Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Cat Cookie

This is one of my all time favorite Youtube videos. My kids and I could sit and watch this all day long, over and over again. If you know my kids, you know that when I say over and over I am being extremely literal.


Wednesday, October 12, 2011

One Million Daughters

I used to be the guy who could watch anything. The more gritty and realistic a movie or t.v. show was, the more I appreciated it. I will take the subtle Batman from The Dark Knight over the flamboyant ridiculousness of Batman Forever (the batsuit had nipples, for pete's sake). I say used to, because things changed when I had kids. Movies that I might have been able to watch and enjoy took on a new and different flavor when watched through the eyes of a father.

In college, I remember loving the Mel Gibson movie, Ransom, in which a millionaire's son is kidnapped for a huge ransom. Back then, the action and intensity just built and built to the incredible and inevitable reunion at the end of the film. The intrigue and plot twists had me hooked from beginning to end. But when I saw it on t.v. after my first daughter was born I felt sick to my stomach the entire time it was on. I turned it off because I couldn't watch it anymore. All I could see when I was watching it was my daughter in place of the fictional millionaire's son. I saw her bound in the back of a van and locked away in a dirty room, alone and scared. What was once an entertaining fiction became all to real for me (for the record, that's why I will always enjoy sci-fi movies because I am pretty confident that aliens will never get my children).

I recently had the opportunity to do some research on human trafficking in India, specifically sexual slavery. It is one of the darkest and vilest things to blight our world, and the more I read, the more sorrowful, sickened and angry I became. You see, I have two daughters, and when I read the plight of these innocent girls who are sold or kidnapped into sexual slavery I can't help but imagine how it would feel if they were my girls. I can't help but imagine what it would do to their pure hearts, precious dreams and their innocent expectation that they will always be protected and taken care of. The pressure behind my eyes builds every time I come face to face with the reality that this evil exists in our world because it is so hard to hold back the tears when confronted with it.

I have two daughters, but there are one million daughters out there who are trapped and alone, where man's lust and desire meet commerce in the darkest way imaginable. We cannot let this continue. We must not let it stand. We may not be overseas, but we can support those who are. There are too many daughters out there with no one to tell them how special and beautiful they are, no one to safely tuck them in at night and no one to protect them against the wickedest urges that bubble up from the darkest part of men's souls.


Saturday, October 8, 2011

This Autumn Morning

I sit on my front porch at 9:15 in the morning. It is sunny and warm with a cool breeze, jeans and sweatshirt weather. The sweet smell of dying leaves is already floating around, and every burst of fresh wind brings dozens and dozens falling to the ground in front of me. Trinity rides her bike up and down the street in front of our house in her little green sundress. She just explained to me that it is too revealing so she has to wear a tank top under it. She rides crazy fast in her sparkly pink Converse hi-tops, so fast that when she speeds downhill I hold my breath sometimes in anticipation of a wipeout. Cameron pushes the wagon to the top of the street and rides down in it. She uses the handle as a reverse steering wheel as she wobbles back and forth down the sidewalk. It makes me remember the road rash I got so often when my wagon tipped and rolled doing the exact same thing. Not wanting to be left out of the action, Calvin chases after the wagon in his checkered shorts and barefeet. He catches up at the bottom of the hill and takes position at the back. His smile is brightened by the glow-in-the-dark vampire teeth he has in his mouth. The iridescent vampire becomes the wagon's engine as he pushes his sister back up the hill to do it all again. I yell at the dog to keep her from chasing them out of the yard. I contemplate driving her out into the country and leaving her there, but the amount of love my kids have for her keeps me from acting. Stinking love...

