Yearly Archives: 2009

Adoption

Say Hello to Milo

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Milo Looking at this New FamilyOur adoption case cleared court today and Milo is officially our son.

Woot, woot!

We’re obviously ecstatic. You can check out all the pictures of Milo over at Flickr. Many thanks to everyone who prayed that we’d make it through court OK.

From here they’re telling us it will be roughly 6-8 weeks until we can travel to Ethiopia and bring Milo home. Before today it was 5-6 weeks after we cleared court. I don’t know what changed that time frame, but I’m trying not to be bitter about it (It’s hard to be bitter on a day like today when we get the news, but I’m also tired of time frames always getting longer. I want to bring my boy home.)

I don’t know what else to say. We’ve been in this process since August 2007 (nearly 19 months now) and sometimes it feels like a labor that won’t end. But we’re getting close. So painfully close.

I wish adoption were easier. But I keep telling myself it has to be this hard and slow and expensive to make absolutely sure everything is in Milo’s best interest. And that’s worth it.

Update: OK, I’m still trying to tell myself that. But waiting sucks. This story of a kid crying for her adopted siblings made me bawl. It’s part joy, part longing, part aching—and part anger for the circumstances that make adoption necessary and the red tape so profuse. My head understands all that, but my heart doesn’t care.

Another Update: OK, the shifting travel times were apparently just a mistake. Forget 6-8 weeks, we should be able to travel in 4-6, which means late March or early April.

U2

Initial Reaction to U2’s No Line on the Horizon

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U2’s new album, No Line on the Horizon, debuted today on MySpace (you have to choose NLOTH from the playlist dropdown in the player—easy to miss). They streamed the entire thing. So below I offer my very first reactions to hearing the album. I did this with How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb and it’s kind of fun to record the initial response and see how horribly wrong I am.

No Line on the Horizon
Very first thought: Wow, Bono’s voice sounds ragged. He’s certainly not protecting his voice as he gets older. The Oh-oh-ohs are catchy.

Magnificent
The intro felt very not U2, but then the guitars came in. Now it actually feels like very early U2. Interesting lines: “Only love can leave such a mark. / Only love can leave such a spark.” and “I was born to sing for you.” Reminds me of the Magnificat (I image that’s intentional).

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Adoption

Adoption Case Goes to Court

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Tomorrow our adoption case heads to court in Ethiopia. A judge will review the case, make sure everything is above board and, hopefully, grant us official guardianship of our baby boy. Once that happens things start moving quickly and we’ll likely head to Ethiopia 5-6 weeks later.

Assuming we make it through court. Just about anything can hold things up, from a serious problem to a technicality. Even something as mundane as a power outage can end our day in court. And if we don’t make it, our court case will be rescheduled, possibly as much as 7 weeks later. Yeah, ouch (last month that happened to a whole group of families).

So we’re hoping and praying that we make it through court. This has been a long process and we want to bring our baby home. I hope you’ll pray for us as well (I posted some specifics to pray for in our Facebook group).

To tide us over a bit, we did receive a social report on our baby yesterday, full of details of his development and pictures. Our kid is amazing. And cuter than yours.

Oh, that’s the other fun detail. If we make it through court and receive official guardianship, then we can share pictures online. Score.

Society

Economic Hardship Is Real, Not Perceived

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It always cracks me up where I hear people talking about the current economic woes as if it’s all a matter of perception. They assume people aren’t spending money because they perceive a crisis that really isn’t there. They blame the media or whoever for giving us this negative perception.

It always makes me laugh.

Do they have any sense of reality? Do they know anyone who has lost a job? It seems like every week I add another person to my growing list of unemployed friends and family (thankfully I do see people coming off that list, but it’s still growing).

People aren’t spending money because they don’t have any to spend. Maybe that didn’t used to stop us Americans before, but it is now.

I’ll admit that perception may be a part of it, but for a lot of people I know, the reality is they don’t have the same income right now as they did a year ago. And they’re adjusting accordingly.

I came across an article today about some financial expert who said the worst is yet to come and that our standard of living is undergoing a “permanent change.” I don’t know if that’s true or not (the financial experts seem to have less expertise these days), but it doesn’t seem like a bad thing. It’s not going to be pretty and it’s going to hurt, but a lower standard of living might be what we need. Now more than ever the financial advice to live beneath your means (not just within them) makes a lot of sense. This economic downturn wouldn’t be so difficult if we did that.

And that difficulty isn’t perceived, it’s real. Just ask a contractor.

Writing

Status Report on my Novel

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I got some feedback on my novel this weekend, my 2006 NaNoWriMo effort that I’ve been trying to polish over the last 8 months or so. It came from an industry insider who kindly agreed to read the first few chapters. There were definitely some things I need to work on, but perhaps most important it confirmed a suspicion that the young adult genre might be a good fit.

I like to chafe at genre limitations as much as the next person, but in reality genres just make things easier to categorize, sell and ultimately read. So you might as well get used to it. If you want readers, you’re going to have to deal with genre.

So I spent some time at Barnes & Noble yesterday, trying to embrace the YA genre. I think it might be a good fit. I’m actually a big fan of kids books and young adults novels, though they’re not always branded with the YA tag. Harry Potter, Madeleine L’Engle, the Chronicles of Narnia, The Phantom Tollbooth, Louis Sachar (Holes), Jerry Spinelli (I love Stargirl and the sequel), James Howe, Nick Hornby’s Slam. There’s quite a bit in this genre I resonate with, perhaps because YA novels frequently deal with the teen perspective of coming to terms with life and finding your place in the world. Those are big themes. But it’s all drenched in the drama, angst and immediacy of the now. Teens see broken things in the world and don’t accept them as they are. They want to fix them, and fix them now. That’s inspiring.

