Rhino Thoughts...

Count the Giraffe

2006-09-13T14:02:00.000-04:00

"One, Two, Free, Four, Fibe! There are two!" Jack Williamson at the Nashville Zoo's Giraffe exhibit on a rainy September, 12, 2006. He was attempting to count the three giraffe that were in plain sight.

Whatever

2006-09-09T08:03:00.000-04:00

"Whatever, Boobie-ah..." Jack Williamson to Sarah Williamson on September 8, 2006 under his breath and from under the table after being asked three times to pick food up off of the floor that he had dropped. His response was in the most exasperated, condescending tone possible for a two year old. Jack also has a strange verbal habit of extending the last syllable of the last word in a phrase or sentance with a pronounced "ah" sound.

The Jack Stikes Back

2006-09-09T07:59:00.000-04:00

"I'm Dars Bader! I'm Dars Bader!" Jack Williamson on September 8, 2006 as he was weilding his new "light savers" upon his dad.

The Pilgrims

2006-07-25T16:37:00.000-04:00

On a road trip I recently took I listed to a book on CD the Pilgrims, their voyage to America and the story behind their first several years as Americans. History books have become one of my favorite types of books to read. At any rate, I learned something new or rather the book was able to dispel a myth that has long been a part of American history as I understood it.

I’ve always heard it said that the United States was first settled by those seeking religious freedom and liberty. The real reason they came was more practical and less principled. They came so that they could worship the way they felt was most supported by the Word, not because they sought to live in a place where people had the freedom to worship as they pleased. The difference between these two concepts is subtle but real as the Pilgrims on many occasions failed to show the same tolerance they themselves desired. To them it was not about liberty; it was about being right.

Quote of the Day

2006-07-24T00:09:00.000-04:00

"Do you pour margarita on it?" Sydney Williamson to Sarah Wiliamson on hearing she planned to order a margharita pizza for dinner which is, of course, a pizza with tomatoes, cheese, and basil. Should my four year old daughter know what a margarita is?

My Great Great Grandfather, Thomas B. Boyd

2006-07-20T22:44:00.000-04:00

In the past five years I have become very interested in family genealogy. One of the most interesting people in my family history is Thomas Boyd. He was a Confederate soldier and member of a group of prisoners of war who, because of the cruel treatment they received, became known as the "Immortal 600". The brutality they received from their Union captors was in response to Confederate cruelty at prison camps such as Andersonville. Last week I met, via the Internet, a distant cousin who is also a descendent of Captain Boyd. He provided me the most remarkable document. Apparently in 1912 Thomas sat down with the county’s notary public and dictated an affidavit that describes his 1863 capture and his ensuing experience as a prisoner of war. This is the only known document containing his own words.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

November 27, 1912

Decatur, Texas

To all whom these come, Greetings. I Thomas Boyd hereby certify that I was Captain, Company B, 1st Mississippi Regt. Infantry, C.S. Vol. and was taken prisoner at the surrender of Port Houston [Hudson], Louisiana on or about July the 9^th, 1863 and was confined to prison at Johnson Island until February 1864. Then taken out and sent to Point Lookout, Maryland, kept there about two months and sent to Fort Delaware, confined there until on or about the 20^th day of August 1864 when six hundred C.S. officers were taken out and put on old ship Crescent. We were quartered down below water. The Crescent had been used as a transport and was filthy beyond by knowledge to fully describe and vermin crawling on the floor. We were taken to Mares Island after several days and were transferred to other transports that was but little better, if any. Short rations and bad water to drink amidst all the filth on boats. Why all this inhumane treatment we could not tell. On or about the 8^th of September we were put in the stockade on Mares Island in front of the Federal battery of heavy guns planted there for the purpose of shelling Fort Sumpter. Their shots passed directly over our stockade and our Confederate guns had to throw their shells directly over ours to reach the Federal batteries. Our guards were negros. They were more like beast than human. On one occasion did wantonly shoot two of our men without a legal cause. The ration consisted in four crackers of what is called hard tacks and about one ounce of fat meat. At dinner we had one half pint bean or rice soup. Supper was skipped over. Drinking water was obtained by digging in the sand, letting it seap in, and shore it was bad and unhealthy. We thought when we were taken to Fort Pulaskey, Georgia that shurley the worst was over. We received good rations for a few days and kind treatments from Colonel Brown’s men though soon our rations was reduced to about 10 ounces musty corn meal full of worms, about one pint sour pickles. This ration lasted about sixty days. How any one came out alive is a mystery to me. Myself and mess mates had little money and succeeded in getting the Sargent that called the roll to smuggle in some provisions. Had it not been for what I got through that channel I have no idea I would come out alive as it was telling on me very fast. I had the scurvey and was very nearly blind. Our bedding had been reduced to about one blanket to the man. We had to go through the winter months and that without any fire. I had one good meal out of a tom cat. Would have eaten a dog if I could have had the chance.

