NaBloPoMo 2010 Day 29 -- Waiting

Our church is celebrating the advent season this month. With that comes a four-part series each week. Yesterday's message centered around Waiting for God. (Not the British comedy series.)

There were several points that struck me in this first message. But one stuck out more than the others.

That point is one that shouldn't really shock me or you. Waiting for God can be frustrating. I don't think anyone's ever yelled out "WELL, DUH!!" in church, but it felt really appropriate yesterday, and I was tempted to be the first one.

The key the that fact though is it's impetus. The waiting is frustrating because we want control. Let's face it. We're control freaks. I know I am. If you don't think I am, ask Jen. (Ask our Scotland leadership team! They'll tell you. Ha!) It's not a revelation that I like to be in control, and that's why I get frustrated or even discouraged while we're waiting for the Lord to show us the next step in this journey.

I like to control the means and the ends. That's where the frustration comes in. Because I know what I need. What we need. I live this life. I must know. I know what I can do. What I'm trained for. What jives with my personality. So, of course, I know best.

Wrong.

I only know what I can see. And some of what I can "see" for me and for us is distorted by my fears. Looking through the lens of fear is debilitating. The lens of fear is myopic. Fear says there is only one way forward. Fear says don't try that because you don't know how it's going to turn out. Fear says you can't do that. Fear lies.

What I want to cling to as we wait is that I can trust the Lord to have our best interests at heart, and that He knows what is best for us and that what is best for us may not be what we think is best for us.

NaBloPoMo 2010 Day 10 -- Long Day

Man, was this a long day. (And I didn't make it to bed last night on the postmeridian side of zero hour, either.) And I am dragging! But I don't want to deprive you of your daily dose of my "perspective" on life. I think I only have energy to share some of the things I noticed throughout my day:

1) Fall Foliage: Fall is my favorite season. I love the crispness in the air in the mornings. I love the vibrant colors when the leaves change. And autumn is the season of college football, so what's not to love about that? The name of this blog derives, in part, from my love of this season. I saw some great displays of fall color this morning.

2) Free internet: I had a few opportunities today to take advantage of free web access. Maybe it's a sign of my advancing age, but I am so hesitant anymore to jump on a free internet hotspot given all the email/Facebook hacking I've seen over the last 24 months. I might also be tired of paying the computer nazi to de-malware my computer. (If you need a computer repair, the computer nazi that we use is great. He's not German. He's Asian actually, but he's as no-nonsense as the "Soup Nazi" of Seinfeld lore. Hence the name. Sue me, Seinfeld! I dare you!)

3) Club sandwich: I do not recommend the club sandwich at a lunch meeting. Especially when the woman on the other side of the table only eats half of her turkey & swiss. Clubs are good, but that extra slice of bread is problematic. No one on the other side of the table should have to see how wide I can open my mouth and count my fillings as I try to cram that thing in my pie-hole and explain how I can help her business. Even when nothing flies out of the back end of the sandwich, the stress of worrying that I'm going to have a huge dollop of mayo on the side of my face after a bite wears on you.

I am going to sleep well tonight (fingers crossed). This has been one long day. See you tomorrow.

NaBloPoMo 2010 Day 7 -- Uncertainty

Life is funny. The longer I live, the more I believe that the only thing about life that is certain is the uncertainty of life. We plan for things, and they don't work out as planned. Some of us pray for certain results or opportunities or outcomes, and it doesn't end up as we envisioned. Sometimes, we're minding our own business and something falls into our lap.

I can look back on various times in my life before I was married and since. Before we had Keegan and since. I wanted things to turn out; I tried to set things up to work out as I wanted. And it didn't come to fruition as I wanted or how I thought it would. I take solace in knowing that even when things didn't work out as I might've hoped, I didn't "miss out." I enjoyed the times I had where I was and being used in the ways that I was used.

All of that sounds sort of vague. Maybe it is. The details aren't really the important part.

Don't get me wrong, I get disappointed when things don't work out the way I hoped. It's not like I'm sitting around hoping to win the lottery or some other outlandish possibility. We're talking about job opportunities or relationships or financial situations. I tend to withhold my enthusiasm about things that I hope for. It's nothing more than a defense mechanism to limit the pain of disappointment. But that's a lie. You can't limit your disappointment. You may limit the number of people who know about your disappointment, but you don't limit your disappointment. Even when I don't tell someone about my hopes or dreams or expectations, I still know what they are. I know what I hope for.

