Twenty five years

Janet and I celebrate twenty five years of marriage today. This is the speech I gave the prior weekend, written over the Atlantic on our way back from France.

Enjoy.

Announcement: On a day not unlike this one twenty-five years ago, in front of a group of people, I promised her, my soon-to-be wife, that I would have and hold, love and cherish, honor and respect her for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickeness and health. I'm happy to say we've been through all six of those potential outcomes so now those are fully off the list :-)

While you're married your spouse and you will find little games to play with each other. One of ours is 'Do you still love me?'.

It goes like this:

Q: Do you still love me?
A: Of course I do/Yes
Q: Why do you love me?
A: Something short recent and appreciative. AKA I love you becuase you took out the trash, cleaned up the cat vomit, made dinner for me, etc. etc.

Today I will give a full account of why I love my wife.

(Warning some religious content ahead)

I love you because you have been patient and kind with me when I deserved neither.
You have been correct on so many occasions and never kept score.
You have honored me, my frieds, our household, and our children.
You have a grace about you that people always feel at ease around you.
You have kept your head when screaming would have been more appropriate.
You have lived your truth with me and protected our children while allowing them to grow.
Your love has been greater than rubies.

Your love has never failed me.

You have been the base of my pyramid and I will go the distance with and for you.

You have forged a life with me through the fires and winters of our living together.

That is why I love you Janet.

Family reunion reconnect

Along with my mother's 90th birthday, I got to attend a combined family reunion.

My mother came from a large depression era family. She was one of six children and each of her siblings had at least two and sometimes as many as five children. Throughout my childhood there were always large gatherings. It was always something to look foward to as there were many children of a similar genration and we'd all run ourselves to exhaustion in various ways.

As the years passed, cousins got along with their lives and the original orgainzers aged, the expansive reunions of my youth were replaced more modest gatherings. I was last at one in 2010. Fourteen years had passed since I saw anyone on that side of the family. My mother's cohort of siblings got reduced to just her and the widow of one of her brothers. Many of the kids I'd grown up with had moved into other sections of the nation and without the singular focus on my grandparents, the gatherings difused.

I walked into the Odessa park area, which had been the scene of past gatherings, with an entree and dessert. My cousin has asked those attending to bring at least one item. As I saw the people I'd grown up with and placed my contributions on the picnic table, my heart started to swell with gratitude, pleasure, fellowship. I don't know how the Prodigal son felt of that biblical story, but I'd like to imagine it was somewhat how I felt.

Everyone had a big hug for me and was so pleased to see me. I hugged, shook hands, and echanged long latent greetings with all of the people. They all asked how my kids were and what they were doing. It was hard for them to believe that my children are now adults.

The kicker of it was when I and my cousin's wife of 30+ years laid eyes on each other. We hugged fiercely and broke into tears. It was so heartwarming to see her and then to embrace my first cousin I'd grown up with and spent so much time during my childhood. I'd missed them in ways that were hard to count over the ensuing fourteen years. When I left, my cousin's kids were just going in to junior high, now they're full grown adults with children of their own. I can't believe that grandkids are part of their life now.

Then came the eating.

As anyone who reads this blog, or who knows me, I'm not a religious person. A cousin from another branch of my grandmother's tree said grace. I bowed my head out of tradition and respect, then I listened.

For those not familiar with midwestern meal blessings I'll give you the liturgical outline and then I'll translate the meaning:

Dear heavenly father, we are gathered here today...[message]...in (our Lord's/Jesus') name we pray. Amen.

Here's what was meant, if not what was said:
I'm so glad we could all be here together today. (As anyone living since 2020 knows, it's a gift)
I hope something good is coming your way and you'll be ready for it.
I hope that if you're suffing it will be brief and you'll have the support you need.
Let's all show the enjoyment and love we have for each other in our trials and triumphs.
Now let's eat!

This simple blessing brought my feelings of all of the previous reunions back to me and all of the memories of this good family that I've been fortunate to be a part of.

My wife had it correct when I shared this with her. "Of all the things the Peersons did, those reunions were top notch."