Subscribed and sworn to by Thos Boyd before me this 27^th day of November A.D. 1912

Notary Public, Wise Co.,Texas

Today's Top Sydneyism

2006-07-20T22:40:00.000-04:00

"Daddy, would you unscoot my chair." Sydney Kate Williamson at breakfast on Thursday, July 20, 2006. I had never hear the word "unscoot" but it certianly communicated.

Things I Never Thought I'd Hear Myself Say

2006-07-16T15:36:00.000-04:00

“No, you can’t have another peach. Just get a cookie.” From Sarah Williamson boating on the Elk River near Athens, Alabama on July 15, 2006. We were on the Wicks’ boat and mowing through the peaches they had brought as a snack. Sarah did want the kids to eat them all.

“Jack, get your head out of the toilet!” From Sarah Williamson to Jack after a day on the Elk River near Athens, Alabama. Jack was giving a close inspection of his work product.

Clean Your Plate

2005-07-31T22:47:00.000-04:00

It happened again last night. It happens pretty much every night and every breakfast and lunch too. After ten minutes at the table Sydney will say she's not hungry any more but its clear very little eating has taken place. Often at dinner, especially if she's aware that any kind of desert will be served, she just skip the fake fullness exuse and go strait for the the "can I have desert now" move.

I actually don't have too much of a problem letting Syd off without eating a meal but she nearly always comes back an hour later wanting a special meal. If it weren't for that I'd actually like to instill in her the notion that you stop eating when your full which may mean that you skip a meal now and then.

Unfortuneately that is not the example that we show often enough. I grew up having to clean my plate and vividly remember sitting at our harvest gold dinner table for a couple of hours with four green beans on my plate that I refused to eat. I finally swollowed them cold with my luke warm milk as if they were a pill. So now with Sydney, we often require her to at least eat three bites of her food, or some other arbitrary amount. What makes it crazy is that its often some junk food dinner item like pizza or fast food. You know that something has gone very wrong when you tell your daughter, "Sydney, you can't have your ice cream until you've eaten at least three more bites of your pizza." I'm not sure but I suspect that ice cream may actually be better for you than pizza.

Quote of the Day

2005-07-08T10:33:00.000-04:00

From Sydney Williamson in reference to her imaginary girlfriend named Peter, "Peter used to be my age. Then she was 38 but now she's 20."

Blindingly Crazy Bathrooms In Virgina

2005-06-20T13:13:00.000-04:00

This last weekend on my return from an unfortunate visit to Virginia, more on that in a moment, I had the most odd bathroom experience. It was probably the most poorly laid out public bathroom I’d ever been in but I won’t go into that.

So already bothered by the strange layout I entered the handicapped stall after a five-minute wait. Since the handicapped stall is so large they had installed a foldaway baby changing station on the wall. As I was taking care of business and observing my surroundings I noticed that the baby changing station offered direction written in Braille. At first, this didn’t seem unusual to me but within moments I began to laugh out loud.

Think of the circumstances whereby these directions might be used. This was a bathroom at a truck stop on I-80. You would assume that most of the patrons of this establishment would be interstate travelers and therefore any blind man in need of a baby changing station at truck stop would have been traveling with at least two other people: the baby and an adult capable of driving. That other sighted adult would presumably also be capable of changing a baby’s diaper. So here’s the scenario: a blind man and his wife stop to get gas and change their baby’s poopy diaper. The woman say, "Honey, will you do me a favor and change the baby’s diaper when you go to the bathroom." The blind man, apparently also retarded, says, "Sure, honey!" He takes the baby in his arms, which makes it very difficult to use his cane, and makes the short but perilous journey across the busy parking lot and through the unfamiliar store all the way to the bathroom. Assuming he ever made it to the bathroom and into the correct stall he would have to rub his hands all over the bathroom walls to find the baby changing station and the directions written in Braille. This scenario is already absurd and gross enough without describing what it might be like for a blind man to change a baby’s poopy diaper, so I just won’t go there. This guy must be really desperate and helpless to stay with this woman. So, this is why I was laughing on the potty.

There were a few more odd things about this bathroom. The bathroom was moderately clean looking but the sink area had a lot of standing water. To get a squirt of soap your arm had to extend and almost touch the front of the paper towel dispenser. However, the paper towel dispenser was one of those infrared activated models so when you reached for your soap the towel began spilling out the dispenser into the pooled water on the countertop. Worse yet, the soap was the greasy stuff that takes several seconds of scrubbing to get off your hands. This is usually not a problem but the water faucet was also infrared activated meaning that there were two settings, on and off, no temperature control. The water coming out of this faucet was probably 120 degrees so you had to scald your hands to rinse off the greasy soap.