This isn't the forum to share all of my hopes and dreams, but I can tell you that there are people who know what those things are. I will continue to share them with those people. I would encourage any of you to do the same. You're going to dream and hope. I think part of being human is to dream for something different, better, grander, etc. Share those things with people who will breathe life into your hopes and dreams and who will walk along side you if certain things don't come to be as you wanted.

NaBloPoMo 2010 Day 5 -- Trip to the Barber Shop

So I went to the barber shop today. The same one that I've been going to since I was about 11. The barber shop itself has not really changed. Most of the barbers today are different from that first visit, but it's the same barber shop for the most part because barber shops are all populated by the same characters. One barber who plays a character may move on, but he or she is replaced by the same sort of character to maintain the barber shop equilibrium.

The first thing I do as I approach the barber shop is assess how many cars are in the parking lot. The more cars, the longer I will be there. Duh. I was pleasantly surprised to see only a few cars there when I drove up. When I walked in, there were only three barbers working. Based on previous experience, I quickly assessed the situation. The closest chair to the door was open -- which I thought odd, because that guy is ALWAYS there when I go in. He's the resident racist barber. You know, the one who loves to tell jokes but whispers the racist punchline so as not to offend someone waiting who may sing in the church choir. (What about the guy whose hair you're cutting, dude? Ever think maybe, I don't want to be privy to your "wit?") I stopped going to that guy years ago, so his absence was a non-starter.

The next chair was the resident woman barber. Every barber shop has one woman to cut the 2-year-old's hair or in case Edith Bunker walks in and needs to get a trim while Archie enjoys the banter in chair no. 1. She was occupied, so I just sat and read the paper.

The last chair in the corner is reserved for the "new guy." He remains the new guy until he quits or until someone newer comes along, and he can displace someone else to move "up" the row. I've been to this new guy before, but he had someone in his chair already. He's decent, but he doesn't have the years of experience that some of the others do.

In between the new guy and the woman is the resident old guy. He's past his prime, but you can tell there was a time when he might've been the guy in a barber shop -- although this old guy was never "the" guy in this shop. (I know; I've seen him age at this shop.) Now, he likes to talk as much as cut hair. Going with him is a crap shoot because if he's really into talking, he loses focus on the actual hair cut.

Missing today are two folks -- either of whom would be easy choices to see. One is the owner of the shop. He's grown up here. He's been cutting hair here about as long as I've been going, but he must've started right out of high school because he's not 10 years older than I am. It's Friday; the owner doesn't work on Friday. That's why he's the owner.

The other missing guy is the guy I prefer when I'm there. He's good with both the clippers and a pair of scissors. A marriage of those barber skills is not as common as one might think. Anyone who knows me, knows that I've had the same haircut for the last 25+ years (except for my mullet period(s) from various parts of 1986-90. Sue me, I played soccer in high school and college; the mullet was part of the uniform.). That cut requires the #2 blade on the clippers and a little work with the scissors to thin out the top. (At my age, I'm somewhat happy to report that I have enough hair on top to pay someone to thin it out.)

So as my luck would have it, old guy is the one who opened up first today. I just resigned myself to having to listen to whatever stream of consciousness he had to share today. Wow. Today included references to a new kitchen, a possible hunting trip this weekend, a stated preference not to bow hunt, a couple of cooking shows that he watches on the tube, his love of grilling with the underlying implication that I must as well given my maleness, and our shared dislike for driving on Barrett Parkway. I could tell as the cut went on that certain areas were not getting the requisite attention and that other areas had been clipped ad nauseum. Eventually, my time in the chair ended, and I paid the man and bid him a nice weekend.

When I got home and more closely inspected the cut, I was not surprised to see several areas where the #2 blade was not held closely enough to the side of my head to actually clip anything. Nothing I couldn't fix with the trimmer I have at the house.

The moral of the story is to call ahead to make sure your guy is at the barber shop before you go.

NaBloPoMo 2009 Day 5 -- Our mailman

I work out of the house, and my office currently is at the front of the house. There is a park across the street, so I get to watch our neighbors walk their dogs. I saw a coyote on a cold morning in February -- probably the one that ended the existence of our former cat.

But one of the things that has stood out to me all year is the timing of our mailman. As most of you know, during a week absent a federal holiday, the mail is delivered 6 days per week. Five of the six days the mail comes no earlier than 5:00 p.m. On the sixth day, the mailman drops off the mail around 2:00 p.m. When mail is delivered, one would probably assume that the sixth day of mail might be Saturday. You'd be wrong. Ironically (perhaps in the Alanis Morrisette sense of irony), the sixth day is not Saturday. In fact, it's not any one day. It's one of three days -- but not the same day each week. For some reason -- that I have yet to determine -- on either Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, the mailman delivers the mail earlier than every other day of the week. But never the same day each week. Why? Is he just bored with the usual route, so he mixes it up once a week but never the same day to take the "mixing it up" to the next level?