Across the continent, across the miles, across the years, the love is still there.

I love them all right back.

Photo of three of the four boy cousins from my youth. L -> R: My brother, Me, My cousin Dave. So much history, secrets, michief and great times bundled there.

Decline and fall of motherhood

Despite local working circumstances, I was able to celebrate my mother's 90th birthday in person last month. It has been a long time since I've seen her. My brother has been in charge of her care for quite some time now. She is aging in the way her mother did, healthy of body, frail of mind.

I've noticed a change in her interal monologue over the past year. It's changed. I used to call her and she'd talk about my brother and his family, now the calls are about how she is fine and not to worry about her. There isn't worry, but there is concern.

She can be mentally 'there' at points in time, but there's a loss of the internal mind consistency. I helped her get her hair washed while I was there, after some appeal to her vanity, and there were a couple of false starts as she struggled to find the shampoo. She's losing the memory of objects in her place and if things aren't readily visible, they may not be found at all. She has a fridge full of leftovers that she forgets to eat from what I can tell. I have a hunch her body is telling her she's hungry, but she sees the plates and thinks "I've already eaten." and then doesn't sustain herself properly.

On her birthday, I arrived at her apartment and met a couple of women from her church she attended in the early 2000s through the mid 2010s. I don't know if she knew them well during her time there, but it was nice to see the outreach. We went out on an almost two hour drive around her former house, the church she spent time at, her mother's house from when I knew my grandmother, my old schools nearby, and the general neighborhood. She remembered none of them. What was particularly maudlin was the unrecognition of her house and church. She spent so much time in both places and kept them well. She wasn't sad about it, that was for me. She was happy to be about observing the late June Missouri countryside. I was happy to be there with her.

There will be a cessation of these events, hers and mine. Both of our lives have been and will be fleeting. It has been both a long time and a short one depending on one's perspective.

I have questions about my youth and hers which won't be answered. I can bear those regrets and I can celebrate what she time she has left. Love you mom, even though you won't read these words or see this photo.

Blog reclamation

Hello any readers. I'm sure I've said this before, but this is my space on the internet. I'm not here to shove ads at you or monetize your attention. I'd like to share bits & portions of my life with those who find it interesting, amusing, or offensive. If there is a 'brand' of me, it starts here. However the complaints department is closed and I'll be nattering on this 'vintage' (obsolete) way of information sharing for the near future.

Funeral for a friend

 XO has shuffled off of this mortal coil. He was one of my influencers and friends in the KC blogging community. I admired him, and he I. His passing is saddening and his voice on this vast internet has been missed for quite some time. 

His original blog has been taken over by some wanker redirecting to parts unknown, so I won't be linking to that. His work can still be found on the internet archive and I'd suggest rolling through his posts like this one or the war on terrorism if you have some time. 

Those of us in the KC blogging community did our bits of writing online to connect with other people in this daring new online space. This was before epic monetization, and the branding of individuals so they could be influencers. It was a way to self reflect, and share our thoughts, such as they were with people who were in the same area seeing our shared community through different eyes. XO is not the first of this small group to pass, but his friendship and personality were well-regarded by (most) all of us.

There was a small gathering at GTO's place a week ago and it was good to see people and see the cross section of XO's life gathered to remember him. I'm going to quote from one our members in group chat we were having on the news of him passing.

I am feeling oddly positive about [XO]'s departure from life. He most likely would have chosen to die in privacy - he would not have wanted a bunch of people crying around him. He knew he was loved by a crowd of people he wouldn't have known or even been exposed to if not for the bloggers world. He had friends who were nothing like him - he was a prickly person who most likely would have been left alone to be a hermit in a less caring world. He was cared for up to the end by friends and hospice - and he knew he could post something online about needing a package moved, and someone would help him out. In return, he took us along his ride toward his final destination. He described the fear of almost toppling down the stairs recently. He let us know what it is like to know that your days are numbered and that there won't be any more big adventures, but he wasn't self-pitying. [XO] was his own person, and he died peacefully in bed. His greatest worry was to be found in a broken and bloody heap at the bottom of the stairs, or found after several days in a heat wave. Over the years we knew him, he transformed from a deeply cynical guy into someone who felt love and gave it more freely that he could have dreamed fifteen years ago. 

