Birds!

Our Baby Birds hatched sometime yesterday afternoon, I think. This morning when I checked, we had three hungry little mouths ready to pose for the camera :-)

Eggs!

It used to be that each year, a Robin family would build a nest in the small space above the ceiling fan over the deck. This always ended in tragedy as one by one, the baby birds made their way to the skimmer basket in the corner of the swimming pool or to Henry's stomach or somewhere in-between. One time, I heard a fallen bird squalling below the deck and decided to help. But from the vantage of the concrete patio under the deck, it sounded as if the crying bird was above my head. Looking up and circling slowly, I was so intent on that sound--I barely noticed the slight crunch of what could have been a small oak twig under my shoe. The squawking stopped. I was so so sad.

We thought the problem was solved a couple of winters ago when David plugged up the favorite nesting spot before anyone could lay claim to it. But our plan sprung a leak. This year's Robin family chose to nest on the floor of the deck, just out of reach from dogs and Downs children. Mama Robin sits faithfully, each day enjoying a king's view of her world. She is protected from hail storms and other hazards inherent to so many nesting sites. She is blistfully unaware of the certain doom that lurks in her family's future.

Bribery Works

From time to time, I get reports from Emery's school indicating "Emery had a hard time using her listening ears today."

Normally, I ignore it. Troubled times like this typically pass without much pomp & circumstance. But starting late last week, the notes came home like that everyday. On Tuesday morning, at my insistence, Emery said to her teacher, "Miss Jackie, today I brought my listening ears, and I am going to use them." Miss Jackie seemed happy with that, so I kissed my daughter and went to work.

Sure enough, when afternoon pick-up time came, Emery had another note. A pen had scrawled on the note with unusually thick lettering, offset by hand-drawn asterisks, "*Emery is still having trouble using her listening ears*"

Now, this is very frustrating. We know she's a good kid. Why is she misbehaving at school? At dinner Tuesday night, David said, "Emery, why aren't you using your listening ears at school?"

Emery replied with furrowed brow and a voice of concern and contemplation, "Well... The problem is I'm having trouble going to sleep at night. And my listening ears are just coming right off my head and flying in the air. So when I wake up in the morning, I don't have them and I cannot take them to school with me."

This morning, after much thought and consideration, I tried a new tactic: Bribery. After a solid week of failing to use listening ears (who the hell ever came up with that phrase anyway?)Emery got to make a special trip to QuikTrip on the way home, choosing for her treat a small bag of crunchy Cheetos. She shared it with her brother and her friend, Alex.

Kami Brady Photography

Kami's Blog

I first met Kami back in October, during a peer interview for the position I currently hold. During these first few months with Sprint, she patiently listened to my ideas, asked terrific questions, and became something of a "translator" to adapt my ideas into "Sprint" speak. Before she left, Kami even agreed to write a recommendation for me on Linked In, based on some Strategic Planning work I did with our team. Kami helped me feel welcome at Sprint--like I belong here. So you can imagine the mixed emotion of excitement for her, and disappointment for me when I learned about a month ago that she would be leaving the company to spend more time with her family and her photography business.

But there is bright news in all of this...though I lost a great co-worker, I gained a great photographer! Last Sunday, I scheduled some time with Kami to take pictures of the kids at Loose Park in Kansas City. The weather didn't quite want to cooperate, so at the last minute, we made the decision to move the photo shoot indoors at Union Station. I'm so glad Kami suggested that--the pictures look great!

Take a look at just a few of the pictures on Kami's Blog.

New Slide Show Widget

This is pretty cool... and super easy! Today I discovered that all of the pictures I've uploaded to Blogger during the past few months are also stored in Google's Picasa photo sharing application. When I logged in to Picasa, all the photos were there... I didn't have to do a thing. See that cool new slide show on my blog? That took about 30 seconds to create by pasting some code that I found in my Picasa page. Groovy stuff!

My Sister will Change the World

I'm feeling inspired to write about my sister today.

Like my father before me, I have, in total, 7 brothers and sisters. Unlike my dad, I grew up an only child. That's because I share some siblings with my mom, some with my dad, and our ages span almost 2 decades--but that's a whole other story for a whole other day. Please don't hold any of this against us. Our parents just weren't very lucky about finding the right spouci until after most of us were already here. So while I don't have any photos that include all my brothers and sisters like my dad does, I'm happy to report today that all of our parents are quite content to have found terrific life partners.

But today I'm writing about Kelly. She was born around Thanksgiving time in 1977 when I was 5 years old. She has always lived hundreds of miles away (my dad was an Air Force Officer), and so I mostly just got to see her in the summertime. I loved absolutely everything about having a baby sister--I didn't even mind the poopy diapers. Kelly was the first person to ever give me the title I could proudly wear, "sister."

During the summers, I took Kelly along on walks to the Base Exchange (BX for short...it was like Wal-Mart for military families) or on bike rides to the base pool. I taught her how to build tent houses out of blankets and chairs and such, and prepare fantastic picnics to eat inside them. We played with make-up and dress-up. I got my first babysitting experiences taking care of Kelly. I pulled her first tooth for her (in a department store of all places--dad was pretty irritated about that, actually.) When she lost the lost tooth, I taught her how to write a letter to the tooth fairy in lieu of producing the actual tooth. In fact, I coached the toothfairy on how much money to pay for the first tooth. I truly adored Kelly...or at least the idea of Kelly.