At first thought I told myself that I’d avoid this place if I ever found myself on I-80 in the future but I think I’ve reconsidered. I actually got more joy out that bathroom than from nearly anything else on the trip.

2005-06-05T21:58:00.000-04:00

It's been nearly a full year since I last wrote. I really do enjoy writing but I have to be in the right place for it. If things are too stressful and at work or at home then the creative juices seem to dry up quickly. Also, once I got out of my short lived blogging habit last summer it was just difficult to get back into the groove.

From last July through September all of my humor, all of my sanity, all of my being was consumed by our move from Los Angeles to Nashville. It must be a testament to how sheltered a life I've lived that our moved put me into such a tailspin. If I were to tell you the details of our move you probably would think, "Geez, what's this guy's problem?" And in reality, everything did go very smoothly...it's just that everday there seemed to be a major threat that things were not going to go smoothly. Despite my need to Ambien every night for three weeks, I've come out of this experience praising God for blessing us richly.

For the last nine days Sarah and the kids have been in Houston visiting Sarah's parents and brother. It's nice to have a few days to myself. I went fishing one morning. I've played a little X-Box. I've been accountalbe to no one for my time. However, nine days is a little excessive doin't you think? All I needed was about one weekend to reenergize....it got really old after that. During that time though I've been able to get back into a place where I think I can starting writing a little. So, summer has come again and I hope to be writing more often.

Moving

2004-08-27T15:46:00.000-04:00

In a recent discussion about my move from Los Angeles to Nashville a friend of mine told me with a sinister smile that he'd seen a study that stated the only things more stressful than moving are a death in your family or divorce. We'll I'm here to dispute those findings. The ranking by itself may be accurate but it fails to consider that moving could easily also cause death or divorce. The stress of the move is a little too fresh to go into without my blood pressure spiking so I'll have to save those details for a future posting.

What I Will Miss About California

2004-08-10T11:39:00.000-04:00

Sarah and I are very sad about leaving California. We will miss:

seeing the doe and her twin fawns graze on Pepperdine's expansive lawn...the weather...dinner on the beach at Gladstone's, Malibu Seafood, Duke's, Goeffrey's and The Chart House...seeing dolphins from the beach...watching gray whales in Santa Monica Bay on their migration...our annual trip to the Piedras Blancas elephant seal colony in San Simeon...Saturday mornings at Noah's and Jamba Juice...Jerry's Famous Deli at any time of the day or night...Slippery Shrimp at Yang Chow...Pacific Coast Highway...Malibu Canyon...the wild parrot flock in Malibu (yes, there are parrots in Malibu)...being close to the wine country...the view from nearly anywhere on Pepperdine's campus...Leo Carillo Beach...good sushi...the Santa Monica farmers market...the ocean mist in late afternoon...Trader Joe's grocery store...and I'm sure many, many other things...

Home

2004-08-05T17:03:00.000-04:00

Home. This word has revived meaning for me today. Home is so much more than where you live; it is where you belong. I was raised in Fort Worth, Texas. In fact, I lived in Texas for the first 22 years of my life but for some reason Texas feels no longer feels like home. Sarah and I have lived in Los Angeles for eight of our ten years of marriage but for some reason Los Angeles no longer feels like home. Home for me and my family is Nashville, Tennessee. That's where we belong.

Today I resigned my position at Pepperdine University and I am moving my family home to Nashville. Nashville is home to me for several reasons. My parents have been in Nashville for eight years and it seems that nearly all of my closest friends in the world live there. Soon my sister and brother in law may live there too.

I will deeply miss California but its not my home anymore...

Patience Is A Virtue...Just Not One of Mine

2004-07-28T17:55:00.000-04:00

Surprises aren't really something I enjoy. At work, in fact, being the cause of a surprise is one of the worst things you can do...especially avoidable ones. I suppose I have similar feelings about surprises in my personal life, even when it comes to good surprises like Christmas gifts and finding out the sex of your unborn children. I would much prefer to have all of that information as soon as possible. Let's just say that I have an affinity for immediate gratification.

During my lifetime only a few birthday and Christmas gifts have truly been surprising, which is just fine to me. This is mostly because I pester people so much that they end up telling me or giving me hints that I'm able to follow-up on. And of course, if they won't tell you then there are other investigative techniques that can be employed. When I was a kid I learned of most of the spots where Christmas gifts were hidden and these days a quick review of web browser history and cookies and yield a few hints.