 XO was unique and it was good to see him and remember him in the presence of all of those long-time friends. XO wasn't a hugger, but being with all of those friends felt like a warm hug. 

A grieving day today

 Our dog Olive, of nine plus years, was put to sleep with her family in attendance today after a year long struggle with mouth cancer. It has been a hard day for all of us especially my daughter.

I'm am proud of my family for showing kindness, compassion, love, and unwillingness to leave anyone alone during this grievous period. The virtues of our group were on full display. 

Here are some images and videos of her in happier times:

Twenty years ago today

 I had a former colleague advised me to not put my family website blog in an email footer if I wasn't updating it on a semi-frequent business. That's not why I still have it. I've long opted out of the attention economy and kept this as part of my personal journal to be online. Originally I did it to showcase my technical prowess with web applications. Now I keep it for sentimental and landmark reasons. Some of those items may be worth a follow-up blog post, but not today.

Today I want to state how proud of am of my two decades old son. Twenty years ago on a very hot August day in Kansas this happened:

It was an amazing event for everyone involved. 

We moved this little one, now taller than us, across county a dozen years ago and he's made as much of a way as he can out here in LA. We didn't know it until several years in, but he's not mentally wired like most people and struggled with academics in our school system. He is smart, just not in a way the standardized testing is geared for. He's currently figuring out where to go with his life from here and we're supporting whatever decision(s) he makes. 

It has been such a gratifying and learning experience for myself and Janet. We have been pleasantly and unpleasantly surprised in many ways as I expect most every parent is or will be. There are no safety straps on this ride.

But getting back to my pride in this young man. Let's consider my self-evaluation of when I turned 20: 

I had been on a fruitless quest to hook up with college girls and spent more than my fair share of time in seedy bars of my college town. I had moved out and moved back in with my parents and I was more than a bit sullen, angry, and stuck. I was deceitful and unkind in many ways and I'm amazed that anyone stuck with me at all. I had some support networks but most days I was angry and hostile, especially to those I lived with. My father was in the process of dying but I didn't realize what a big deal that was. I was in college but not applying myself. The person I was wouldn't recognize myself now. I had maxed out the credit card the industry vultures had supplied college students in those days. I was aimless and many things felt hopeless.

Let's compare that jerk with my son. 

He's not in college. He's also not wasting his money or time being somewhere he doesn't want to be. He is kind and welcoming to people. He has a close group of friends that really enjoy his company. He's not in any debt. He is enthusiastic and willing to share his interests. He helps willingly and cheerfully helps with the house chores we've assigned him. He's a good driver(in LA that's huge!). He doesn't drink, or drink and drive. He doesn't lie - like at all. He likes being in our home. He asks me to cook for him and has enough pride in his father's cooking that he shares it with his friends.

Comparing those characteristics with my own at the same age, he's a far better person that I was at his age.  Matt, I'm proud of the person you are. It hasn't always been easy for me to think or say that, but it is true. As I look at where you are and who you're becoming, I would not have imagined it could come from that person I was at 20. I love you very much and I'm going to enjoy seeing what you become.

-Dad(Keith)

A parable for 2020 Zeitgeist

 President Donald J Trump reactivated the New Jersey and it's battle group to show the amazing strength of the U.S. 

While out on the shakedown cruise with Admiral Crown a sudden storm arose, knocking out radios and hampering visibility. Suddenly the bridge crew spotted a light ahead not moving toward either side of the massive battleship - indicating a collision was imminent. 

BB-62(using light signals): Approaching ship, suggest you turn N or S to avoid collision

 Unknown ship: Suggest you turn

BB-62: This is the New Jersey, not some commercial vessel. Suggest you change course.

US: Respectfully, I suggest you change course.

BB-62: (The President has noticed the situation and decided to intervene) This is Donald J Trump, President of the United States and Command-in-Chief of the armed forces, you will turn or this beautiful amazing battleship will crush you like a bug!

