) has his first official chore - filling the two birdfeeders we have, 1 in the front and 1 in the back. He will even notice when the feeders are low, and tell me or Shelley "dub duh dub Bray-un dub duh quidda kwunch", which (of course) means "it looks like Braden needs to put out some more Critter Crunch", which is the name of the feed Shelley got. It has all sorts of stuff in it, including feed for small (non-rodent) animals as well as birds. In the mornings, one of the first things B likes to do is go check out the front window to see if anything is eating the "quidda kwunch". On those glorious mornings when he sees "our" squirrel at the feeder, he comes squealing into the kitchen jabbering about "squirrs" and "quidda kwunch" and who knows what else.

Shelley has developed a strong attachment to a pair of doves who have built a nest in the gutter above our porch, but my favorites are still all the cardinals we have visiting in front and back.

But all God's quiddas, great or small, are welcome.

And Now, A Word From Our Sponsors

Fans of this blog who check it for (increasing less) occasional postings will want to take heed that what follows is not any of the following:

* funny stories about Braden's vocabulary or behavior;
* updates to Austin's sporting or academic achievements; or
* a heartfelt ode to Mothers everywhere, especially mine and/or my children's.

This post is primarily a crass attempt to capitalize on a fluke of search engine optimization, details of which I will not bore you. Suffice it to say, I have my reasons (boo-ya-ha-ha-ha!).

I have been anxious that sales of our As Seen on TV products would seriously drop off by this time of year, but am happy to say they have not yet. As days get longer and warmer, less people hunker down in front of their TV's seeing all the ways As Seen on TV products can improve their lives.

Like Hylexin. Hylexin is the first formula specifically developed to dramatically reduce the appearance of serious dark circles, and we have it for sale for only $95 a tube.

Or Endothil CR. Endothil is a revolutionary new approach to building bigger, stronger muscles without steroids or steroid-like precursors, and it's only $49.99.

We are selling a heckuva lot of Propolene. For only $29.95, you will receive a free bottle along with 3 additional bottles of Propolene. After 30 days if you have decided to keep the product your credit card will be billed 2 payments of $59.90 for the 3 bottles. This works out to be less than $38.00 a bottle.

We are supposed to begin seeing a lot of sales for Provactin, also. ProVactin is a revolutionary new stimulant-free fat loss formula specifically designed for people who are sensitive to stimulants or who can't take stimulant-based products for health reasons.

Finally, I would be remiss not to mention the Alexis Vogel Makeup System. Alexis Vogel has developed a professional grade cosmetic system that gives you the tools and simple techniques to create the makeover of a lifetime.

Ok, the shame is started to rise up to a level where I must stop myself from posting further. Keep checking this space for more examples of blogging on topics about which I have said I would write.

Have a prosperous day!