Blue Like Jazz

My wife and I are reading this very popular book at the moment. The guys at Saltmine at 149th and Metcalf have a few copies at the moment and I recommend it to anyone looking for a new book to read. I think I will be posting about this book a little more after I get further through the book.
By the way - the bookstore is rather cool. They carry all the Relevant book line.

Family Traditions

A few years back I heard a memorable sermon. Tom Herzog was talking about significant moments in his life that he titled 'Joshua Moments'. After very personal significant moments with his children he would keep a 'souvenier' from that moment and it would be called, from that moment onward, a Joshua moment. And he would have an artifact to remember it by, like Joshua would after a great victory or memorable moment in his life.
I am very much looking forward to adopting this tradition into my relationship with my son.
The 'Joshua Moments' idea all came back to me after I recieved a book through the mail from Tom today called 'You Have What it Takes' What every Father Needs to Know - by John Eldredge. It was a wonderful surprise and I look forward to reading it.
I am also looking forward to starting our own family traditions at different times of the year. I also want to hear what other family traditions people do with their kids. If you don't have kids yet - what traditions are you going to put into place? So tell me your traditions in the comments box.
(Btw, you don't have to register or have a login to post comments!)

Pre-baby tips?

As I was listening, last night, to 'You've got a friend in me' by Randy Newman (also the hit song from Toy Story) I began to become very excited about having a little boy of my own. After a few false alarms of running to the hospital and being sent home again - I am finally staring reality in the face.

I am going to be a Dad. A Father.

Here's what dictionary.com threw up at me.

fa·ther
1. A man who begets or raises or nurtures a child.
2. A male parent of an animal.
3. A male ancestor.
4. A man who creates, originates, or founds something: Chaucer is considered the father of English poetry.
5. An early form; a prototype.
6. Father Christianity.
1. God.
2. The first person of the Christian Trinity.
7. An elderly or venerable man. Used as a title of respect.
8. A member of the senate in ancient Rome.
9. One of the leading men, as of a city: the town fathers.
10. or Father A church father.
11. Abbr. Fr.
1. A priest or clergyman in the Roman Catholic or Anglican churches.
2. Used as a title and form of address with or without the clergyman's name.

The baby could come at any time - the clock is ticking. I've been reading this book 'Becoming a Dad', published by the wonderful Relevant Books. which I highly recommend to any father, or father-to-be.
The purpose of this post is to get some advice or thoughts on things that you would recommend that I do in this 'pre-baby' time that I have left. What sort of things should I prepare for? What do you wish you had known before your first child was born?

BlogKC

Here's a little website that I like to go from time to time which has useful local news that you might not hear of on the many wonderful local news channels. I just read that the World Market in Westport flooded the other day.
Good to know.
If you want to stay in touch with the local world around you - this is a cool site. Heck, you could even RSS it in your Firefox bookmarks bar.
Click here.
By the way - what are some of your favorite things to do in KC, yo?

Mac secrets

If you don't have a mac (computer, not rain jacket) - don't bother clicking right about here. If you do have one, here are some handy little secrets.

Here fishy fishy!

I share our Lord's passion for fishing. A few weekends ago I was fishing with a couple of friends - Luke and Tom. It was about 8:10 in the evening on Saturday, we had pulled in a few decent 2 pounders and then we experienced a fish drought for about 10 minutes. I reeled in the yellow spinner slowly, that I had been using for most of the evening and I was watching the lure swim through the water back towards the boat when - WHAM - it got a hit. It was about 3 feet from the boat in water about 10 ft deep.
Out from the weeds came this 6 lb bass. She took it (how do I know it was a she? cos it was a Largemouth...thanks to my Dad for that joke!) I was holding on to the pole with both hands as the tip of the pole was down to my feet (well, almost!). I was shouting to the other guys "get it in the boat!!". Luke grabbed the line and pulled it in and as soon as he did, the line snapped. MAN! If it had been any further out I would have lost it and it would have forever been my fish-that-got-away story. Fortunately, it came up right by the boat so we were able to pull it right in to the boat!

Anyway, there's my fishing story. That kinda thing doesn't happen very often to me, at least. The biggest fish I ever caught. I took the pictures and released it for my son to catch one day, when it gets REALLY big!

Casual Piracy

Avaaast there, shipmates! Looks like record companies are quietly working on new ways to control the way we use the music we buy - watch out, casual pirates!
I read this news article today and I am still trying to make up my mind about what I think about it.

Here is a little synopsis of the story if you don't have time to go there.

The record industry has been targeting online music sharing for years, but now it has undertaken a new war--against "casual piracy."
Sony BMG and EMI have begun shipping compact discs using technology that limits the number of copies you can make of any disc to three. And you can't port songs from affected CDs to Apple IPod players unless you request a workaround from Sony.

Thanks to Heath for being the photo on this post and for posting very nice things about me.

Dags

(memorable line from Snatch)
D'ya like dags?
Dags? Oh, DOGS - yeah, I like dogs.

This is Bella, the last pet we adopted, and the last one we will adopt.
I love our dogs, they are always happy to see me, and always able to cheer me up...oh - and they eat each other's poo so I don't have any cleanup in the back yard.
Nothing like a hot breakfast!!!