US: This is a lighthouse.

DJT: Admiral Crown, full speed ahead, you'll fly right over him!

A long time coming...

During this time of national home-dwelling, people have paid attention to George Floyd, Ahmaud Aubrey, and Breonna Taylor. It is long past time we had a reckoning of the police violence, and by extension white violence against black people. We are not the nation we say we are and that internal struggle will rend individuals apart much as it seems to be rending nation apart. We can no longer live in a nation where black people make up 13% of the general population but compose 67%+ of the prison population; no longer live in a world where your ZIP code, especially if you're black determines will almost unerring precision your destiny in economics and incarceration.

There must be a larger movement in communities large and small to reign in the occupying police forces and replace them with partnering order-keepers. The heartbreak of seeing my city under curfew was somewhat alleviated by seeing a few police departments march with protesters. Let's have all of our municipal constabularies do such work. An officer who can say 'we agree with you, and we will be accountable to our public' will have much more moral authority than a force that dresses up in combat gear and initiates confrontation with the public they've sworn to serve.

If our police forces continue to show and initiate violence towards the people they're sworn to protect, I suggest that anyone organizing the protest find out what their second amendment rights are and open-carry whenever possible. At this point, there is no need for violence, nor to make the first move, but we've all seen how beholden the white supremacist state is to angry people with guns. Be polite, be professional, but don't let anyone push you around - I'm paraphrasing the Mattis quote.

The other thing that we must do is stop making viral images of black people dying. There are a couple of good articles by better writers than I that make this point, read them. While we're on the point of reading, make sure to read _White Fragility_. This will help even though it's hard.

I wish I was sad about the looting and burning, but I'm not. I'm not sure I can blame anyone that understands/has lived with 400+ years of black labor exploitation for the looting that occurred. At this point, it's barely a drop in terms of recompense of what has been stolen from black people.

Ways to support black people:

1. Buy from black-owned businesses. Here's a link to an LA version of that directory. A simple web search should find something similar where you live.
2. Donate at least to the following three places:
1. https://www.gofundme.com/f/georgefloyd
2. https://action.justiceforbreonna.org/sign/BreonnaWasEssential/
3. https://www.gofundme.com/f/i-run-with-maud
3. Before you call the cops on anyone, watch this. 
4. Be a better human, and don't let this initial burst of energy wane. Keep going, this is a marathon.

Now would be a good time for remote work

During this time of social distancing and remote work, it would be a great time to send all the Congresscritters home to their own states and districts. This is the best time to send the elected officials home to distantly meet their constituents and then keep them home except for ceremonial occasions. This is all in the name of containment of the virus after all.

Want to go to D.C.? Justify the expense to your district and keep records of your expenses for reimbursement. Everything that's done in D.C. can be done remotely - shared documents, committee meetings, bloviating to empty chamber can all done far more cheaply in your home district.

This will have the odd side-effect of breaking the monopoly on lobbying that D.C. holds. It would be a shame to dilute all of that lobbyist money out to Enid OK, Mesa AZ, or Hanover NH. Yeah it would be a shame that the corporate to be diluted.

It will also put the representatives in closer contact to their voters. That would be terrible for them, they'd have to live under the laws they passed and live with the people affected. Indeed, it could be traumatizing for those poor people.

Just a thought

Impress me Congress

Not only do we get a new President but we get the same Congress. If we really want to shake things up and 'drain the swamp' let the new government consider the following:

• Eliminate coining the penny and nickel. They are both cost more to produce than they're worth and neither furthers commerce. 
• De-centralize the legislature. Move the representatives from the House back to their respective states. There's no reason for 'local' representatives to live in D.C. and thereby be within easy reach of K-street. With modern IT systems there's no need to send everyone to one city. Do this for the Senate as well. Keep the buildings and such for ceremonial duties.
• While we've moved the reps back to the states, let's increase their numbers. The U.S. has had a set number of reps since 1913. Each representative served 211k constituents. Today each rep serves 758k. I'm not sure how one person can represent 200k let alone 758k of people. If we want a people's house and not a second Senate, we've got to add more politicians.
• Abolish the Electoral College. I'm not saying this from sour grapes, I'm saying that this system is antiquated to the needs of our republic.
• Ranked-choice voting. The reason we have only two parties is that our election system (first-past-the-post) leads to it.
• Make national elections a national holiday. Shouldn't we celebrate our republic?
• Pay down/off the national debt. We almost had this in the early 2000s. Don't screw this up again. Here's a better idea from the right side of the aisle. Only allow the government to spend what it has collected in the previous year.
• Add a national service system that parallels the military. I can think of no other equalizer of and to others than the armed forces, but not everyone wants to nor should risk their life.

