On Baseball

On Saturday, May 17, 2014 Danny Duffy was almost perfect. After 6 innings of baseball, he had faced 18 batters and retired them all. In the top of the 7^th, Nick Markakis hit a looping liner toward the left field line that was caught in spectacular fashion by a diving Alex Gordon. Until this point I have to admit that I was skeptical that perfection was a possibility, but when the out was made I bought in. Two batters later, Adam Jones ended the perfect game and the no-hitter with a single up the middle past Alcides Escobar. In the end, Duffy fell short of perfection, but for 7+ innings, he was great.

While I listened to the game, I thought about my grandpa for several different reasons. The most obvious reason being that he passed away earlier that Saturday morning. He loved baseball and he loved the Royals. I loved talking about the Royals with my grandpa. As much as I wanted in my heart to listen to Danny Duffy throw a perfect game on the day my grandpa died, I think what happened was better. My grandpa wasn’t perfect, but he was great. I don’t say he wasn’t perfect because I have examples of how he fell short, I just know that no one is. My grandpa was kind. Kind is a strange word to me because I don’t know if I could define it if you asked me to, but I know it’s different than tolerant or nice. If you wanted me to draw a picture of kind, I’d probably draw a picture of my grandpa. It wouldn’t look anything like my grandpa, because I can’t draw. He’d probably hang it on the fridge and tell his friends about it though, because he was kind. He was patient, he was funny, and he was fast friends with everyone he met. He was generous. He never let me visit without providing some Zarda’s BBQ or Krispy Kreme donuts, a lot of the times there were both. He was faithful. He was a servant. He loved his family and he made sure they knew that fact. It breaks my heart that I’ll never hear him say “I love you son” as we say goodbye on the phone again. He was proud of his boys and the men they became. He loved his wife. As his memory started to fade, I remember him keeping a note card in his shirt pocket to remind him of my wife and kids’ names. The first time I saw the card, it seemed to upset him that he had to use it, but it touched my heart to know how badly he wanted to remember. In April, I was able to sit and watch a Royals game with him one last time. He didn’t know exactly who I was, but he knew I was family. So we sat, and he held my hand, and we watched baseball.

Sometimes a pitcher can throw a really good game that you don’t really realize how good it was until you see the box score. What makes Danny Duffy’s start so exciting is that you can tell you’re watching something great as it unfolds. Mike Calcara was great, and I got to watch him be great. I don’t have to search my mind for stories and anecdotes to show the world that he was good. I’ve known he was great for quite a while. And anyone who paid attention knew it as well. And I’m thankful for that because greatness isn’t something you get to see every day. I will miss him, not because he was perfect. Because he was great.

On Fatherhood (and insecurity)

The clock is passing midnight as I write, and officially it becomes seven years from when I first became a dad. This makes me think of my dad, who has the habit of wishing me a Happy Father’s Day on this day, noting that is the day that I became a father.

My thoughts then turn to Jonah. I think of holding him for the first time. It was a Wednesday. I remember sitting in an uncomfortable hospital rocking chair that evening, watching a Royals game with my boy. I think about my parents holding him for the first time. I think about my dad calling my sister to tell her the news, and finding out she was already out shopping for boys clothes. I think about how friends and family moved our stuff into our house while we were in the hospital so that Jonah’s first night at home was also ours. Those moments are so vivid, like it indeed happened yesterday. But it didn’t. It happened seven years ago.

From then, it’s a blur. I can think of highlights here and there, a sister came along two years later, a brother three years after that. I remember a move, a new job or two (or three). I remember times of loss, times of sorrow, times when I didn’t measure up. Those things are easy to remember, hard to forget. I wasn’t there for him, for her, for any of them for certain periods of time. Sometimes for good reasons, sometimes for bad. I think of all I’ve missed.

Then I think of a friend, who rather than point out his father’s shortcomings, said something I’ll never forget. “Anytime I get upset about something my dad does, I just remember that he’s never been a dad before, just as much as I’ve never been a son before.”