I pretty much have the same view in regard to finding out the sex of your children prior to their birth. To all those people who say they want the sex to be a surprise when the baby is born, I have news: It will still be a surprise when you find out in the obstetrician's office. I know this is a very personal decision and I certainly don't criticize anyone for wanting to wait until the big day...but I guess I just have not heard a rationale for waiting that has resonated with me. For the most part Sarah has agreed with me, enough so that we've discovered the sex of both of our two kids prior to their births. Although we've not decided whether or not we'll have a third child, Sarah has floated the idea of waiting next time. So I may have to brush up on my patience skills if we have a third. They say patience is a virtue…its just not one of mine.

Bedtime Bribes

2004-07-22T00:37:00.000-04:00

At some point about the time I entered toddlerhood my mom discovered the secret to keeping me in the bed through the night. It was Tang...you know, the astronaut drink? She'd set a bottle of Tang on the dresser next to my crib. I would wake up, find the Tang, get my fix, and go back to sleep. To this day I love that stuff.

Several months back during our bedtime routine I told my daughter Sydney that the book we were reading, "Goodnight Moon," was a book that Bammy, my mom, used to read to me at bedtime. Sydney found this nostalgic fact fascinating. Since that day, every time we read that book she reminds me that Bammy used to read it to me.

Tonight during my nightly battle for bedtime supremacy it occurred to me that I might be able to feed Sydney's affinity for the nostalgic with the Tang story. She drank in my manipulation beautifully. As I told her about Bammy giving me Tang "in my own bed" I could see her visibly loosen up. Within a few seconds she was virtually putting herself to bed so I quickly whipped-up a bottle of Tang. After reading, singing, praying, and our "talk about the day" I told her that she could have more Tang tomorrow if she slept in her own bed tomorrow night.

Boy, I hope she likes Tang as much as I do...

What a Gift!

2004-07-19T18:15:00.000-04:00

Earlier this week when I was doing some maintenance on my computer I came across some old email from a previous job. I was amazed to read my own words from two years ago where I was telling a friend that I had not left the office before 8:00PM in over a month. I recall that several of those weeks were capped with weekend work as well.

Although 70 hour work weeks were difficult, at the time they were not really much of a problem for me because I’d grown so accustomed to it. We so easily can adapt to very difficult circumstances but I am so thankful to God that I'm no longer having to adapt to such long hours. My job at Pepperdine in Malibu allows me to be home every night to eat dinner with the kids and help put them to bed. I would have missed two years of those precious moments had I stayed at Disney.

What a gift!

Slow Down, Kid

2004-07-14T13:00:00.000-04:00

Less than a month ago my eight-month-old son Jack could barely roll over. Well, at the rate he's progressing he'll be participating in the 2008 Olympics. Last Sunday, July 12, he decided he would conquer the stairs. He had been pulling himself up to a standing position for a couple of weeks. His favorite place to practice his new trick was on the bottom stair of our staircase. On Sunday he simply pulled himself up onto the next step...except he didn't stop. He went all the way to the top. Of course, he gets his drive and ambition from me.

Jack climbing the stairs for the first time...

Sports Un-fan

2004-07-12T15:25:00.000-04:00

Today I've decided to come out of the closet...the sports fan closet, that is. I'll just say it. I hate watching sports. I'm one of about a dozen males in the United States that does not drool like Homer Simpson staring at a Duff beer when they hear the phrase "Sports Center." I just don't understand what draws most men and some women in to sportsfanship. And I'm absolutely dumbfounded when I see people have an actual emotional reaction to the outcome of a sporting event. Is it competitiveness? I consider myself a fairly competitive person but this personality trait doesn't seem to translate in this context. Why would my personal level of competitiveness attach itself to the performance of some sports team...that I am not on? Is it a sense of community? Perhaps this makes more sense but I seem to get quite enough community between work, church, friends and my hyper-active two-year-old daughter.

This should be no surprise to my parents, in-laws, and extended family. Invariably, I end up watching small parts of several football games around Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. But most of the time I quietly slip out of the room to find something more interesting to do like trim my nose hair or organize ID cards in my wallet. However, there have been days when I was not able to escape. The most memorable was New Year's Day 1994 when I sat glassy-eyed on a couch for more than eight hours watching two football games at a time...yes, two at a time. My family set up a supplemental TV on top of the larger family room TV, each TV tuned to separate football games. I feel sure my life was shortened by a few weeks because of it.

I often find myself in the midst of real men who are talking about some sort of sports related subject. My personal policy is to maintain total silence during these awkward moments lest I say something stupid like, "Hey Bob, how'd yur Broncos do this weekend? I heard their pitcher was really good this year!"