I'm not holding out hope that any of these things will be done in the next session, but I could be surprised.

My thoughts on the recent POTUS election.

The main feeling I get from this election is that the majority of people thought they had two choices

1. A lying politician whose bullshit they could see openly.
2. A lying politician whose bullshit couldn't be seen and wouldn't be acknowledged.

Given the choice of these two items, the EC granted #1 the win. And for all of the desire for change and draining the swamp, the same rats (90%+) were sent back to the swamp.

Given the results I have a few hunches on what will happen in the next few years.

• Rs will pass massively underfunded budgets and claim how awesome that they are since deficits and debt don't matter until there's a Democratic branch of government.
• Rs will forget all about Presidential power abuses and not seek to re-constrain the executive branch powers
• Rs will become victims of their own hubris and over-reach.
• There will be a recession - we're overdue according to the Motley Fool podcast.

More thoughts later about what I'd like to see from an even vaguely functioning Congress.

Grief-enabled gaming

I was going to title this twat-enabled gaming, but that seemed like the wrong thing to put in the title.

In my past games with @princessofworld, @banky, @AndrewDPickard, and others we always played games that while competitive never really put one player out of the rest of the game. Battlestar Galactica comes to mind, as does Dune and a few others. One can lose the game and still feel it was a good time. I have yet to lose BSG or Dune and feel left out of the action.

However, there are those games that commit the ultimate player sin - wasting someone's time. The mechanics of these games enable that sin. Putting someone in a glass house and forcing them to watch the game play is sadistic.

I've played five bouts of the 4X game Eclipse. This last game I played, I made a tactical mistake on turn two and had my next door player crush my homeworld on turn three. I was assured by the rest of the table that I wasn't out of it, so I continued. I waited and tried to take back my homeworld on a subsequent turn. This caused the neighbor to crush me again with what I considered an ostentatious over-kill. I am not proud of myself, but I was more than a bit upset about him re-routing the weakest player on the board. Hash and loud words were exchanged.

I sat there fuming and doing essentially nothing for the next few hours. When the opponent finally started scorching my remaining worlds, I packed up and left, in a huff. There was another four of nine turns left in the game. The game enabled the asshole in me.

I'm not mad at my opponent for taking advantage of a weaker neighbor and my play mistakes. What I am still upset about is that I was left crippled without a chance to play. This is a dick move. A better player would have finished me off quickly. If it were me, I would have explained to my opponent what mistake I capitalized on that allowed me to so quickly take his position. There's no sense in letting someone hang around who can't affect the outcome.

Another instance was one of my last rounds with SmashUp. SmashUp has a lot of mess-with-your opponent mojo going for it. In general it's a pretty fun little game, but there is a faction whose power is basically to make everyone else at the table not play. On top of that they can give out negative victory points thereby making everyone else's game harder. This can be done while they themselves don't have to make winning moves. This entirely neuters the point of playing. Myself and other players sat for three or four turns not playing. I'm not sure what schedules other people have, but as a 40-something with a family, I can not play games in a much more productive manner at home.

Then there's the Lannister faction from Game of Thrones. I'm about ready to give my copy away due to the fact that I've played them all five times I've played the game and they wind up being crippled by turn three or four. Again, playing a weaker starting position isn't the worst thing, but this game's mechanics encourage glass-housing.

