A Night in Grand Rapids

So we came down yesterday. Mary and I saw some sights. Then picked Mary's mom and sister from the train. Now relaxing before heading back to Boyne.

Kaleb and LMC Championships

I have two articles on the meet last night. First out of the TVC (Record-Eagle) since TVC St. Francis is in the LM Confernce. Also out of the Petoskey News-Review kind of our local paper for The Boyne area.

Boyne City and TVC St. Francis tied in the team competition, with Kaleb leading the way for the Boys from Boyne.

Harbor's Drake Doherty won the giant slalom in 1 minute, 4.09 seconds, followed by Boyne's Kaleb McNamara (1:04.14) and Mike Cortwright (1:05.08), and St. Francis' Keaden Hornyak (1:06.03) and Stephen Siddall (1:06.47).

McNamara won the slalom (1:21.26), followed by Doherty (1:21.47), Cortwright (1:22.30), Hornyak (1:23.17) and Grayling's Mike Olson (1:23.83).

So First in the Slalom and Second in GS. by only 0.05sec...wow!!

Mary and I are going to make an attempt at going to the State meet in Marquette on Monday. I have the day off. The only thing is that we would have to leave really early in the morning to make it to the slopes on time (can't afford to get a hotel). If we do, we will get pix and video to post after.

Kaleb Continues His Streak! On to State!

Kaleb ran the Regional meet at Nub's Nob north of Harbor Springs on Thursday. Brandon was able to go and  told us that Kaleb hip checked on the first run of the GS (that is he started to fall but was able to bounce back up), so it was a slower time. However, his second run was almost a full second faster than any of the field so he finished 5th. He then had to flawless runs in the slalom, for first place. The entire Boyne City boys team is going to the State competition at Marquette in a little over a week.

Here are some quotes from Kaleb in the Petoskey News-Review:

Kaleb McNamara, who won the boys’ slalom in 1 minute, 8.30 seconds, said he was proud of Boyne’s performance.

“It feels awesome,” McNamara said. “We haven’t done this as a team in a while so it feels good.”

“We were all pretty nervous, but we were determined to win it as well,” McNamara said. “All our guys stood and we were consistent on both runs. We skied pretty decent.”

 WooHoo!!! Way to go Kaleb!

Kaleb wins again!!!

Traverse City Record-Eagle - Article: Glads, Ramblers take LMC ski meet

Click the link above to read the article, but Kaleb won both the slalom and GS last Thursday at Nubs.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Traverse City Record-Eagle - Article: Ski Roundup: Glads, Rams claim meet

Thursday night Kaleb had another conference meet. It was at Nubs Nob north of Harbor Springs. Brandon was able to go, and said that Kaleb clipped a gate in the slalom so he did not finish. However, he finished first in GS. The whole story is here:  Traverse City Record-Eagle - Article: Ski Roundup: Glads, Rams claim meet

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Kaleb at Schuss Mountain

Petoskey News-Review - Sports - Prep skiing: Northmen fourth, fifth at T.C. Central Invitational

It was a day race this week, so we didn't get to go. Kaleb finished fourth in Slalom and 5th in GS. This time he was up against bigger schools  from TC, Cadillac, and Manistee.

Way to go Kaleb!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Kaleb's official results from Jan. 22, 2009

From the Petoskey News-Review:

Kaleb McNamara paced the Boyne boys as he finished second in GS and third in slalom.

 After all the controversy of his first run of the slalom, he still managed to place 3rd! Very cool!

Ski Meet at Boyne Mountian

Mary beat me to posting the race results. So, I'll send the traffic over there to see all of the details, including why we have no video. :(

Kaleb's first meet of the season

This is the ski meet we missed on Monday. I Twittered about it that day. The previous post was about his second meet.

High school boys' skiing: Opener no smooth sailing for defending ... Petoskey News-Review, MI - Jan 7, 2009 Boyne City had a pair of individual medalists in Kaleb McNamara and Sterling Adgate. McNamara was eighth in GS, Adgate was 10th in slalom. ...

View Original Article

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Kaleb Sweeps a Conference meet!

Mary and I didn't get to see this meet either(even though it was across the street). However, Kaleb continues to do well in the skiing events.

Kaleb swept the meet in the Slalom and the GS. Here's part of the story from the Traverse City Record-Eagle:

Kaleb McNamara swept the slalom and giant slalom as Boyne City captured a Lake Michigan Conference boys ski meet at Boyne Mountain.The Ramblers finished with 38 points. St. Francis was second with 63 and Harbor Springs third with 82.

McNamara won the slalom in 1:00.13. He was followed by Drake Doherty of Harbor Springs (1:00.87), Sterling Adgate of Boyne City (1:02.34), Keaden Hornyak of St. Francis (1:02.64) and John Moschovich of St. Francis (1:05.39).

McNamara edged Doherty by a second in the giant slalom (43.61 to 44.6). Boyne City's Mike Cortwright was third (45.36). Stephen Siddall and Cole McCardel of St. Francis were fourth and fifth (45.53 and 45.64).

We have the schedule now and we found our camera! So I hope to get the picture and video online for the next meet that is at Boyne Mountain.