Let me share my hierarchy of hatred toward watching sporting events:

Watching a live sporting event is the most palatable scenario but, geez, these games can be long. I was at a Dodger's game yesterday when half-way through the game my sports fan brother-in-law says to me, "Wow, this game is going really fast." I'm sorry but there is nothing fast about baseball.

Watching sports on television easily trumps a live sporting event in the hierarchy of hatred. On television you lose the festive nature of a live event and once the three to five hour game is over there are always several more just beginning.

Sports related news, however, rises to a totally new circle of hell. The only thing worse than having to watch a sports event is hearing someone tell you about watching a sports event.

Only slightly worse than televised news is written sports coverage in newspapers and on the internet.

The most unbearable form of sports viewership are sports related video games. These guys are amazing. They'll watch random games all day long on TV, review everything just watched on ESPN's Sports Center, then go to their video games and simulate a sports event. Enough is enough. Now I love video games. In fact, I actually own an X-Box; however, you won't find any sport-related games in my repertoire.

As with most rules there are a few exceptions to this one. I love the Olympics. I love the spirit of world unity that it brings and I love watching the best of the best. And I love to watch the finals of most professional sports. I also have completely different feelings about playing sports. I loved High School football. And I still enjoy flag football and pick-up basketball. The problem is that my extremely out-of-shape body hates participating in sports more than I hate watching it and in the event that my brain thinks the word "exercise" my body puts me in my place by kicking a disk out of place.

Jack Officially Crawling...And Falling

2004-06-21T02:11:00.000-04:00

We've entered a new era. As of Tuesday, June 15, 2004, Jack is officially crawling. For the past few weeks he's been threatening to do this but now he's following through on those threats. Actually, he's been pulling himself up to a standing position for several days too. We're going to have to make a few adjustments around the house to accommodate all this change. First, no more napping on our bed unattended. We didn't have to put this rule in place for Sydney because she never really took naps and if she did as soon as she awoke she was screaming. Jack, the happy lad that he is, wakes up and tries his best to smile you to death. And since there is no audible announcement of the end of his nap, he is free to just lay there and coo or, as he did yesterday, just roll off the bed onto the floor. As happy as he usually is, he doesn't seem to respond well to a three foot free-fall onto a hard surface.

Soon we'll be re-erecting those awful baby-gates too. We just took those things down about eighteen months ago. Those things made me feel like a lab rat in a maze. Occasionally I would just step over them. Boy, was that a mistake...at least one time it was. I was carrying two drinks and was in a hurry to get back into the living room. As I took a too-quick step over the baby gate my foot nicked the top of the gate which caused me to spill some of the drink. My leading foot came down onto the spilled liquid and scooted right out from under me. There was a moment in the following mili-seconds when my entire body was completely horizontal and four feet off the ground. The first thing to hit was my shoulder blades. Breath gone. Spine jelly. And drinks everywhere. Maybe we'll just opt for extra safety locks on the cabinets and fridge rather than baby gates.

Parenting Styles: Right, Wrong, or Neither

2004-06-19T10:15:00.000-04:00

When Sarah and I found out that "we" were pregnant with our daughter Sydney it was quite a shock. We were very excited but we also had a natural amount of anxiety about being new parents. However, my anxiety was a little more selfish than Sarah's. I tended to be more concerned about how life was going to change for me and Sarah was more concerned about being a good mother. Her reaction led to lots of reading...dozens of books covering every perspective.

It was during this time that I was first exposed to the baby-wise versus attachment-parenting controversy. What sent up the red flag for me was that the proponents of each of these two perspectives seemed to have it all figured out. In my thirty-two years I've learned to be very suspicious of anything that purports to have perfected an approach to, or an interpretation of, any particular subject. Call is a healthy level of cynicism.

I didn't really develop my current perspective on this issue until after our second child, Jack, was born. Our first child, Sydney, is an EXTREMELY high-energy, high-maintenance child. Despite much effort to the contrary she has taken approximately ten naps in her entire life. Until Jack was born I often thought that this behavior was as a result of poor parenting but Jack proved that wrong. From the moment that Jack emerged into this world it was clear that he was the polar opposite of Sydney. He would nurse for long periods of time whereas Sydney would be distracted at the slightest noise. The list of contrasting personality traits could go on and on. The point is this: these two kids have very different personalities which require different approaches to parenting.