Games that enable this type of behavior even unintentionally are broken. I'm sure my Eclipse opponent is a decent enough fellow, but this type of game-enabled griefing left a bad taste in my mouth. I doubt I'll be invited back to play this game again and that's probably for the best. I'm going to give GoT one more try as not-Lannister to see how it goes.

A tale of two corporations

For those of you not following the SCOTUS, the high court handed down a decision today that was met with great cheering by some and dreadful concern by others. From my perspective, it allows a specific type of company held by religious adherents to inflict their particular religious beliefs upon their employees.

Hobby Lobby can now deny birth control to their female employees due to their owners *belief* that birth control pill, IUDs, and hormone injections are abortifacients. This belief is held in opposition to what biology tells us about how the female body works. This targets only one group of employees - women. There is nothing the owners of the company withhold from their male employees.

Let's contrast this to where I work.

As best I can tell, my workplace is a privately held corporation owned by conservative Jews. The owners will cater kosher meals for lunch meetings off of an approved vendor list. However, they don't mandate that all the employees observe kosher or sabbath rules on site(I can bring my ham sandwich to work on Saturday). This company will even expense lunches out for employees at non-kosher restaurants - shrimp pizza for our team today!

So the question becomes, which employer is really more pious? Is it the one that inflicts their particular view of scripture on a set of employees, or is it the one that having had a history of persecution sets standards for themselves, but doesn't insist that the rest of the workers obey them as well?

Update:
Apparently Hobby Lobby was all too willing to let their and their employee's money grow with the suppliers of birth control.

Running scared

This is the tale of my first official half marathon race. The story is in this Garmin Connect link, but it's formatting is wretched.

This is the tale of two races; the first nine miles and the next four. The race started and I was fine pacing at 9-ish or so, but I did notice the road was a bit uneven. "No matter" I thought, as long as my pace an heart rate were good I'd be fine.

About mile six or seven I noticed my left knee was starting to hurt but I thought I'd just adjust my technique and it would be fine. It wasn't. Mile ten was that start of the hurt. It felt like someone was driving a ten-penny nail under my kneecap every time I tried to go at more than a walk. There is not rhythm you can sustain like that. 

The next miles were me talking myself up and gutting it out, but it was starting to wear on me and sometime in mile twelve I seriously wondered if I was going to finish. I was hurt and upset. I'd never had knee problems before. These last three miles were walk/shuffle run/walk/repeat. 

I came down the final hill(downhill was the worst) and as I made the final turn I was starting to get scared that my family would see me seriously injured just as I came in. My mind was focused on keeping a jog and not making any mis-step that would hurt my knee further. 

I finished and I just couldn't speak. I was proud I'd finished but I was as scared as I'd ever been in a run. I just sat down and gathered myself because I think I would have sobbed had I continued to stand. 

I gathered my medal and thought that this was the first time I was proud to get a participant medal. I wore it all the way out of the race area because I knew how much pain went into getting it around my neck. 

I'm not going to run for a week. I'm going to relax, surf, and find a new gym. Next week I'll consider running again. I'm going to do another half-marathon because I know I can run it at a 9:00 pace if the knees hold together.

In which I circle back to the beginning

I've finally gotten off of my lazy butt and registered this domain at our original name - www.saderfamily.org.  You're welcome.  I'm glad all of my readers could wait eleven years for this to happen again.  Who knows, it might lead to more regular posts.

Happy Birthday Mr. Life-changer.

I started writing this blog deep in the winter of 2003.  I was self-hosting and basically taking this up as a geek project.  I also took it up to document the pregnancy and birth of my first child.  Janet documented that quite well(sorry only 2 of 3 pages got archived).

I was full of optimism at the future of my parenting.  I still am, but I've got a better idea of who this child is.  Here he is on his first day home:


You may notice some developmental changes in this picture.  Yes, that's the same onesie he wore home.

He's ten.  He's the same age as our car and he's the reason we bought a house.  I'm alternatively amazingly proud of him and insanely hostile to him as well.  I love him more than he can fathom and I see so much of myself in him good and bad.

I think Matthew is an orchid child.  This is both blessing and curse.  If I were a more serious parent, I'd make sure to tend to the ground and keep it fertilized.  Unfortunately for him, I'm not much of a gardener. but he hasn't wilted yet.