And I think about my dad. Not my dad now, but the dad I only know from pictures of a young man holding me, his first born. And maybe just because up until this point I’ve only thought of him as an old pro at this dad business I’ve never had these thoughts before. But now, for the first time I see him as a kid, like I was the day Jonah was born. I realize that he was probably scared out of his mind like I was too. That he probably had doubts that he was doing the right thing. I’ve found that much like they say that youth is wasted on the young, so too is the privilege of sonship wasted on those who haven’t been a father. While I understand that by nature this is a necessity, I wish I would’ve known. Because today, like never before, I understand my dad.

I’ve found that it’s much easier to be a son since I became a father. I don’t have a master plan. I don’t know what I’m doing. I only know the kind of people I want my children to be. And I think that’s ok. I listen to people I admire who have been in my shoes. I think about what my dad would do. I look at the pictures of me holding my son and remember how young I was. And I think of how he will look at that same picture and just see dad, not a scared kid who couldn’t keep a goldfish alive, now responsible for a baby.

If fatherhood were an elementary school band competition, I wouldn’t get first prize. I’d get a participation ribbon. I’ve had more failures than successes. But I think the successes are more frequent now. I wish Jonah would’ve got to see more of them when he was small. Hopefully he will appreciate them more now that he’s not.

I’m sure that Jonah’s opinion of who dad is will be somewhat different from his sister, and maybe quite different from his brother. I just hope he remembers me as the guy who tried his best. I hope he wants to be like me someday, not because I do something heroic or amaze the world with feats of strength, but because I treated him with respect and let him be himself. Because I loved him sacrificially and at some point learned how to put his needs above mine. Because I showed him how to treat his wife by how I treated his mother.  Because I showed him what devotion means by my actions, not my words. I hope the camping trip I take him on tonight will be one of many successes he comes to know me for, rather than the times I’ve dropped the ball.

I really hope that he has a happy birthday.

Happy Father’s Day to me.

So Far, So…eh.

What a weekend! Saturday morning, my mother and I traveled to Chicago to help pack up and move my sister Beth and her family back to Lincoln where her husband Sean has accepted the lead pastor position at the church where my family and I attend. All I could think all weekend was “Why didn’t I start fasting AFTER this trip.” I was so hungry all weekend, and all around me were Italian beef sandwiches, Chicago dogs, and Chicago style pizza (…these are a few of my favorite things). If it weren’t for my family just flat out not letting me quit, I would not have made it through the weekend. But, when the going got tough, my mom and my sister (and my wife, over the phone) got tougher, and wouldn’t let me have any food! There was pain, and agony, and a lot of body fluids, but I am happy to say that I have made it home without eating and am now at the end of day 6, which is twice as many days as I’ve ever done in a row before. I’m beginning to have to mix up my recipe, as my gag reflex is getting less tolerant of the juice I have been making, but I feel fantastic, the hunger pains are getting less frequent, and my pants are a bit looser than they were on Tuesday.

My next post will be on Wednesday when I weigh in for the first time.

 

Day One

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day one is in the books. It went very well, and was surprisingly easy. The one thing I had to be most careful about was accidental eating. I have had so many fasting days derailed in the past by just unconsciously picking up food that happened to be close and eating it before I realized what I was even doing. I had a couple of close calls, but came through unscathed. I did find it funny that while I rarely eat anything before 1:00 in the afternoon, but the day I start a 6 week juice fast, I wake up at 8:15 just absolutely starving.
I had a fun time with the kids making the juice. When we were done I had a glass of juice and went to take a shower. After I got dressed, I had another glass of juice, and went on a walk. This was all by 10:00. I had one more glass of juice at about 4:00, and just drank water for the rest of the day. I got somewhat hungry at about 7:00, but managed to make it through that feeling and after about 8:00 I felt just fine the rest of the evening. The only other difficulty came when I got home.from work, which is when I usually eat my biggest meal of the day. I made a cup of green tea, had a glass of water, and it all was fine. I really think that the hardest part of this journey won’t necessarily be the hunger, but just breaking the habits of eating that I’ve developed over the years.

I probably won’t post something every day, but I thought I should after day one. Thanks for reading!

Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead

  I watched a documentary on Netflix last month called Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead. The film follows Joe Cross, and Australian man in his early 40’s who has gotten fed up with his health (or lack thereof). He decides to fast for 60 days, eating nothing, and drinking only water and juice made from fresh fruits and vegetables. While fasting, he travels across the United States, talking with people he meets along the way about the food that they eat and how it effects their lives. At one of his stops, he comes across a trucker who weighs over 400 lbs and has the same ailments as he does. The trucker decides to follow Joe’s example, and from there, the documentary really becomes the story of the trucker’s return to health.

It was a very good documentary, and it really fired me up to do something about my health. That is why, starting today, Ash Wednesday, I have decided to do a juice fast until the end of Lent.  I’ve counted the cost, prepared my mind, and consulted health care professionals and I am ready to go. I will be posting updates on my blog about what I’m eating, what I’m enjoying, what I’m not enjoying, and the changes my body goes through during this process. My diet will consist of water, juice made from fresh fruits and vegetables, and green tea. I’ll do my best to update my progress, and if you see me putting something in my mouth that isn’t juice, water, or green tea, I give you my permission to tackle me!

 

Reading Update: I’m about halfway through The Kingdom of God is Within You by Tolstoy. It’s definitely a difficult read, but it is challenging to me as it is definitely a paradigm of Christianity that I haven’t viewed before. I probably disagree with more than I agree with so far, but it’s making me think, which is one of the biggest reasons I took on this challenge in the first place. I hope to finish the book by the end of February and post about it then. I look forward to hearing others thoughts about my thoughts after I’m done. (I’m looking at you Rebekah!)

Besides the Bible

I watch too much TV. That probably doesn’t come as much of a shock to anyone who knows me and took the time to read this post. I’ve known that I watch too much TV for quite some time, and have often tried to be more of a reader. Sometimes, my motivation tends to stall out, though, when I can’t find an answer to the question of where I should start. So when I came across the book Besides the Bible: 100 Books that Have, Should, or Will Create Christian Culture I became excited to have a list, and a place to start.

Besides the Bible is a book mostly written by Dan Gibson, Jordan Green, and John Pattinson. Additional contributions to the book were made by many other writers, some more well known than others (Donald Miller, Steve Taylor, Jon Acuff). The title comes from the responses they got when they asked their writer friends about their favorite books, and one after one, they replied the same way I do when someone asks me that question, “You mean besides the Bible?” The suggested reading list is varied, from authors known for Christian thought, like Lewis, Calvin, and Augustine to secular authors like Cormac Macarthy, Christopher Hitchens, and even Charles Darwin. It recommends recent releases like Blue Like Jazz and Velvet Elvis, as well as classic literature like the Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost. It’s a list full of books I’ve always wanted to read as well as books I haven’t even heard of.

I decided to issue myself a challenge. The book itself is a pretty easy read, it’s just a book of short book reviews that took just a couple of days to finish, but the challenge I gave myself is to read each book on the list within the next 5 years. That averages out to a little less than 20 books a year when I cross the books off of the list that I have already read. I thought that as I read these books, I would write down my thoughts about what I liked, what I didn’t like, what I didn’t agree with, what I did agree with, if my opinions or beliefs changed as a result of what I read, and the things I didn’t understand (which may be the majority of my posts, based on a quick preliminary glance of Dante’s Divine Comedy).

The first book I chose to read is called The Kingdom of God is Within You by Leo Tolstoy. Hopefully, I’ll have it finished by the end of February.

“Was that movie as terrible as I remember it?” Day 3: Face-Off

Face-Off (1997)