Thanksgiving

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

(Psalms 51)

View Original Article

Thanksgiving here was good, in that it brought our family together, but as with some family gatherings, there were it share of misgivings that put a damper on things. I'm just praying that I remain strong through this attack on our family unity. I praise God that He is with Mary and me  through this time. I pray for peace.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

It seems like a lot going on

Today, while it was a day off, seemed to have a lot happening. It started around 1 pm when Brandon came home, rather unexpectedly, and said that despite getting clearances to work for the Mountain, there was a hold on him working there from personnel.

That leads into the second thing. Brandon had been paying the truck payment when he lost his job. We have no margin in our finances right now, because our renter didn't have a job until recently, and hadn't been able to pay their rent the last couple of months. They are now planning to move out in another week. Oh yeah, the truck, so I get a call from the credit union about the payment. Luckily, the bank person told me that if we pay $50 we will be out of being 30 days overdue.

Mary came home around 4 pm and we got dinner started with Ben, Trisha, and Boys coming over. I  made spaghetti. It was a good time, but then we had a long talk with Brandon, he's not sure that the hold will come off of his job at the mountain.

So we are now praying and holding down the fort. Things seem to happen just when they need to, but it does make for busy time.

More stuff from Mary's Trip to Nigeria

Embedded Video

This just popped into my browser today. Luke Chaffee, who was on the mission trip to Africa with Mary, just released some new video on his YouTube site.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Tagged for another blog meme

Okay, I don't tend to do these, but this one was tagged by my wife and it looked interesting. So here goes.

What Was I Doing 10 Years Ago?

I was in Jackson, Kentucky working as a Met Intern, the entry level position for the NWS. I was also working on my Attacking Anxiety and Depression materials.

5 Things On My To-Do List Today:

The day is almost done, so I'll have to think about what I have to do for Saturday.

1. Take the garbage to the dump
2. Go to a couple of open houses
3. Listen to my podcasts
4. work on my podcast stuff
5. Work

Snacks I Enjoy:

Hmm...Nuts (usually cashews), Ice Cream, Oreos

Things I Would Do If I Were A Billionaire:

My wife pretty much has everything that I would pretty much do on her blog.

Places I Have Lived:

Starting from when I was a kid:
1. Woodbury, NJ
2. Sumter, SC
3. Chicago (Justice), IL
4. New Castle, PA
5. Somerdale, NJ
6. Fennville, MI
7. State College, PA
8. Fennville, MI
9. Grand Rapids, MI
10. State College, PA
11. Fennville, MI (Hmm...I'm sensing a pattern here)
12. South Pole station, Antarctica
13. Fennville, MI
14. Bowman, ND
15. South Pole Station, Antarctica
16. Fennville, MI
17. Holland, MI
18. Denver, CO
19. Bowman, ND
21. Holland, MI
22. Jackson, KY
23. Gaylord, MI (This is the place that I lived the longest in one place outside of growing up in Fennville as a kid.)
24. Boyne Falls, MI

I'm terrible at tagging, so if you like this, then Tag you do one.

Create your own Timeline with Dipity

While listening to net@night with Leo Laporte and Amber Macarthur, they interviewed one of the founders of the site Dipity.com. Basically, you can create a time line of you by merging your feeds from Flickr, Blogger, Wordpress, YouTube, etc. While I have been blogging for about 4 years and had a Flickr account for about as long, my time line only goes back about one year, but once you start it will continue so that your time line will grow for as long as you contribute to it or the site remains up and viable. I might recommend that Mary do it for her new business so that people can see the time line of how and what she does. I'll talk to her about it when I see her in the morning.

Twitter, Common Craft.com, and podcasting

I recently found this on Geek Brief TV, a video podcast that I watch/listen to. CommonCraft. com has found some great ways to explain some of the web 2.0 things out there. Between my wife, my brother-in-law, and the CommonCraft.com explanation, I got on Twitter. This is really cool with Mary's and mine new phones, instead of texting what I'm doing, I go to the mobile version of the site and type in what I'm doing.

I often mention that I listen to podcast instead of terrestrial radio. If you don't know what this is then watch this:

A Full Rich Day

It was a busy day for me. I'm on my midnights this week, and just started them on Friday morning. Well, I took Kara and Dustin to Detroit to fly home to Las Cruces (near El Paso, TX). We left around 2 am and got into DTW around 620 am. Their flights didn't leave until around 8am with Kara's around 840 am. I got them on their way and by 645 am was heading back to Gaylord. I did well staying awake until I hit my normal spot, between Gaylord and Boyne Falls. I got out my handy pack of chewing gum and got home around 1045 am. I took the garbage to the dump, then got home and got to sleep by 1100 am. I woke up a couple of times, but slept pretty well through to 800 pm. Whew...

Phone calls and email

Thursday morning at 400am, Karlie and I took Mary to meet up with her missions trip group and send her on her way to Nigeria. It sounded like a crazy day for travel, because when they got to the airport, Delta had canceled their flight (my hunch is that it was a MD-88). So there they were trying to figure out how to get to Nigeria. Initially, I thought that they lost their fight from Atlanta to Lagos, but it was the DTW to ATL flight. She called and said that they were possibly flying Air France to Rome for a 2 day layover then to Lagos. Then a call late in the day said that they drove to Toledo and flew to Atlanta, in plenty of time for their flight to Lagos.

