Say What?

I don't get it—was the Royal Wedding really that big of a deal? If it was, the importance of it was lost on me, but I can't speak for Tammy. She, like (I would guess) the vast majority of females on the planet, was captivated by it. Even Rachel had a Royal Wedding all-night party at her apartment to watch both the build-up and the ceremony. I suppose I have no room to talk. I watch bicycle racing. We were in the glassblowing studio both Thursday and Friday this week. I'd like to say that we continued to raise the bar on our abilities but we didn't, at least not that I could tell. We both found ourselves struggling more than anything but through our trials, we're finding more and more determination to learn this art. We've all got our talents and I hope that someday I can say that glassblowing is one of mine. Someday. But for now, I find it every bit as challenging as learning air traffic control—maybe even more so. I was mentioning to Tammy last week how I...

We had our final small group meeting for church last Thursday night. We've been getting together since last fall and going through the book of Acts as have been the other small groups at church. I hadn't realized we'd been meeting for that long. We took a group photo but we're two people shy as Marilyn and Phil couldn't be with us. It's been one of the better small groups we've been involved with. Tammy led our group and did a nice job developing discussion questions each week along with occasional input from Tom and me. We'll throw our hat in the ring again next year when they put out the call to organize. It's a nice way to make some more personal connections in a church so large. Tammy had what I would consider a breakthrough day glassblowing this week. She'd been discouraged because she felt she was stagnating and not keeping up with whatever small successes I was having. I disagreed with her but it was how she felt. Steve worked with us ...

Tammy continues her daily watch of the Decorah Eagles . She was concerned for them this past weekend when some nasty weather rolled in. She was continually checking to see how they were managing. I have to laugh. I can't think of anything online that has captivated her more than these little guys have. Well, possibly me when we first met online 12 years ago. (insert smiley face here) Yes, winter made another appearance this past weekend with a few inches of snow along with some cold, blustery winds. I had to wonder what the pups were thinking when I let them out Saturday morning. I know what I was thinking. I'm sick of this! But, thankfully this time of year any snow we get is usually very short-lived as was this. Tammy and I were on a walk this morning under a bright blue sky with the snow all but gone. Hosanna is gearing up for between 15,000-18,000 guests this coming Easter weekend. It places a huge demand on the church as well as the main roads which lead there. I we...

I got a book in the mail today. A book that I'd read 30 years ago which opened my eyes to how to better visualize things to be able to draw them. The lasting impression it left on me was how to view negative space and focus on it in order to bring out the positive. I'd never considered that before. It's not available on Amazon for my Kindle so I ordered the hard copy and it was in today's mail . I've been spending some time tonight reacquainting myself with it. It may take a miracle given the time of year and the beautifully warm weather we're experiencing for me to actually find time to put pencil to sketch pad but I'm going to try. It's Tuesday night so what am I doing here? It seems my posts have either been on Saturday or Sunday nights for so long now that it's unusual for me to color outside those lines. But here I am. And why is that? Derek Webb. I was listening to his music tonight while I read. One of his songs really hit me. I'd ...

Have you seen the Eagle-cam ? Tammy has been watching this a lot over the last few days while she's at work in her office. The eggs were laid in late February and hatched in the last week or so. It's especially fascinating watching them feed. There are a lot of people tuning in. Just one day at Foci this week for us. I can't recall offhand what or how many of my attempts made it into the annealer but I do know it was a better week for me than last week. We're both feeling more comfortable each day we rent time there and are hoping that our increasing comfort soon allows us to step up our results. We're still doing glasses, for the most part, just trying to get those right as no two seem to be the same yet. We've been hesitant to try other things but Steve and Jackson have both given us demos on bowls so we finally gave those a shot on Thursday. We each managed to get one in the annealer. We were laughing about how Rachel will have quite a collection of gla...

The cat is out of the bag at work. About two years ago I learned that the FAA's requirement for mandatory retirement at age 56 doesn't apply to me because of the time I spent working in the Flight Service option back in the early '80s. I have no idea why such a rule would exist but a friend at worked tipped me off to the little-known loophole. He respected my wish not to tell anybody about my situation. My plan has always been to work until forced to retire but with this new option available to me, I've been considering staying at least another year to age 57. I thought it would be good fun to show up after my 56th birthday to see what sort of reaction I'd get from the guys I work with. But this past week I had someone come up to me and ask if it was true that I qualified to keep working beyond the mandatory retirement age. I knew it would be futile to try and deny it so I confirmed it for him. I really don't have any idea how much longer I'll hang around bu...