Not because we subscribe to any author's point of view but Sarah and I tend to naturally have attachment-parenting tendencies. I don't condemn the baby-wise approach at all but I am concerned by the fact that it seems to be applied in most situations as a one-size-fits-all parenting philosophy. If I were professional parent, which I am not, I would be able to identify my child’s needs and adjust my approach on-the-fly. In my case, it would probably mean that I would apply attachment-parenting principles with Sydney and more structured and scheduled techniques with Jack. This has not happened because, in the end, parenting has often been more about what is easiest for me and my wife than what is the absolute best for our kids. My suspicion and my earnest prayer is that despite what I do, or don’t do, everything will work out fine. God is in control.

Boxers Are Not Underwear!

2004-06-09T01:54:00.000-04:00

One night when I was three years old I realized that my dad didn't wear pajamas like I did. I have very specific memories during that time of my life of wearing pajama pants with built-in footies. The sole of these footies was made of plastic and essentially acted as a foot-sweat receptacle. If that sounds awful, you now understand why the realization that my dad wore only his tighty-whities to bed made me want to do the same. Every day since that day I've been a brief man.

When I hear guys talk about boxers versus briefs it makes me crazy. There is absolutely no comparison to be made here. It's like comparing ski jacket versus t-shirt. Yes, they both cover your torso but they are not exactly interchangeable garments, are they? To put this in perspective for all the females, the argument that boxer shorts are just another kind of underwear is like saying that a t-shirt is just another kind of bra. Sounds pretty ridiculous, doesn't it?

At the risk of stating the obvious, let me just say that the real issue here is the "gird factor." Pasted directly from the Merriam Webster web site, the word gird is defined as: (1) to encircle or bind with a flexible band (as a belt); to make fast (as a sword by a belt or clothing with a cord); SURROUND, (2) PROVIDE, EQUIP; especially : to invest with the sword of knighthood, (3) to prepare (oneself) for action; intransitive senses: to prepare for action; gird one's loins: to prepare for action: muster up one's resources.

Now the idea of the flexible bands mentioned in that definition makes me wince but I think you now understand how I define the purpose of underwear. Boxer shorts do not do any of these things. The few times that I have worn boxer shorts I felt like I was simply wearing a pair of shorts under my pants. Ironically, I was. So, the truth is that boxer shorts are shorts not underwear.

Home Potty Sitting

2004-06-05T13:21:00.000-04:00

I'm a Christian. I know why I'm here...to glorify my God. But, you know, we humans, despite being created in the image of God, can really make life difficult on ourselves. And someone like me, who can be a bit obnoxious, values every bit of advice that might make life a little more pleasant...especially when it's something really easy to do. To that end, I'd like to make a suggestion to all of you males out there who feel the same way.

Let me preface this suggestion by assuring you that my sense of masculinity is completely in tact and that any temptation on your part to feel threatened is as a result of cultural misdirection, and the lack of directions on your potty.

Here is the suggestion: always sit, never, ever stand to pee at your home toilet. Now this only applies to males who share living quarters with females. Bachelors, you may continue to make all the mess you want. The benefits of such a habit are obvious. The women in our lives will have two fewer things to hassle us about. Those two things are (1) "[Insert your name here], you'd peed on the seat!" and (2) "[Insert your name here], you left the toilet seat up!" Again, both of these are avoided when the "always sit" rule is observed. Can you think of any other area of home life that has so irritated the women of the world that they wrote a poem about it..."if you sprinkle when you tinkle be a sweetie and wipe the seaty."

Of course, the back door to this entire subject is the urinal. If you're one of the lucky few men who have a urinal installed at home then you can completely circumvent this entire subject. Such a man is Tom K. of Matagorda, Texas who is a friend of mine who added a urinal to the back of his garage where he maintains his workshop. Now that's what I'm talkin' about.

Before Jesus came to me one night and set my head straight on this issue I tried to fight it. It was difficult to fight the peeing on the seat argument but even today I still maintain that there are serious logic problems with women-kind's insistence that men leave the seat in the down position. Putting all chivalry aside and letting my true clod nature shine, why is it that the great roulette wheel of life landed on "seat down" as the default position for a toilet? Surely you have to admit that "seat up" is just as valid? The complaint about accidentally sitting down on the toilet when the seat is up is compelling but the argument just doesn't have any follow-through. I have to admit that this has actually happened to me, once, but not since I learned of the urban myth about snakes laying in wait at the bottom of your potty to bite your bum. I never sit on a potty without knowing what's already in it. If women all around the world were as vigilant as I about pre-potty inspections then there would be no need for the "seat down" rule.