So we went about 24 hours without hearing anything, then as I was working my way through the afternoon traffic in Gaylord, my phone began to ring with a really weird number on it. My hunch was right as it was Mary calling from a borrowed cellphone in Lagos. The connection wasn't great and we got cut off twice, I knew she was there.

Today, as I was beginning my shift at work this afternoon (I swapped shifts), she called again with a much better connection. Mary had been at an orphanage most of the morning and had just gotten back from a church service. Here is a copy of her email to me:

Hi Family from Africa!

Hello everyone!

I am typing this email to you live from Lagos, Nigeria Africa! We arrived Friday morning and now it is Saturday evening. All is going very well! Sara and I have been blessed to be able to visit the orphanage twice so far! We had the first visit scheduled, but today's visit was not! It is such a blessing to be able to go and love on those kids! We were able to take them many gifts, like toys, clothes, shoes, and such. And today, Sara and I gave out our Lifesavers and Starbursts! They loved it!!!!! The head of the orphanage, Deborah, is doing an amazing thing there, and Denny (from Gaylord) has been able to raise several thousands of dollars over the past few years to help build it further! What an awesome way to build God's kingdom!!!! I will have many pictures to share when I get home!

If I don't get to email again, God bless you all my family!

Especially you Jeff for taking care of everyone while I'm gone and holding down the fort! And for allowing me to come on this amazing mission!

I love you and miss you all!

Mary

So she is doing well, and we are holding down the fort. Trisha came over last night with Ethan and she and Kara were in the midst of fixing supper for us when I got home. A far cry from the chaos that reigned on Thursday when I got home, but that's a story I'll leave off.

We are going to try to do something for Brandon's birthday tomorrow and Kaleb leaves early in the morning from Traverse City for England. Spring Break is this week for our teens so I won't have to worry about bus duty this week much. If everything goes well, my mother-in-law will help out with that the following week while I am on midnights. Mary comes home then at the end of my Mids (Yeah!).

The Death of the Truck

Things have been tight financially, recently. I won't go into all of the long litany of things, but suffice it to say that we are running on the edge of red and black ink. Well, to top things off, yesterday (Friday), I took Brandon to the Mountain for work, it's about a 1 or 2 mile drive. About half way, the oil pressure gauge went to low. There was now smoke or anything so I dropped Brandon off and went home. I opened the hood and the oil level was full. So I didn't lose any oil. In the past, I had a bad sensor on the truck and so I thought that this was what the problem was. I was wrong. I forgot that there is a pump that maintains the oil pressure in the truck and that it failed. So when I went to work in the afternoon, the truck started, but as soon as I began to drive down Elm Street, the engine died. I tried to restart it but it wouldn't go. I called our roadside assistance and the Ford Garage in Gaylord and made arrangements.

Once at the garage, I got a rental car and proceeded to work. Then the phone call...they pushed it into the garage and tried to start it, but the engine had totally siezed. It wouldn't even try to crank like it did for me. A remanufactured engine with labor would be $4000. So we are looking at options. We have a great one from inside our family here that looks like we can do. We just have to wait until Monday to work out the paper work.

However, I'm still a little down. My little Ranger has been with me for 9 years. I've driven that thing all over the eastern part of the US. I know that it is just a truck, but sometimes you run into one that just seems special, and this one was one of those. Goodbye old friend...

After Christmas thoughts

I feel like a nearly drove Mary over the edge this year. A lot had to do with the fact that by the end of November, I was feeling a deep sense of conviction with the whole Christmas thing. It started around Thanksgiving when we were buying the food for the feast. We were in the Wal-Mart parking lot and somebody was beeping their horn for some unknown reason and I began making up some song about consumerism to the tune of "Silver Bells." Mary started to call me Scrooge. I then started having flashbacks to a time in my childhood, when Dad would make remarks and Mom would get on his case by calling him Scrooge.

I tried to explain that Scrooge in "A Christmas Carole" didn't believe in Christmas. I believe in Christmas and Christ for that matter, but I feel that we are getting so far away from the meaning of what this time of the year is supposed to mean. As Rick McKinley, pastor at Imago Dei church in Portland, OR, said in one of his sermons, imagine you are at your birthday party and everyone is giving gifts to everyone else. As I listened to various sermons, from our local church to Mars Hill and Imago, the more I felt convicted.

It's not that giving is wrong, but with all of the money that we have here in the US, I think we still do a poor job at helping others in need, whether they be here or overseas. The commercialism and the consumer mentality of the season has been making me realize that our focus is on ourselves and not on who Christ said that we are to help: the poor, oppressed, widowed and orphaned. It is there in the Bible from the Old Testament to the New.

My biggest problem was that I felt that it would be nearly impossible to bring the family on board and I grew increasingly frustrated. Well, I came to terms with the conviction after talking with Mary several times. We are going to try and do something different for next year.

To see some ideas for next year check out the Advent Conspiracy page.