I wish you a very happy birthday son.  You have changed my life in ways unexpected and awe-inspiring.  I love you and I always will

Santa Monica: not always paradise

It's so weird. People keep checking with me to make sure we're okay after Friday's fire and shooting and then saying how 'sad' it all is.

It wasn't fucking sad! It was scary and tragic, and pissed me off!

Being told that my kids are in a school on lock down and I can't get them if I want is frightening and stressful. Not sad.

Having fire trucks and police blocking of the street two blocks away, therefore causing all sorts of unexpected traffic issues (and preventing me from getting to my kids' school) is obnoxious and scary, not sad.

Knowing that if I'd left the house 30 minutes sooner (or the shooter started 30 minutes later) my life and my family's lives could be drastically altered doesn't make me sad, it scares the shit out of me.

We're fine. The kids are fine (they had a boring afternoon, unlike me). I'm extremely grateful for how alive we all are. Just don't call it 'sad'.

Complex crystal

Today I took my mother to the Crystal Cathedral.  It is a most impressive space and building.  Even more impressive is the amount of money it took to get the whole thing going and running.  I don't have the heart to tell my mother that it will be a Catholic church now.

Growing up my mother and I watched Dr. Schuller together.  He was odd then as a TV preacher who didn't preach hellfire & damnation.  He preached a message of positive determination.  He also preached perseverance - tough times don't last but tough people do!  Of all of the people of faith I admired, he seemed to be the best.

It was an odd thing to walk through this house of worship I saw on TV. I could remember how impressive it all looked.  I can also now see how the TV missed the actual grandeur of the space.  It's truly more impressive than it was on TV.

On the other hand, I couldn't help but notice how it was worn.  It's been thirty-three years since its completion and thirty-six since it started its TV career.

The carpets have been walked, the seats have been sat, and the dust collected for many years.   It fades much like all of human creation.

My mother was thrilled to have seen it, and happy to have the grandkids in tow.  I was happy to have a hand in making her trip even more memorable.

I for one was impressed with the architecture, and yet unmoved by the pseudo-sanctity the emanated from this monument to an imaginary friend.

My children asked me what a priest is/does.  I told them that a priest is someone that speaks to imaginary friends.  I hope they remember this trip and that lesson in time.

The rest of the photos are here.

I advise anyone to see this amazing edifice to religion; make of it what you will.

A sort of homecoming

My mother is visiting from Knob Noster MO.  This is a cause for great celebration.  I had very little hopes of ever getting here to visit since she is terrified of flying.

Janet's BFF Kris saved the day by travelling with her on the train.  This made my mother very happy and amused Kristina to no end.

Today I took my mother and the kids to the California Science Center, specifically to see the Endeavor.  The science center is a sprawling edifice to technology.  We didn't even see half of it between line waiting for the Endeavor and lunch.  The part we did see was important.

I often tell the story of being a child and watching the Apollo 11 launch into space.  This left a lasting impression on me and led me to be fascinated with all things space.  The Apollo program left within me a deep awe and reverence for all things space related.

Seeing the Endeavor today was an awe-inspiring experience.  It's one thing to see the shuttle land.  It's still something far away.  It's quite another thing to see it up close and in person.  In person, it was the sum total of all of the science and exploration I had yearned and learned about my entire life.  I was eight years old again, and wanting to blast off.

Walking around the shuttle, I was so touched by the history, and effort to put this amazing machine into space it was hard to speak.  Then I remembered the losses of Challenger and Columbia.  Reagan's speech went through my head:

We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and "slipped the surly bonds of earth" to "touch the face of God.

I also thought of how there is nothing else like this on the horizon and more than a moment of angst for my children.  I told them both through a strained voice that I hoped something this awesome would be there for their lives as well.  I walked around the massive machine again then wandered near the gift shop.

Matthew was trying on astronaut jackets and I almost wept.  There was my boy becoming an astronaut.  I couldn't think of something that would make me prouder as a father.  I hope he thinks about this day, and about space, and about how something out there touches him...