Last Saturday, I took three hostages. I had gone to the apartment where my ex-girlfriend lives with her parents to find her and get her back. After four months of living together, she had moved out a couple of weeks earlier, and I was desperate to find her. Unfortunately, she wasn’t there, and as things [...]
Today I want to brag on my wife a bit. Kathy is great at trying to meet the needs of people she meets. One group which has always tugged at her heartstrings is the homeless. Austin has a large homeless population, and we’re up that way often enough that we encounter them regularly. On our [...]
Last week we all took a break from our usual goings-on to head down to South Padre Island, the southernmost beach town in Texas. This was a big deal for me, as Emily is now 19, graduated from High School, and is making plans to move out before long. Thus, this would likely be the [...]
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Posted 22 June 2011
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Travel
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I just got back from three weeks in Switzerland as part of my new job with Magnolia. (You can see some photos on Facebook if you’re interested.) Now, when Kathy travels and I’m in single parent mode, I consider myself as having accomplished quite a lot when I end a day with the same number [...]
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Posted 11 April 2011
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When I was growing up, I had musical tastes decidedly out of step with my peers. I went through a year or two of listening to nothing but The Beatles, then only gospel music for a while, and loved to blast early Andrew Lloyd Weber (on vinyl) and the Star Wars soundtrack (a much-loved gift [...]
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Posted 17 March 2011
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Music
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This past January, Abigail had her first experience with the theater. Her high school was staging a production of Little Shop of Horrors, for which she auditioned and got several parts. Given her expressive and dramatic nature, I fully expected her to really cotton to the experience, and was not disappointed. I have a bit [...]
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Posted 04 February 2011
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This past Friday, I got to be a part of my Mom’s wedding. It was a remarkable and beautiful occasion — beautiful for most of the usual reasons: two people pledging themselves to love and care for each other until their bodies fail them in the task, a community of loving and supportive friends, and [...]
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Posted 30 January 2011
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Music
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The kids’ Christmas Lists are coming late this year because I had a wicked hard time (that’s for you, Yankee friends) getting them to sit down and write them out. Once I did, they had enormous difficulty coming up with items to put on them. This initially frustrated me until I realized: They’re having a [...]
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Posted 14 December 2010
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I don’t often post mere links to other people’s essays here, but The Need for Beauty mirrors some of my own thoughts and challenges as a parent and a creative person so nicely that I couldn’t pass it up without pointing more folks towards it. Well worth a read, especially for people who fall into [...]
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Posted 18 November 2010
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Art
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The series of events: We offer to look after our neighbor’s dog while she’s away. Our neighbor deposits her keys with us and leaves town. Liam’s friend Noah comes over to spend the night with us. We go have spaghetti dinner with friends down the street. Liam, Noah, Maggie and I return to the house [...]
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