Bike Rack

This is just a quick shout out to my parents and Amy for my sweet new car roof bike rack (that they gave me for Christmas). We had a nice day last week and I installed it. I still need to get the part that actually holds the bike on the rack, but this is the expensive part. Too bad my ankle is too messed up to bike right now.

Ouch!

Get the picture...

It was the Calvary Church men's basketball league tournament. Saturday, March 15 was the date. All was on the line. We won our first game of the day...an 8:00 am battle between the two un-feated teams (you read that right...we were the two teams who hadn't won a game). So, it was our second game of the day...and we were once again losing. I decided it was time for me to step up my game and put it all on the line. When the opportunity arose, I went up against a giant player on the other team for a rebound. He came down with the ball. I came down on his foot. Turned my ankle. Extreme pain.

I hitched a ride home, then hitched a ride to the emergency room (special thanks to the Kruse family for getting me home, for Mrs. Chris for coming over to sit with the boys, and to Amy for taking me to the hospital...and for putting up with me for the past several days). They x-rayed it and told me it was a sprain and that I'd recover...eventually. No big deal. Below are a few photos.

Be sure to read my next post (coming soon) for lessons I've learned.

My ankle had a swollen knot that was a little larger than a golf ball in size. Sweet ballin' shoes, huh?

Me chillin' in the ER. My pain meds had kicked in at this point.

The family coming to my bedside engaging in a friendly game
of Sesame Street UNO.

Heaven Is Like

I'm sitting here at the mall watching the kids play on the playground and I think I know what Heaven is going to be like. There must be a dozen kids running around screaming and yelling and enjoying themselves to the max. They're probably exhausted. They probably feel like it is work (I think my Psychology 101 teacher once said that play is work for children). But there is no stress. No anxiety. No worries. Only unadulterated glee.

By contrast, if you look around at the parents, you see frowns, stress, and the every-once-in-awhile yell for the kids to slow down, to stop yelling and (paraphrasing here) to stop having so much fun.

-pause-

Quinn just came over to me with an "ouchie"...a little kiss later and all is well again.

-resume post-

I look forward to Heaven. I'm not sure exactly what we'll be doing there, but I know that there will be joy everlasting...little glimpse of which can be previewed at the mall playground on this Friday night.

A Lesson (or two) In Data Backup

Do you ever get the feeling that God is trying to teach you a lesson? This has been one of those weeks for me.

First, we were in the process of adding a terabyte (1,000 gigs) of disk space to our disk array which already has a TB of information on it when all of the data went missing. We didn't have a backup (we did have a disk array, which protects against hardware failure, but no backup). Luckily, after much wasted time and hardship, we were able to recover the data.

Then, two days later, all of the images on the church's website disappeared. Turns out the data was fine, only the information that tells the site where to display each image was corrupt, and we did have a backup of that, but we don't have a backup of the image files themselves...so we were freaking out as you can imagine.

So after a week of lost productivity and shot nerves, we are back up and running. The lesson learned: back up all of your data...then, for safe keeping, back it up again.

The Mac Goes Boom

Yep. I dropped my Macbook Pro on Friday.

It was in my notebook computer protecting backpack, so the major damage was averted...but it fell right off the stage at the church where I had set the backpack while helping one of the boys get their coat on.

It did sustain an injury to the right front corner...right above the DVD drive. It bent the metal pretty bad in that one spot. I took a hammer to it and you can barely even tell it was damaged now. Amy was pretty surprised when she heard me hammering and said, "What's that noise?" ...to which I replied, "it's just me hammering on my Mac." "You're what!?!" The DVD drive still works...just now tested it.

I'll post a picture first chance I get. You'd think I'd be pretty upset as much as I love this computer, but surprisingly, I'm over it. It's just a computer. Only a tool to accomplish a goal...not the goal itself. I think I'm growing out of some of my old materialistic ways. Yay me! (Still working on the humilty struggles, hehe)

Know of a Church?

Do you know of a church that needs graphics help?
Here is my new project: Serve15

Adobe Spry Replaces Pop-up Menu

Ok...so this post isn't for my typical reader, but I've been going crazy the past couple of days so I thought I would post here in case anyone else is having the same problems.

In Macromedia Dreamweaver 8 (and MX), to make a pop-up menu from an image on a web page was very easy, using the behaviors pallet. In my opinion it worked well and, well, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. In Adobe Dreamweaver CS3, they fixed it. They changed technology to something called a Spry that works with Ajax. And with that, they depreciated the pop up menu tool. The only problem is, the way the Spry technology works, it won't put the pop up in the right spot (at least I'm not smart enough to get it to work). So, if you want to do what I'm trying to do, you have to send your image out to Fireworks...and even then it doesn't work very well.

Having said all of that, I went back to my version 8 and created a pop up. Below is the script for anyone who needs it:

[blogger is messing with the code. Click here to download it in a text file format.]


Here's a sample of how it works (note: menu links don't go anywhere).

Disclaimer: I make no warranties and provide no support should this not work. I can tell you that the code is copy/pasted directly from Dreamweaver 8 and has no bugs that I'm aware of.

The funny thing is once you drop all of this into your document, CS3 will allow you to edit it using the depreciated menu item under the behaviors pallet. I'm usually Adobe's biggest fan (I live in Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, & Dreamweaver), but when I ran across this problem, I have to say I was very disappointed. I'm fine if they want to move to a new technology...but leave the old tricks in there for us old dogs.

The Best Cookies Ever

I know you're supposed to say that your mom or your wife is the best cook you know, but forgive me here Amy & Mom.