Their laughter floats back and forth on the breeze, and I wish that it will never stop. I want those giggles to be carried everywhere the wind goes for as long as sound exists so that I never have to stop hearing it.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Steve Jobs

The breaking news banner flashed across the bottom of the tv with a sound signaling the something was going on. I looked up from my laptop to see a headline scrolling across the screen announcing, "Steve Jobs has died." Three weeks ago I read a biography of Steve Jobs that focused on his innovation and leadership. I was astonished to realize how much he has impacted technology, society and culture. The mouse you are using with the arrow icon to navigate your computer screen? Steve Jobs made that happen. You can point and click instead of typing commands into a prompt on your computer. The windows and menus you use to access all of your programs? Steve Jobs made that happen. The new Mutemath album you just bought and downloaded on iTunes? Steve Jobs did that. It didn't take much for me to realize the impact he has had on our world, but in that moment I saw how much he has impacted my family. Even as his death was announced, I was loading new songs from my Macbook onto my daughter Cameron's iPod. My iPhone was sitting in between in between me and my son, Calvin, who was playing on the iPad. My kids will interact with technology in a completely different way than I did growing up, and much of that is due to Steve Jobs.

In a commencement speech he gave at Stanford University, he talked about one of the things that drove him to not just create great products, but to be passionate about what he does. He said:
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.
There is a lot we can learn from the life of Steve Jobs - his passion, creativity, and care for the people he produced for. My thoughts and sincere prayers go out to his friends and family.


Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Disney People

Have you ever known someone who can be best described by the things that they are into? You know, people who are so sold out on a product, company or ideology that they almost completely embody it? For example, let's examine "Coffee People". These are people who literally cannot function until they have their first cup of coffee (and it's never just coffee - it's always a "cuppa coffee," as if the coffee cannot exist in this dimension without the metaphysical tether of the cuppa). They will make you sit and wait for them to finish their cuppa coffee every time you eat with them because it would be unthinkable to leave even a drop undrunk (that's right, undrunk). You may be choking on a bagel, and they will perform the Heimlich maneuver on you, but only after they've finished savoring their cuppa coffee. If you are a coffee person and this characterization has offended you in any way, I'll buy you a cuppa coffee to make up for it; but let's be honest - you know it's true.

There are also "Disney People". Every annual vacation is spent at Disney World. A map of the parks is not necessary because it has been committed to memory. They wear Mickey boxers, briefs, boxer briefs and speedos. They get teary eyed when they watch Beauty and the Beast, and can't get through Finding Nemo without a full box of moisturized Kleenex (with soothing lotion for their Mickey Mouse noses). When they get into tough situations they ask themselves, "What would Walt do," because they have have accepted Disney into their hearts.

I am not a Disney person. Never have been. I went for the first time when I was 19, so I think the magic was lost on my jaded, incredibly mature adult mind (since everyone knows that when you are 19 you are incredibly mature and know everything). I enjoyed the thrill rides, but never really got the Disney magic that my wife goes on and on about. Disney had me in their clutches, and I left unchanged. But recently I've had a change of heart.

Three weeks ago, Terri's dad and step-mom treated our whole family to a Disney World trip. As a dad, I had the chance to experience Disney through the eyes of my children. To me, parks are all about the rides, but my kids just wanted to meet the characters. In fact, they waited hours to get character autographs and pictures. We waited for over a half an hour just for Pluto, and when I asked Calvin if he would rather ride rides, he said, "I'm not leaving until I have Pluto's autograph!" My daughter Cameron*, when asked about the trip, will gladly volunteer that, "we waited for over an hour to see the princesses and it was totally worth it!" I rode It's a Small World three times! Why? Because they loved it. They loved all of it. And you know what? I did too. Not because everything was so much better than the last time I was there, but because their enthusiasm got ahold of me. I loved it because they did. The magic of our Disney trip was not in the amazing quality of the parks (they ARE amazing), or the emotional stories of the characters. The magic already existed in my kids, and I got to see it come out in all it's loud, bright and amazing glory.

Am I a Disney Person now? I don't really know. I'm a "Cameron, Trinity and Calvin" person, and if that means I've given myself over to Disney, then maybe so.


*Cameron read this post over my shoulder and asked that I make sure everyone knows that she IS a Disney Person.