Say What?

We got home Friday night from Babbitt where we'd gone for Tammy's father's funeral. Tammy went up earlier in the week and Rachel and I followed a couple days behind in some rainy weather. We dropped the pups off at Jackie's then set the Garmin for 58 Fern Court and put the car on autopilot. It was our typical drive up to Babbitt where we spend a good deal of time chatting and catching up. It's been a busy summer for both of us and with Rachel having been away much of the past month, we had lots to talk about. Coldplay and Mat Kearney made for good background music. (Her car is pulling to the right and it was annoying me to have to keep constant pressure on the wheel. She's grown used to it and didn't seem to notice that it was a problem. I took it in first thing Saturday morning to Tires Plus and now it's good until next pothole season.) The further north we got the more I found myself reminiscing about Morrie. When we came through Virginia where he

I've done my share of bashing FAA management the past few years and for those who have been following along and are interested, there has been some movement with respect to our lack of a contract. Our union, Natca, met with FAA management last month at President Obama's direction to try and come to an agreement as we're currently operating without a contract although management says we have one. An agreement was reached on the vast majority of issues but the most important one, dealing with pay, ended in an impasse and was sent to arbitration. Arbitration was all we ever wanted; our day in court to be heard. We had that. The arbitrators came back with their decisions last week. I thought I'd sit down sooner than this to blog about it but I couldn't seem to muster the interest to do so. Not that I'm all that jazzed to blog about it now but it's an important footnote to have in my blog for years from now when I'm looking back on my writings and reminis

Tammy's father passed away late last night. He had been living three hours north of us in a retirement home in Virginia, Minnesota for the last couple of years after injuring himself in several falls at home. Forced to live out his final years away from home was a difficult transition for him. Tammy's family went through some strained times as not everyone was in agreement about how best to proceed when it became apparent that he could no longer care for himself. Tammy's intuition prompted her to drive up and see him last Thursday. His Alzheimer's has advanced so much in the last year. She didn't get the sense that he remembered her nor did she feel that he had long to live. I got a call from Tammy's sister and her mother last night around 6:30 saying that he wasn't doing well and that the nursing home advised them that they should come. Tammy was at work and I texted her with the information. She told me she didn't think he would make it through the

I'm a Christian. Since I've been old enough to rationalize the existence of God, I've been a believer. My dad was raised Catholic, and my mother was Lutheran. Growing up, we attended Lutheran churches with all eight of us taking up most of an entire pew. I can remember that it was a big production to get us all ready for Sunday morning services . It wasn't unusual for my dad to spend part of Saturday night polishing our shoes. T-shirts, shorts and tennis shoes weren't an option. Our parents were sowing seeds that, I think, for the most part, took hold in all of us siblings to varying degrees. There was a time in the late '90s when I was between churches, so to speak. I'd stopped attending Family of Christ, where I was a charter member. The church was going through some turmoil, culminating in the founding pastor's termination. I was disappointed in what I saw, and before too much time, I quit going entirely. Occasionally, tuning in to one of several Su

Rachel left for Guatemala last Monday morning on a mission trip with the youth group at Hosanna. This is her second time going to Guatemala having gone last year too. She'll be back Tuesday night. She had been spending a lot of time with her boyfriend Josh in the weeks leading up to the trip. She went with his family for several days to South Dakota then Josh came with us for a few days to Babbitt. On the heels of those two trips was Sonshine Fest where they spent four days tenting it with the youth groups from Hosanna and Prince of Peace. She was at Lake Geneva Christian Center last week for youth camp. It was easily the best camp she'd ever attended and she's been to many. She brought back a DVD of her week which looks very similar to this link from the same camp on YouTube. She didn't let on right away when she came home that she'd also made a difficult decision while at camp. I was downstairs alone watching TV before going to bed late last Friday night

...all work and no play. I've been living in our home for over 17 years having had it built in the spring of 1992. Much of that summer was spent working on the countless jobs necessary to get a new home up to speed with landscaping taking up the bulk of my efforts. I don't think I had any idea going into it how much work was involved but I was 34 and determined to do it all with the exception of a couple areas where I paid to have some work done: having a Bobcat come in and drill 60 holes for shrubs and paying another guy to evenly distribute ten dump-truck loads of black dirt over our corner lot for a better base than the typical clay soil we have to work with. It was an exhausting summer of work but I felt good about all I'd accomplished and the money I'd saved over having paid someone to do it. However, having said all that I still maintain as I did after that first summer in our home that I'd never buy new construction again. I was looking through some phot