As the summers wore on each year, the love affairs eventually ended too. Kelly became a pain in the rear. She would take food to bed and crunch it at night. Loudly. She tattled on me for sweeping dirt under a rug. She whined to get whatever she wanted. My dad was one of those who would do pretty much anything to get the whining to stop. She once ate all the creme out of every one of the Oreos and left only the empty brown cookies stuck together in the Tupperware box. She was also the one who drank half of all the Pepsi bottles with such frequency that the parental unit would require Kelly AND Karen to drink her half-eaten sodas instead of getting a whole new beverage. (Eew!)

Years later, Kelly admitted that she enjoyed doing all those kinds of things to upset me--the greatest prize happened when she could get me to cry in fits of frustration. As much as I loved the idea of having a little sister, Kelly loved the idea of having a big sister (or so my dad used to tell me--I've never actually validated that with Kelly, nor could I have believed it to be true at the time.) But now I know that in practice, it's much harder to give up one's "only child" status for a summer than either of us was capable of anticipating. We were both pretty happy getting all of the attention in our respective primary households throughout the academic year, and it would be years before either of us was very good at sharing anything.

Today, Kelly is happily married to her high school sweetheart, Corey, and they have a beautiful daughter named Annabella--"Bella" for short. Kelly is now a United States Naval Officer and also a medical doctor in North Carolina, where she is currently completing her residency. When I get emails from Kelly, I still feel the way I did when I got her birth announcement when I was 5 years old--the same way I felt each June growing up...before the summer honeymoons ended. I have this overwhelming (even somewhat romantic) rush of pride, "That's my baby sister." She shares her life, asks great questions, and listens patiently to all my worldly advice. She's learned not to reject it. She simply listens, says thank-you, and does not tell when my advice is not helpful. If she knows that I have short-comings too, she never says anything about it. If she has advice for me, she knows better than to share it (with the exception, of course, of medical knowledge...which I am only too happy to accept :-) If she complains about it to anyone else, I haven't ever heard about it.

I'm finally realizing that 5 year old romantic notion of "big sister." The thing I enjoy most about Kelly is the opportunity to watch her learnings as they unfold, and to absolutely know with all of my heart that she will be hugely successful in the future. I listen intently to all of her diatribes about life's trials. Its not so much what she says, but the way she says it that makes me know that she's got something special. Of course, I think her fortune will be in radio after she gets the whole medical industry all straightened out...but again, that's another story ;-). The point is, she's on her way to change the world while being a great mom at the same time. And I am very grateful for the opportunity to see how she does it.

SuperConference II

Today is our last day in Nashville at the SuperConference. Today, David is in a special session with Dan Kennedy and I have the whole day to myself. Well, sort of. Actually in just a few minutes I need to pack my things and get us checked out of the Gaylord Opryland hotel. This is truly an amazing place.... 3 gigantic hotels attached together with the convention center...and everything is all under one roof. All of the "outdoor" space is enclosed within an enormous glass roof. And all the landscaping is very tropical and extravagant. Restaurants have indoor and "outdoor" seating accommodations, and just about anyplace we go, we can be seated next to a waterfall. There is even an indoor river running through the place, offering gondola rides to guests. This must be what it's like to live in a biosphere.

Friday we got to hear from an amazing speaker named Nido Qubein. He's immigrated from Lebanon, and went to college in the United States not knowing a word of English. Today he is the president of High Point University in North Carolina. This man is an incredible motivational speaker. And all Freshman students at High Point are required to take his "President's Seminar" course about learning through experience. At the end of the course they are required to write a paper reflecting on what they have learned. He read a paper from one of the students. Her name was Kylie, and she wrote about what an extraordinary school High Point is. She wrote about being somewhat of a procrastinator, and the skills she learned to help her overcome that. She wrote about being inspired to become an extraordinary person. That was last fall. She went home over the holidays and was killed by a drunk driver at the end of 2007. Nido called the family right away to express his condolences and to offer all the resources of the university to be at their disposal. 40 of Kylie's friends flew to her hometown to attend services--all expenses paid by the university. Wow.

Nido's message to this room full of entrepreneurs was to operate your business for the purpose of achieving significance. He said that business people must be prudent about making money...in fact, this is the responsibility of all business people to make money. But it is very unfortunate if that is your only goal. Achieving significance is what it is all about.

SuperConference

David and I are currently at the Glazier-Kennedy Insider's Circle SuperConference in Nashville, Tennessee. We are here to learn how to market Pro-Computer Solutions more effectively. We've already learned about dozens of ideas... I can tell already that the tough part will be figuring out where to start.

The highlight of the trip so far was listening to Gene Simmons talk about his ideas and philosophy about business. I was amazed at what an incredible business man he is. If I ever have another opportunity to hear him speak at a business conference, I will absolutely be there. He is incredibly intelligent, personable, and chock full of integrity. I came away from the 90 minute talk he gave knowing, absolutely, that I want to be just like Gene Simmons someday. Well, maybe not the make-up part...or the tongue part. But his absolute mastery of building a brand, relating to people, ingratiating himself to an audience, even child-rearing...are all things that I admire. A few tings you probably never would have guessed about Gene Simmons...

• He speaks Japanese, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, English, and he's currently learning to speak Mandarin.


• He went to college to become a Jewish Rabbi. He's also very well versed in the Bible and the Koran. Actually, he is incredibly well-read...devours books of all kinds.


• His teenage son just finished his first semester of college with straight A's.


• He is capable of making it all the way through a 90 minute talk without once using the "F" word.


• He is completely just another guy...travels through airports just like everyone else. Why? Because he doesn't want to insulate himself from people & ideas.


• He absolutely, unequivocally loves this country.


• He has never used drugs or alcohol.