To add to the hypocracy of these arbitrary rules, not that it makes any difference, the truth is that there is no guarantee that using the facilities will be a clean process for either males or females. I've never seen anyone get more pee on the floor than my almost-potty-trained daughter, that is, except for the incredibly drunk Texas Ranger's fan that I saw pee in every non-potty corner of the general admissions bathroom at the Ball Park at Arlington. Despite the fact that most women's public bathrooms are ten times more disgusting that men's, it seems that men have caught most of the blame for tinkle sprinkle problem plaguing our society. You doubt my claim, do you? Just ask ten random women if they've ever hovered over a public toilet...then ask them how successful they were in hitting their target? I rest my case.

Man's ability to urinate standing should be filed in the very full filing cabinet labeled "Just Because You Can Doesn't Mean You Should" along with other prominent files such as Hot Pepper Eating Contests, Nipple Piercing, and Fire Walking. After being on the receiving end of more than thirty years of hypocritical nagging I've caved. I've now fully embraced home potty sitting.

Proposal for Changes to Thank You Note Rules

2004-06-03T16:21:00.000-04:00

Like most men on planet Earth I am horrible at writing thank you notes. My wife still hassles me to this day about thank-you notes that I did not write for a wedding shower held in my honor...we're coming up on our ten-year anniversary. I'm sure all the women out there who just read the last sentence are aghast at my thoughtlessness but at the same time I'm sure there is a large group of men cheering me on who all belong to GUANTYN (Guys United Against Needless Thank You Notes). I am a card-carrying member. Before you send me boxes of dead roses you must know that I gave everyone of these people a heart-felt VERBAL thank you.

Have you ever overheard the following conversation between two women?

SARAH: Well, I sent the gift for Betsy’s shower three weeks ago but I have not gotten a thank-you note!
AMY: Oh my, what an unthoughtful hag! We should crucify her.
SARAH: It's not so much that I wanted the thank you note...I just want to know that she got the package.

I feel like I've heard this unbelievable conversation dozens of times. And every time I hear it I'm more certain of two things: (1) women all over the world must hate me and (2) this business about delivery of the package is code for "I don't really care about the package I just want you to tell me what an awesome person I am for sending you a gift."

At the risk of sinking even further in the minds of women all over the world, I would like to propose a few changes to the unwritten set of thank you note rules. First, a gift giver shall never expect a thank you note. In the spirit of Matthew 5 ("Do not let your right hand know what your left is doing...") the privilege of giving a gift should be thank you enough. Second, thank you notes from the gift receiver shall never be written if a verbal thank you has already been delivered. Although not as meaningful, over-the-phone thanks yous shall be just as viable. Third, thank you notes shall only be written (though still not expected by the gift giver) when there has not been an opportunity to deliver a verbal thank you. Of course, I still leave room for the "just because" kind of notes and a supplemental thank you note after a verbal thank you is a nice touch…but not required.

Now, back to the real world. Maybe the givers of my ten-year-old gifts would find some clod-like humor in receiving a thank you note ten years after the fact. I guess its time to pull out the shower gift list...

Money Does Not Buy Class…Not That I Have Any of Either

2004-06-02T18:30:00.000-04:00

When I was in fifth grade there was a girl named Kelly at my school who allegedly had a booger eating habit a few years earlier. She might as well have had a scarlet B stitched to her shirt by the way she was talked about in the halls. I hear this behavior is not uncommon for young kids but it surely is not a temptation I've ever experienced.

This afternoon as I was stopped at a light on Ventura Boulevard we looked to our right to notice a middle-aged woman in a new $65,000 Lexus picking her nose. A little embarrassing, maybe, but we've all been in that situation where you just had to take care of business. Have you ever have that kind of booger that feels like it grew into a burr inside your nose? Or perhaps you've had the flapping booger that flutters in the wind in that tickley way with every inhale and exhale? You know the feeling and you've taken measures, including picking. My guess is, however, that those measures did not include eating your boogers. Well, this apparently wealthy woman on Ventura Boulevard decided that she'd go all the way...twice. The first time I thought perhaps her soiled finger might have just brushed up against her mouth but it was all too clear that her second helping was a very intentional pick and lick.

She shamelessly did this in broad daylight for everyone to see. If I were ever to join this exclusive club of adult booger eaters I would so carefully plan my covert booger meals that even the CIA would have a very difficult time determining where I was or what I was doing. As the light turned green I sped up just a bit, lightly honked my horn, and made eye-contact with the booger eater. It just goes to prove that money does not buy class…not that I have any of either.

