gerald ford

President Gerald Ford, our 38th President, died late in 2006. His funeral was today at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. Family and former Presidents gave speeches in his honor. There was a lot of Scripture read today. Former President George Bush said, "He was like a Norman Rockwell painting come to life." He led a life of "honor and integrity." The former President's speech was well written, well presented, and hit the nail on the head. Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State, said President Ford was "unpresuming and without gile." It was something to see all of the formality of the ceremony, along with the military involvement in carrying the casket and bringing in the colors.

car donation

We donated our dead '97 Plymouth Neon to PBS. I'm sure it could be patched up and still run very well, but we don't have the money to fix it. It did have a 12 disc CD changer in it, but we listen to my iPod now anyway, so that's okay. It served us for the time we had it, but then it died. The Lord provided the Ford Escort wagon that we have now, and that's much better for having the car seat with Aidan.

new year, old ball

The NBA has decided to reverse its decision to move to a composite official game basketball and revert to the old leather ball. The composite balls were moved to in order to keep every single ball the same because they were synthetic, but there was such a stink made over the switch that the NBA decision-makers made the call to go back to the all-unique leather balls. We'll see if Steve Nash is still comfortable with the old leather now that he's grown accustomed to the composite. Suns take on the Chicago Bulls, who have recently been surging and have become one of the to-beat teams in the Eastern Conference. The Suns are 9 - 1 against East teams this season, and they expect to be able to continue adding to that tonight. GO SUNS!

happy new year

Yeah, so it's already January 2nd, but I can still post about the new year. My family and I went to church at Northwest (it had been a month, because of all the seasonal distractions); I finished Michael & Chelsea Withems' wedding video and DVD; we saw the Suns win their game against the Pistons; and we went to the 2nd Annual du Mée New Year's Party at their apartment in downtown Phoenix. It was a very nice New Year's Eve. We played games and had a blast with the du Mées, the Withems (to whom I game their DVD), Charissa Craw, and Jeremy Quadé: the same crew as last year. Thank you, du Mées, it was great to be together again. Happy New Year!

christmas lights

Well, I must say that getting the Christmas lights up was a feet of strength and trust...for Amy. I wouldn't get up on the ladder that was rickety, so my pregnant wife did. Yeah, yeah...I don't wanna hear it. But, when it comes to bringing the lights down...now that is my realm. I employed a technique that I invented called "the pull down." Because of our style of shingles, we were able to utilize plastic hooks that held the lights up even through very windy conditions. With this setup, I was able to undo the physical connection between the lights and their power source, and just start pulling on the strand of lights, freeing the hooks from under the shingles, and successfully removing the lights from their perch. Oh, yeah. In the immortal words of Sean Connery from Finding Forrester, "[Who's] the man now, dawg"?