I just 'helped' Trip & Quinn eat a party-favor cookie that they got from Austin's party and I have to say that Julie Shaw is the best cookie cook I know.

Not only were they extremely tasty, but they were decorated most excelently as well...Thomas the Train (or as Quinn says, Thomas the Train Tractor).

Anytime you want to make me cookies, Julie, I'll gobble them up with glee!

Funny Post

Here's a funny post on Amy's blog.

Stranger Danger

Happy Birthday Austin & Sydney

Austin Shaw turns three and Sydney Ross turns one on Tuesday. Happy birthday!

New Year's Resolutions

Here they are...a few days late...you can help keep me accountable:

[1] Lose 25 lbs by my birthday. I know, it's cliche to say you're going to lose weight, but I've got to do it.

[2] Blog at least once-per-week. It's not so much about you, the readers...it's therapeutic for me.

[3] Exercise more (goal: 3 times per week).

[4] Read at least 1 book per month.

[5] Pay off my car by the end of the year.

My New Favorite Site

Dang...I just realized that I haven't posted in a while. Anyways, I wanted to share my new favorite site with you: Archie McPhee. See if you can find the nun chuck!

Are You Still Sinning?

Here's something to think about:

1 John 3:9 (NIV)
No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning because he has been born of God.

Are you still sinning? Are you born again? You'd better figure it out!

So, You're That Guy...

The way I see it, there are three types of people:

[1] People who don't know that they wish they had a Mac.
[2] People who wish they had a Mac.
[3] People who have a Mac (and are broke because of it).

I've progressed through the three stages of life. As my brother-in-law will say, "I've crossed to the dark side." I purchased a Mac Book Pro with Mac OS X Leopard last night to help me with my graphic design freelance adventures. So far, I love it. Stay tuned...I'll keep you informed.

(PS I was just joking above...I have no intentions of becoming a Mac snob)

A Package For Mom

Mom...
There's a package in the mail for you. Hint:

Another One Checked Off

I got one of those rare moments last Wednesday: the chance to check off one of my life goals.

I gave a guest lecture for a Master's level Communications class at Lindenwood University (St. Charles, MO). One of the teachers who taught me in my Master's Degree work was called out of town unexpectedly and couldn't reschedule. Since it's an accelerated degree program, it's frowned upon to just 'cancel class' so he asked me to fill in (I don't know what I did to impress him enough to be invited to be the guest instructor other than mention I'd like to teach someday and if he ever needed a fill-in to let me know). It was actually the equivalent of teaching three three-hour classes. It was a lot of fun and I hope I'm invited back.

It just goes to show you that if you have goals, make a list of them, and come up with little action steps to accomplish them, you can achieve anything you want. Up next: getting my pilot's license and becoming totally debt free (I did call them life goals, right?)!

Some Random Things...

I haven't posted in a while because I haven't really had enough content to make a full post. But, here's a post made up of a few mini-posts to catch you up.

Trip's Prayer
Not too long ago we were riding in the car and Trip was in the back seat mumbling. After a few minutes of it, I asked him what he was saying and he said, "Nothing Dad, I'm just talking to God." Seems like he gets 1 Thess. 5 better than his dad does.

The Fence Falling
We were at Grant's Farm and there were some international visitors looking at the elephants. The dad leaned over the rail holding the little girl to get an inch or two closer and the rail gave way. It was classic. If I had a camera, I would've taken a picture of them...but instead, Amy took the opportunity to get the photo of the agitated elephant. Nobody was injured so all is well (except for the dad's ego, I suppose)



















Spooky Guy
At Grant's Farm, the spooky guy below tried to get me. I wasn't scared.



















Website Work
I've been doing so much freelance website work lately that I hardly have any free time to blog, to do yard work, or to blow my nose. I'll try not to get snot drippings on my brother-in-law's computer (I'm test-driving his mac right now...contemplating a purchase).

Thoughts on Thrity

Not a big deal. Just another day. But I would like to thank everyone who told me "Happy Birthday" today...especially Amy who covered my workplace with signs, Eli who sent me a special message, and my two boys who I think enjoy it being my birthday a lot more than I do.

Bike Crash

I was riding my bike yesterday and the pavement was wet (not a problem). Then, I was going around a corner at approx. 17 mph and hit a patch of wet leaves. The wet leaves shot my bike off the pavement path and caused me to crash onto the path and get myself some road rash.

Boy do I enjoy cycling.

Don't worry...I'm ok. Although it is kind of hard to type with a band-aid on your pinkie finger knuckle.

Annie Lenox

Amy likes to record CBS Sunday Morning on the DVR and watch it later (since we're at church or getting ready for church when it's on). This morning's episode had Annie Lenox from the Eurythmics. The thing that struck me is as they interviewed her at her house and walked through parts of her house, it was a shrine to herself. She had gold and platinum CD's hanging on the walls and photos of her and her band.

I thought to myself, what a sad existence. You work all your life, have a successful career, and all you have is your house as a shrine to yourself. I thought, there's no way I'd have all that stuff hanging in my house. I wouldn't want to live in a shrine to myself.

But, then, I thought that maybe I do live in a shrine to myself (or, at least I would if I could). Several years ago we remodeled our kitchen because (partly) we were embarrassed about the 1970's motif. We wanted something more modern. I wanted something more "me." If I could, I'd have a plasma TV. Why? Because it would be a representation of something I'd worked hard and earned the right to buy. I could go on, but hopefully you get the point.

I don't really have anything profound to say about my realization...except that "sweet dreams are made of these, who am I to disagree? I travel the world and the seven seas. Everybody's looking for something."

What is it about that song that makes me want to sing along? Sweet Dreams (Are Made of These)