Most Embarrassing Moment

2004-06-01T19:30:00.000-04:00

Thinking about the experience in the prior posting reminded me of what actually is my most embarrassing moment:

A few years ago I would not have published this story for public consumption but enough time has passed that some of the sting has worn off to reveal its humor. In 1997 we lived in Nashville, Tennessee and attended the Otter Creek Church of Christ. One particular Sunday when Sarah was out of town I was assigned to help with the Lord's Supper. This required me to stand at the front of the sanctuary with five other servers and distribute the wine and bread. The praise worship time at Otter Creek was wonderful. Brandon Thomas had led us in a few songs and I was deeply moved. As he ended this particular section of the service I kept my eyes closed and was continuing to pray. I slowly opened my eyes in an utterly silent pre-communion moment to see that all five of the other servers had already taken their place at the front of the sanctuary. I had missed my cue. This situation would have been a bit embarrassing by itself without adding to it but I did. Now I don't consider myself to be a cussing man but apparently I was on this day because as I stood to join my fellow servers I blurted in a slightly muffled volume "Oh s**t." It is difficult to describe the physical and emotional sensation of complete and all-encompassing embarrassment. Infinite hollowness. Floating above the ground. Full-body needle-prick sensation. Profound regret. These things describe but don't fully convey the feeling. I knew that anyone within a five-foot radius heard me. Brandon Thomas let me know that he was able to read my lips from the other side of the sanctuary. As I served the Lord's Supper I was realizing the bizarre sense of irony of cussing during the communion service.

Most Embarrassing Moment...Almost

2004-06-01T19:14:00.000-04:00

Something earlier today made me think of this experience from when I worked at Disney:

During a break between sessions at a conference on the Disney studio lot l took a hurried trip to the bathroom. After walking briskly into the bathroom and quickly opening and closing the door to the last stall I began to take care of my business. That space turned into a temporary prison as I noticed a pair of heels walk into the stall next to me. I was in the women's bathroom. Fortunately, the stall I walked into was the oversized, handicapped stall so my potty buddies were not able to see my size elevens. After listening to every trickle of my four bathroom partners, as well as four zip ups, four hand washings, and four exits I made a dash for the door and a somewhat inconspicuous exit. Somehow I managed to survive that experience without being noticed...I think.

Memorial Day 2004 in San Diego

2004-06-01T15:59:00.000-04:00

Over the long Memorial Day weekend Sarah and I took the kids to the San Diego Zoo and the San Diego Wild Animal Park. Of course, Jack couldn't have cared less as long as he was near Sarah but Sydney had a really great time. Of course, we actually got an even more excited response from her when we told her we were staying at a hotel and that there was a pool.

Sydney had the chance to pet a three-foot alligator, which was being held by a zookeeper. We stood in line and waited a few minutes but when the time came she was too afraid. As soon as we walked away she began to cry because she really did want to touch it. The crying quickly turned into a complete meltdown. Something like this happened one other time several months ago at the Long Beach Aquarium in their shark pool. I think these kinds of experiences have given me a small glimpse of some of the feelings I'll have later in life. I have high hopes that our children will embrace all of blessings that life has to offer, but in the end, all I can do is encourage them and pray because only they can make these decisions.

Sydney also had a funny reaction in the herpetarium where they keep the reptiles. The herpetarium building is about 100 feet by 75 feet and the entire perimeter of the building is lined with terrariums containing mostly snakes and lizards. At EVERY exhibit she would ask the question, "It's berry nice?" It unnerved her when I started to point out the "mean" snakes so I found myself telling her that they were all nice. So as we came to the Taipan, which is arguably the world's most venomous snake, I found myself telling her, "yes, it's berry nice."

In my dream house there is a large room that is basically a greenhouse with a large hidden work area, back stage if you will, also a nice lounging area and a waterfall. After this weekend I'd love to have some really colorful birds too. Typically greenhouses seem to be separate buildings with their own temperature/humidity control systems. I want one that feels like an integrated part of the house. As we walked through several of the aviaries and other parts of the zoo I had lots of ideas about how to do this. Someday, maybe.

Sydney at the Beach

2004-05-29T02:51:00.000-04:00

Here is Sydney at Leo Carillo beach on May 23, 2004. Going to the beach is one of her favorite things, along with chocolate milk, jellybeans, cooking with her me, and asking "what are we doing next."

Lately Sydney has really started to take interest in cooking with me, espcially at breakfast. We cook eggs and toast most often. This past week she's added to her breakfast cooking routine the demand that I sit down with her at the table to eat. Of course, these are very precious words to me and I know that it will be a short time when those words will be hoped for but not heard. Reflecting on this make me feel silly when I think that I have hesitated to sit with her because I would be a few mintes late to work. I really just need to make it a habit to get up 30 minutes earlier so that I don't feel that pressure.

Jack at the Beach

2004-05-29T00:59:00.000-04:00

In just the past few weeks Jack has really started to develop some personality. He's days away from crawling and is highly motivated by the need to grab at anything within arm's length. This is Jack at Leo Carillo beach in Malibu on May 23, 2004.