War

Commenting on Daylight Raid by U.S. Forces in Somalia

September 15, 2009 Kevin D. Hendricks Leave a comment

I’m not sure why but this story about a daylight helicopter raid by U.S. Special Forces in Somalia is intriguing to me. I tried twittering about it but I just couldn’t sum up my thoughts in 140 characters. I’m not sure if this kind of story is rare, but I don’t remember seeing that many stories about U.S. raids like this (though it’s entirely possible I just miss them—I almost missed this one).

I think what I find interesting is that it was so “clean,” if such a thing can be clean. They took out a major terrorist operative who was connected to the U.S. embassy bombings and an attack on an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya. There were no civilian deaths (another article noted that they opted to send in troops instead of using cruise missiles to minimize civilian casualties), it seems like they got the right guy (not sure if they have a positive ID yet) and it was a quick in and out operation. Maybe this is how it often happens and I just haven’t seen the stories, but it seems like this is how the war on terror should go. It could have just as easily been a mess, as any combat situation can go bad (Somalia of all places has taught us that).

I guess all the military stories we hear are of being mired in Iraq (which I don’t think started with any legitimate connection to the war on terrorism) or the continued struggle in Afghanistan. There are certainly successes in those places, but they often feel overshadowed by the body counts, the civilian casualties, the two steps forward one step back “progress” of nation-building.

I’m often uneasy about war and sympathize with peace movements, but I also think that in the face of things like terrorism a nation has little choice but to fight back. How we fight back is the crucial question of course, and I guess this just strikes me as a good example.

I realize I’m completely rambling here. Sorry.

Update: Here’s a second story on the daring raid that includes a little more background and detail.

World News

9/11 Confession

September 11, 2009 Kevin D. Hendricks Leave a comment

I didn’t want to do this. I don’t like the whole reflect on tragedy thing. I clearly didn’t like it seven years ago either (I think I’ve mellowed a bit since then, thankfully). Even eight years ago I was understandably uneasy. (I’m not sure if it was intentional or not, but I haven’t blogged on this day since 2001.)

But as the tweets kept coming up today and I started clicking on links and reading stories, first this one about a 9/11 curriculum and students who don’t remember 9/11 and then this collection of Pulitzer prize-winning 9/11 photos. The first article was hard enough to get through (it doesn’t help that parenthood has set in since 9/11, which has made me more emotional)—it’s weird to realize my kids won’t relate to 9/11 like I will. But then I started to remember.

I was at my desk in the Internet department at the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, getting started on work as other coworkers came in telling stories about a plane crashing into the World Trade Center. At first it sounded like a small prop plane, but as we tried to get online and find out more it became clear that it was much worse. Much of the morning was spent trying various web sites, trying to find one that wasn’t crashing, trying to get some sort of update.

Continue reading 9/11 Confession →

Books, Writing

Gmail Down? 25% Off Lulu Today Only

September 1, 2009 Kevin D. Hendricks 2 Comments

You may have heard about the big Gmail fail today when Google’s mail app went down for an hour and 45 minutes. It was a tech apocalypse of so-so proportions.

But it gets fun when on-demand publisher Lulu.com offered a 25% discount today only. Use the code “gmail” and you can get 25% off, up to $100 until midnight tonight. So what can you buy at Lulu.com? Well, among other things (like Wil Wheaton’s Sunken Treasure) you can buy my first novel, Downtown Dandelions.

If you’ve ever considered purchasing my barely edited, first stab at a novel, now’s your chance to get it for 25% off (that’s only $9.74). What a deal! I haven’t made much of an effort to pitch this novel, mainly because of the whole barely edited part (yes, it has typos). But today I thought, why not? Some of you might actually get a kick out of it. Some people have actually liked it. In fact, just last month a distant friend commented on Facebook: “I just read Downtown Dandelions on my vacation and really enjoyed it.” Nearly five years after it was published some people are still enjoying it, so why not pitch it again?

It’s the story of college students facing calamity and falling in love. Death and romance in one tidy package.

If you haven’t heard the back story on this novel, you can read up on it here. Essentially, I wrote it in a month as a part of the National Novel Writing Month. I spent a few weeks editing it (mostly for proofreading, it didn’t get a real edit) and slapped it together on Lulu.com so I could have an actual copy on my shelf, more for posterity than anything else.

So if you want to snag a copy at 25% off, you’ve only got a few hours left to do so. And if you’re cheap, you can also just download the free PDF.

Update: Looks like Lulu is having another sale for Labor Day weekend: 20% off up to $25 (code: WHITE) or $50 off $250 or more (code: GREEN).

Family, Personal Pics

Family Photo Shoot

August 30, 2009 Kevin D. Hendricks Leave a comment

Way back in June we did a family photo shoot with Barbara O’Brien at her White Robin Farm in Wisconsin. It was a beautiful drive out there (I think I missed a turn and took a longer, more scenic detour) and we had a lot of fun doing a relaxed, non-studio family photo shoot. And I finally got around to posting the pictures: Check ’em out.

When we pulled up and got out of the car Lexi was all excited about the few cats milling about the yard. Then Barbara started calling the cats and they just started pouring out of the barn. She has at least 25 cats, and most of them came when she started calling.

In addition to the cats, Lexi chased the chickens, fed the horses and held a baby duck (she also manhandled the kittens and baby chicks). We got to run around, have some fun and the whole time Barbara took lots of pictures.