It also helps that American culture celebrates a perpetual adolescence.

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Adoption

You Can Change the World: “I Have a Family”

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Back in November I blogged about the Palmer family. They just moved to Uganda—all six of them—to finalize the adoption of their son, 4-year-old Francis. When they arrived at the airport Francis was there to meet them as a surprise:

“As we came out of customs, we all rushed him, gave him a big hug, and all he did was laugh, and laugh, and laugh”

But the best part has to be what Francis said on the phone with his aunt: “Auntie! I have a family and they saved me!”

That’s awesome. I have to fight back tears every time I read that. In the face of the world’s brokeness and pain, adoption offers such a glimmer of hope and grace. Kids who are alone and abandoned need families of their own. There may not be a blood connection, but we’re all humans. That should be connection enough.

We have a court date one week from today in our own adoption process.

TV

Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse Debuts Tonight

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Joss Whedon, the creative mind behind such compelling TV as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog has a new show debuting tonight. It’s called Dollhouse and is about these secret agent types who sign up to have their memory wiped and reinstalled with whatever scenario a client pays for. Or something like that. It all sounds kind of sinister and creepy.

Which sounds just like Joss Whedon (who told NPR, “I believe the best way to examine anything is to go to a dark place.”).

I’m eager to see the new show, but I’m keeping my expectations low. Primarily because it shares more than a few similarities with another Whedon show that got canceled after half a season. Firefly also aired on Friday nights, also on Fox, and also had the pilot episode mucked with. But I’m also keeping expectations low because this is TV and good TV often takes a little time to find its footing. The first season of Buffy (yet another half season) is pretty rocky. The Firefly pilot had wonderful moments, but also feels like its entire two-hour run time. Pilot episodes are rarely perfect.

But I’m more than willing to be pleasantly surprised.

Update: My 140-character or less Twitter review: “Dollhouse was good. Intense & a little creepy (Joss trademarks), but not much funny. Not much of a pilot ep either, felt like a normal ep.”

Internet

25 Things About Billy Graham

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The ’25 Things’ note has been spreading on Facebook like a computer virus. Or one of those lame forwards from 1998 about Microsoft charging a fee for every e-mail sent. An estimated five million people have taken part, and it’s made some people more than a little annoyed and they show their determination not to take part in it by taking part in it (in mockery, of course).

I find the whole thing kind of funny.

Unlike an annoying e-mail forward, the notes in Facebook are much easier to ignore and they don’t gum up my inbox. Nobody is forcing you to read them. I can understand annoyance if people are harassing or threatening you to list your own ’25 Things,’ but that’s just stupid.

Who cares if people want to tell their friends 25 random things? It it narcissistic? Yeah, but blogging and twittering can be just as narcissistic. In many ways the general Facebook crowd is made up of relative web newbies who don’t have blogs or Twitter accounts. This is a new platform for them to talk about themselves. In that sense it’s like explaining to people what blogging is all over again and as always you get people who whine and complain.

Live and let live, people. I’ve completely ignored some ’25 Things’ lists and others I’ve read with curiosity and interest. Some were insightful, others were stupid. It’s just like anything else in life.

I’ve decided to deal with it (aside from blogging about it) by writing my own list of 25 Things—about Billy Graham. I think that’d be an awesome new trend. Let’s all write 25 things about someone else.

Music, Society

You Can Change the World: Saving Kids from Poverty

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Shaun Groves spray-painting a rock at Northwestern: 163 kids sponsored!Last week indie rock star (wait, is that an oxymoron?) Shaun Groves came to town.

I’ve tried to keep up with Shaun since his debut album came out back when I was just getting started at the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. We interviewed him at GMA and he played at the our offices and I think we talked him into writing for us. I was always struck by how genuine he seemed. A few years ago he launched a blog, but it wasn’t a typical rock star blog. For starters he called it a “Shlog” (which is where that ‘shlog envy’ comment came from), but more importantly he blogged about the real stuff of life and not just ‘hey look, I’ve got an album coming out’ or ‘we’re rocking in Georgia!’ and then no posts until the next album. Plus, he tried to kick Amy Grant’s ass (OK, not really).

Lately Shaun’s been doing this whole Compassion blogger thing and actually comments on people’s blogs. He still does some music in there somewhere, but he gives it all away for free.

Continue reading You Can Change the World: Saving Kids from Poverty →

Business & Marketing, Introspection

You Have To Be Obsessive To Be Successful

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I’ve been reminded lately that in order to be successful you have to be a little obsessive. There are examples like Thomas Edison’s 10,000 failed prototypes for the light bulb (according to the legend) or this story of a family raking in $1,000 in change since 2005 (they blog their daily take) or this story of a guy making a living as a dumpster-diver. OK, so maybe you have to be a lot obsessive.

The point is that success is never easy. You don’t make $1,000 by picking up a few pennies. You have to be obsessed with picking up change. You don’t bankroll your own business ideas by trash picking on the weekend. You have to know what’s worth something and what isn’t, be relentless and methodical, and stick to it even in a Canadian blizzard. In short, you have to be obsessed.

That’s how novels are written, amazing albums created, great works of art brought to life. That’s how professional bloggers make money, how techies build incredible applications, how an evangelist can speak to more people in live audiences than anyone in history. Persistence trumps talent.

My question then becomes am I obsessive enough?

Sometimes I think I’m obsessed with too many different things, I dabble too broadly to truly be obsessively successful. And I guess that’s the hard part. You can’t hedge your bets by dabbling, you have to dive in. It’s kind of scary. And that’s what makes it worthwhile.