Katie and I went out for pizza and then to Fellowship Church to see Josh Wilson. He’s incredibly talented and fun to watch. Even did a couple Christmas tunes, which were really cool! Check out a couple videos.

Love my family!

Meet Hope. She’s my 14 month old daughter. Remember as a kid finding big bugs, like beetles, and flipping them over and watching them unsuccessfully and frantically try to roll back over?

Apparently she did this for a couple minutes before my friend started recording!

The countdown is on for the release of the new google-based Droid phone at Verizon on November 6th! I’ve read/heard some pretty good things about it. CNet has a good review on it.

I’m pretty much done with my blackberry. I wonder if this is going to be the answer. Or do I wait and wait and wait on iPhone to come to Verizon?

I’m trying to rid myself of Microsoft Entourage and dealing with the Microsoft Exchange server at work. I’m going totally google (other than my blog platform…sticking with wordpress for now).

I recently finished Donald Miller’s new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life.

I have what some have called a “crush” on Donald Miller…his writing, that is. I find his writing incredibly thought-provoking and easy to read.  A Million Miles is no exception. This is a story about living a story. The thread that is woven through the book is the story of two film directors who work with Miller to write a screenplay based on Miller’s memoir. Like his other books, there are great stories of road trips that sweep you away into the adventure until you’re ready to call up your buddies and hit the road or head off into the woods! And there are characters you wish you could have as friends. And all along the way you pick up little nuggets about life.

So here are a few things that struck me along A Million Miles…

“Nobody cries at the end of a movie about a guy who wants a Volvo and worked for years to get it. But we spend years actually living those stories, and expect our lives to feel meaningful. The truth is, if what we choose to do with our lives won’t make a story meaningful, it won’t make a life meaningful either. (from the Author’s Notes)

Miller goes to a 36hr lecture by Robert McKee to learn the elements of story. This was the big take-away:

A story is a character who wants something and overcomes conflict to get it. (p48)

“I wonder if…we were designed to live through something, rather than to attain something, and the thing we were meant to live through was designed to change us. The point of a story is the character arc, the change.” (p70)

“[watching Star Wars] made me wonder if the reasons our lives seem so muddled is because we keep walking into scenes in which we, along with the people around us, have no clear idea what we want.” (p113)

Take any good movie and you have a character who is after something – whether that’s a person, relationship, goal…the character is after something. But it’s not enough for that character to get it. There must be pain. There must be sacrificial commitment to the pursuit. It’s about what happens to the character along the way. That’s the character arc Miller writes about.

Miller writes about his trip on the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu: “Why would the Incas make people take the long route? Because the emperor knew, Carlos said, the more painful the journey to Machu Picchu, the more the traveler would appreciate the city once he got there.” (p140)

So…you and I are living a story. I’m asking myself if my story is very interesting. Don’t get me wrong! I have an incredible life! But I want to clarify what it is that I want. And one of things that I want is to live an adventure; to see every day as an opportunity and to never back down from a potential challenge because it is the challenges that shape my character and therefore my story.

The Catalyst conference has a tradition of breaking records each year, so 2009 brought a guy named Professor Splash to the stage. This guy jumps off  platforms into shallow water for a living. This one was from 35′9″ into 12″ of water. Ridiculous. Chris and I had great seats for this and I managed to catch it on my flip.

A few nights ago Annie said, “Hey daddy, let’s read our books on the couches together.” Any time my child gives me an invite to lay on a couch and read a book without her jumping on me, I’m going after it…so I agreed and Annie went to the bookshelf and grabbed a book.

A few minutes later I look over and this is what she’s looking at, quiet and peaceful…she was really flipping the pages and pretending like she was reading the book!

You can never start Piper too early. When she finishes that one we’re gonna jump into Grudem’s Systematic Theology.

I realize this is risky, but I have to admit…I kinda like this.

I think I’ve mentioned how amazing my wife is…but she earned BIG points this weekend! On Thursday afternoon I was at the office preparing for what was supposed to be a very long meeting with my boss! Just as I’m heading for the meeting, Katie shows up and says “Let’s Go! Our bags are packed!” Then my boss says, “Yeah, get outta here!” Katie had everyone make sure I had a clear schedule on Thursday so she could steal me away and take me to Cincinnati for the weekend! It was such a great surprise! I am so loved, and so thankful for it!

Here are some highlights from the trip:

First stop was a restaurant called the Montgomery Inn Boathouse which was right on the Ohio River in downtown Cinci. They are famous for ribs, so I wasn’t leaving without some. The bib really completed the experience.

It was a beautiful night on the riverfront. Cinci has a great riverwalk with parks and playgrounds. A great place to enjoy a date night…hours away from the kids!

Ah…the Greenup Cafe in Covington, KY. This place deserves a separate blog post this week! A really cool breakfast spot in a really cool part of town. Covington is on the KY side of the Ohio River, just across from downtown Cinci. I found this gem by googling “best breakfast in cincinatti”! We enjoyed b’fast on Friday morning…had such a great experience that we went back for brunch on Saturday!

Made my first visit to an IKEA store. It was my birthday trip, but Katie ended up hitting the jackpot here.

Friday night we hit a Reds game in the Great American Ballpark. This was the headliner for the trip. Katie wanted to assist me in my quest to make it to every MLB ballpark in my lifetime! So check off the new Reds stadium. (This summer I was also able to check off Camden Yards!) It’s hard to tell from this shot, but Katie got us third row seats behind the dugout. We were able to heckle the Marlins third base coach and tried to get someone to throw me a ball but the kid with the broken arm got it instead.

NORM! Yeah, George Wendt from Cheers was at the game. Didn’t know he was a Reds fan.

Gotta have peanuts at the ballpark! It’s becoming a tradition to snap a picture of my shell stash at each park I visit.

A few things that didn’t make the pictures above…skyline chili, GAP clearance center (guys: never go there), 9 holes of disc golf near University of Cincinatti campus (Katie walked with me…what a wife!) and a crazy loud air conditioner that forced us to move hotel rooms the first night!

This was a birthday I will always remember!

The day I had this 8-pointer mounted Katie told me in no uncertain terms that it would NOT be going up in the house! After 7 years of marriage, and 5 years of hanging in the garage…

He hangs happily in the play room. Annie and Hope were pretty excited.