We highly recommend it.

Society

Overcoming Hate with Love

August 29, 2009 Kevin D. Hendricks 2 Comments

I have a hard time appreciating just how incredible the American Civil Rights movement was. I just watched this video, how to defeat the KKK, and then did minimal research on Wade Watts and read this story about his interactions with former KKK leader Johnny Lee Clary. Watts was one of many heroes in this movement, a man I’d never heard of before. I love this story:

When Oklahoma State Sen. Gene Stipe and civil rights activist Wade Watts walked into a restaurant in the late 1950s, a waitress confronted them at the door and told Watts, an African American, that the restaurant did not serve Negroes.

With a smile, Watts replied, “I don’t eat Negroes. I just came to get some ham and eggs.”

And that’s tame compared to Watts’ reactions to Clary as detailed in the video. That’s incredible love in the face of overwhelming and completely overt hatred.

Continue reading Overcoming Hate with Love →

Children

Parenting is Not Always Awesome

August 26, 2009 Kevin D. Hendricks 2 Comments

I post a lot of funny stories, quotes and random slices of life with my kids on Twitter. From all that hilarity you might get the idea that being a parent is a cakewalk. You might think that being a work-at-home dad is full of laughs, play-doh and productivity. If you get that impression, you’re not reading close enough.

For all the funny things my kids do, there are just as many days when I want to throw my hands up in the air and take my union-sanctioned break. But I don’t get one of those. I’m not a work-at-home dad because I love kids so much. I work at home because it’s practical. We’re a family that needs two incomes and we’re a family that can’t afford daycare (sure, we could probably do some financial acrobatics and make things work one way or the other, but we don’t). To be honest, I don’t always have the patience for this job.

I like things organized, orderly and quiet. That doesn’t work with kids. So I learn to pick my battles. The daily chore of convincing my daughter to wear pants was just too much, so I settled for the rule that if she was going to go outside then she had to wear pants, but if she wanted to run around the house half-naked, I wasn’t going to fight it. These are the kinds of ridiculous compromises I find myself making. I’ll trade a little self-respect for sanity any day.

Don’t get me wrong: I love my kids. But they can still drive me crazy.

I think sometimes we act like parenting has to be this deeply rewarding experience and to ever complain about it makes you less of a person. But sometimes your kid throws up on your or they won’t stop screaming or you’ve taught them how to talk but not how to be quiet—and it’s all a bit much. It’s not your kids’ fault, they’re just being kids. But as parents I think we need a little slack to say this is hard.

Adoption, God, Church & Stuff

We’ll Take Any Newborn

August 17, 2009 Kevin D. Hendricks 2 Comments

A few weeks back I pondered the difficult question of adoption and abortion. I asked the church why adoption isn’t standard practice in the face of abortion.

Well, one church has answered. Pastor Vic Pentz of Peachtree Presbyterian Church in Atlanta promised in a recent sermon that his church would “care for any newborn baby you bring to this church.” They’re partnering with the adoption agency Bethany Christian Services to make that acutally happen. It’s a bold statement and doesn’t get into any of the many complicated issues involved in adoption (it’s not exactly as simple as bring a baby to the church), but I love it. It’s a strong step forward for the church.

If the church is going to value life, I think they need to truly value life. And that means stepping forward to care for babies that would otherwise be unwanted. That means walking alongside moms and dads who would consider abortion because they don’t think they have the resources to care for a baby. That means doing whatever it takes for life, whether it’s keeping families together or creating new ones.

Children, Daily Grind

Summer is Over

August 17, 2009 Kevin D. Hendricks 1 Comment

School started for teachers today, so my wife is back at work. Just like that, summer is over. I’m back to hanging with the kids full time during the day, relegating the paying work to the evenings and any time the children are sleeping (or completely distracted, like now).

I love that as a teacher my wife has summers off. It allows for amazing things like a 12-day vacation. But it also makes getting back into the swing of full time dad a little difficult (I’m struggling with the wording here—I don’t want to imply that during the summer I’m somehow not dad, or I’m a part time dad, or that what I do is childcare or babysitting—it’s not, it’s parenting. I just need some sort of non-implying-all-that-junk lingo to say that I’m going from having help all day to going solo all day and then working all night). These transitions are always a little weird.

But on the plus side, they do make me value my time. Try getting anything accomplished with a 1-year-old and a 3-year-old. Not easy. Some days I realize that “accomplishing” anything is a fool’s errand. Stop being productive and start coloring.

These times also make me reconsider what I’m doing. What’s important with my life? You’ve got to pay the bills, but I’ve also got kids to play with. Do I want to get work done and let lots of Sesame Street happen, or do I want to gird up my sanity and go do something crazy and fun? It’s a difficult balance to strike.

As for right now, I should probably go color.

Uncategorized

Lexi in Times Square

August 7, 2009 Kevin D. Hendricks Leave a comment

So yesterday we went on an impromptu trip to New York City.

We took Lexi to the Hershey store. A store of chocolate. She wanted a rubber ball.

We took Lexi to the M&M store. An entire wall covered with pick-your-color M&Ms. She wanted an 8 oz. pack of M&Ms that you can get in every gas station, convenience store and mini-mart across the country.

My kid is weird. I love it.

(And today she threw up because all she had for supper was a pack of M&Ms and a chocolate shake from Jamba Juice. We suck as parents.)

Kevin D. Hendricks

Yearly Archives: 2009