Directed by John Woo

Starring: Nicolas Cage, John Travolta, Joan Allen, Gina Gershon

There’s a scene in the classic movie “What About Bob?” where Dr. Leo Marvin asks the titular Bob Wiley why his marriage ended. Bobs reasoning is that “There are two types of people in this world: Those who love Neil Diamond and those who don’t. My ex-wife loved him.” I would say I almost agree with Bob, however I think it’s more true that the two types of people in this world are people who love Nicolas Cage and those who don’t. I’ve always been a member of the former group who loves all things Nicolas Cage, but for some reason, I hated Face-Off, which in the opinion of critics everywhere was one of his best movies (RottenTomatoes.com which is a website that gives each movie a percentage score based on the reviews given by critics rate it as Cage’s 2nd best movie). As is the case with most of these movies I’m watching for a second time, I don’t quite remember why I didn’t like it, but I just remember not liking it. And, for the first time since I started doing this on Sunday, I still can’t tell you why I didn’t like this movie, because it was a whole heck of a lot of fun. It was John Travolta at his best, Nicolas Cage at his craziest, and classic John Woo with all of his slow motion, birds and opera music working together perfectly. Sure the premise is absolutely ridiculous, like totally insane ridiculous, but who cares when it’s so much fun. So after day 3, my mind has officially been changed once. Face-Off is a crazy fun movie.

Tomorrow: Deep Impact (If my wife doesn’t have a baby that is)

“Was that movie as terrible as I remember it?” Day 2: Ghost Rider

Ghost Rider (2007)

Written and Directed by Mark Steven Johnson

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendez, Wes Bentley, Sam Elliot, and Peter Fonda

I didn’t know this until I started writing this review that Mark Steven Johnson wrote and directed both today’s movie (Ghost Rider) and yesterday’s movie (Daredevil). I will say that I liked this movie much more than I liked Daredevil. I think with a movie like Ghost Rider tone is everything. There’s a cheese factor unquestionably built in to a movie whose hero is a skeleton that’s wearing biker clothes and on fire riding a chopper. Nicolas Cage, Peter Fonda, and Sam Elliot obviously know this and so does Johnson, as the dialogue and action definitely give a wink to the cheese factor in the premise. It’s a movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously, which makes parts of it a lot of fun. The part that doesn’t work, and it really doesn’t work is Wes Bentley as Blackheart (that’s right, that’s his name). Wes Bentley, who is probably better known for being the creepy guy with the camera on American Beauty, is definitely good at creepy, but he’s not at all believable as evil and laughable when trying to be foreboding. It’s a case of miscasting up there with Hayden Christensen as Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars series, Denise Richardson as nuclear physicist Christmas Jones in The World Is Not Enough, Renee Zellweger as a viable love interest in any number of movies, or Paul Walker in, well, anything. If it were not for his performance, I’d give this a solid 6.5 out of 10, but with it, I’ll have to give it a 4.

“Was that movie as terrible as I remember it?” Day 1: Daredevil

Daredevil (2003)

Written and Directed by Mark Steven Johnson

Starring: Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Michael Clarke Duncan, Colin Firth, and Jon Favreau

I’m generally pretty easy to please when it comes to movies, especially movies based on comic book characters. I tend to enjoy even the movies that most fans call the worst, like X-Men Origins: Wolverine, or Spiderman 3, or even Superman Returns. I picked Daredevil because I remember hating it, but I couldn’t remember why.

It didn’t take long to remember. The dialogue was clunky, the villains were terribly one dimensional, the dialogue was terrible, it was bogged down by a poorly executed love story, and the dialogue was so bad that I watched the credits in the end to see if George Lucas was one of the writers. In the end, I think it felt like there was a significant portion of the movie missing. I was supposed to care about the death of a “major” character who was never developed into someone I might want to care about. I was supposed to feel satisfaction at the defeat of the two major villains, but they were never developed into characters that I had any ire for. And did I mention the dialogue? It was terrible.

I think it’s a shame because the character is pretty cool, and the villains have some potential would they have been given material to develop. On a scale of 1 to 10, I give this one a 4.

Was that movie as terrible as I remember it?

With TV shows being on hiatus for summer, I thought it might be fun to take a week to watch some movies that I didn’t like the first time and give them a chance to redeem themselves now that I’m older and maybe my tastes have evolved, or devolved, or what not. Plus, it’ll give me something to use this blog for, so what the heck, right? I have the first 3 movies picked out already, and would be open to suggestions for others. Here’s the schedule as far as I know right now.

Day 1: Daredevil

Day 2: Ghost Rider

Day 3: Face-Off

Check back for my reviews.