Writing

Share Your Story Now

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“Don’t wait for your story to be done before you share it.”

I came across this quote from Jon Acuff (the guy behind Stuff Christians Like) in a discussion on blogging from the Catalyst Conference.

Here’s the quote in context:

Writing is just about writing. Perfectionism says it needs to be perfect, which is crazy. Your story is like your life… it is not done. Don’t wait for it to be done before you share it. Often you audience helps guide your story.

What I love about this is the acknowledgement that we all have stories to share. Our lives are journeys and the story isn’t the end of the road, it’s how we get there. Which means we don’t have to wait until we’re old and gray to have something valuable to say.

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Domicile

Turned on the Heat Today

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I broke down today and turned on the heat. Milo’s sniffles and an inside temperature of 63 degrees seemed like a combination for bad parenting. Currently the thermostat is set for 67 (aka the cheapskate setting) and it feels nice and toasty. Nothing like taking the edge off.

Here’s the breakdown of when we turned on the heat the last few years (I don’t know why I find this fascinating, but I do, so roll with it):

Sporting

Olympic Host Cities

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The International Olympic Committee announces the host city for the 2016 Summer Olympics today. It will be Madrid or Rio de Janeiro. Despite the presidential push from Obama for Chicago and the green-friendly reasoning for Tokyo, both cities are out on early voting. It would have been cool to have the Olympics in Chicago, but only for selfish reasons (when else will the Olympics be only six hours away?).

When you look at the history of the Olympics, it’s been mostly contained in wealthy western nations in North America and Europe. South American and Africa have never hosted an Olympic games. The Middle East and much of Asia have gotten the shaft too. This Olympic host country map provides a pretty startling view. Only twice in history have the Olympics been held south of the equator (both in Australia: 1956 and 2000). I understand that infrastructure and security requirements need to be met, but it seems like those challenges can be dealt with. Besides, location doesn’t guarantee security (remember Atlanta?).

Here’s to hoping the official announcement later today will mean history for the Olympics. (Update: They picked Rio for history!)

Until then, let’s explore some Olympic minutia when it comes to host cities.

  • The selection process hasn’t begun for the 2020 Summer Olympics, but a number of cities are lining up. In the making history department we have South Africa, Qatar, India, Peru, Malaysia, Morocco, United Arab Emirates and Turkey. Even if the Olympic Games makes history today and go with Rio, it seems the 2020 games should continue that ground-breaking tradition.
  • In the not-so-historical department, a number of U.S. cities will be salivating now that Chicago is out of the running: Denver, Boston, Detroit, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Birmingham (?!) and Pittsburgh have all shown interest.
  • Detroit has more unsuccessful Olympic bids than any other ultimately unsuccessful city with seven official attemps (Los Angeles has made nine bids, but they also hosted twice). Detroit made attempts in 1944 (3rd place), 1952 (5th place), 1956 (4th place), 1960 (3rd palce), 1964 (2nd place), 1968 (2nd place) and 1972 (4th place). If Detroit couldn’t host the Olympics at the height of their prestige, it seems almost laughable that they could win a bid now.
  • Yes, my hometown, the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul are considering a bid for the 2020 Olympics. There’s even a horrible web site that uses Comic Sans and a Facebook Group with 80,000 fans. The Twin Cities have tried and failed four times to host the Olympics: 1932, 1948, 1952 (2nd place), 1956. They also placed second to Atlanta as the U.S. host city in 1996. I love my city, but somehow I’m not sure if we’re Olympic caliber.
  • Time offers a glimpse of what happens to Olympic stadiums (auto racing in Athens is the coolest) and ponders the potential cost if Chicago hosted the Olympics.

Here’s a quick overview of some of the challenges Rio will face.

Society

Roman Polanski: Valuing Talent Over Justice?

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I haven’t paid much attention to the Roman Polanski story. The short version is that 30+ years ago a famous Hollywood director pleads guilty to having “unlawful sexual intercourse” with a 13-year-old girl and then flees the country before sentencing. Last weekend Swiss police picked him up and are preparing to extradite him. Some members of Hollywood are demanding his release, citing things like his age, the wishes of the victim and his art.

What made me look into the story was this article on the backlash against the Hollywood supporters of Polanski and then this article, Father Polanski would go to jail. The comparison to the Catholic abuse scandal is right on. Child and sexual abuse from people in power is not something we should take lightly. I’m all for Hollywood rallying to Polanski’s side and supporting their friend and colleague. But that doesn’t mean the man shouldn’t face justice.

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War

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

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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

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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.

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Books, Writing

Gmail Down? 25% Off Lulu Today Only

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Downtown DandelionsYou 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

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Hendricks Family Photo ShootWay 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

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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.

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Children

Parenting is Not Always Awesome

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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.

A work-at-home dad wrestles with faith, social justice & story.