I like nothing more than my routine. When routines go awry, chaos ensues. Chaos is bad -- except in theoretical physics courses and summer camp games! The variable rate mail delivery schedule upsets my routine. It means that there is no routine for three days a week or that there are 2 days each week when there is an unnecessary routine. More importantly, why do I care?

I just saw a hilarious scene in the HBO show "Curb Your Enthusiasm." Larry David, the star of the show, is visiting the cemetery site where his mother is buried. His father is with him to show him the new tombstone he bought for his former wife. After he reads the tombstone, Larry notices that the inscription reads "Born - Sept 18, 1920" and "Past Away Oct 21, 2001." Larry proceeds to chastise his father for misspelling the tombstone by using "past" instead of "passed." The punch line isn't that it was a mistake the widower failed to catch, but rather that it was cheaper to go with "past" over "passed" because the cost was $50 per letter. He saved $100 using the shorter word, and most people think it means the same thing anyway. To me, that's funny. (Now you have a little insight into my personality. Feel free to block my number if you must.)

Change

I don't generally get into New Year's resolutions. Not that I have anything against resolutions or people who make them every year. I think we need goals. I think we need things to keep us moving in a positive direction.

For 2009, I don't really have a resolution per se. But I am in a different position than I was in at the beginning of 2008. It's a different position than I was in on the last day of 2008 for that matter.

I left my position with the law firm at the end of the year. It was a long time coming. I have been tired of law firm life for a couple of years. I knew it. The firm knew it. But we both tried to make it work thinking that a switch might flip and bring me back to the fold -- so to speak. Alas, that switch was stuck in the off position.

We've known this situation was coming for a couple of months. The firm and I worked out the transition back in mid-October. If I may, I have to thank my firm for its patience with my efforts to figure out what I wanted to do and its efforts to help me find something that better fit my personality and my desire not to sacrifice my family for my career. I only worked at one firm after law school, and I wouldn't have wanted to work at another one. But for all the great things about that place, it just wasn't right for me. Eventually.

There was a time when I thought I'd be there for 30 years. I loved working 60-70 hours a week and the perks that came with it. I loved being everyone's go-to guy. Being the guy everyone knew they could call at or before 7:00 a.m. in an emergency. Being the guy who could be counted on to work 40 hours in a weekend to get a project done. Being a guy who could pull an all-nighter to get that last-minute brief written.

But all that came at the cost of less time for Jen. Less time for friends. Less time for family. Eventually, people stopped asking me to do things because they assumed I was working anyway. Who could blame them? Often when I was able to make it to things, I was either still thinking about work or too freakin' tired from work to be present. Even after I'd stopped working weekends, people still assumed I was working all the time.

Part of me got caught up in the idea that I should do my job with excellence, and that that meant I had to be at everyone's beck and call. And that meant I had to not be around for everything else that I "said" was important to me.

Even before K-Man came along, I knew I needed to review what I was doing compared to what I said was important to me. I knew things had to change. I tried to step back a little. I tried to commit to less. I tried to work fewer hours. But the firm needed to see performance. Law firms measure performance by the number of billable hours an attorney completes. I understand why. That's the economics of a law firm. I get why that is important to a law firm. But it's a crappy way to live. That drum beat never stops.

So it was time to quit pretending. It was time to go.

I don't know what is next, but I am enjoying exploring my options. I am looking at opportunities to work in-house as an attorney for a corporation. But I am also looking at things outside the legal world. I want to make the most of this opportunity to find something that fits me and fits what we need as a family. That may sound easy, but it's not. We are doing a lot of praying. And we are trusting the Lord to show us what's next.

Pick me! Pick me! Pick me!

There is a scene towards the end of K-Man's currently favorite movie Polar Express where Santa is about to select one kid to receive the first gift of that Christmas. One of the kids (voiced by the same guy who played "Eugene Felnic" in Grease) obnoxiously tries to get Santa to bestow the honor on him with a Horshack-like chorus of "pick me! pick me! pick me!" Of course Santa doesn't pick him. He picks the boy who is quietly taking it all in as he comes to terms with Santa's existence. I much prefer to be that latter boy.

But I am in the midst of doing some networking that requires me to talk about how "great" I am, and I am suffering from some cognitive dissonance about the whole thing. The dissonance comes not from whether I really think I am that good. I do. It comes from a belief that going around telling everyone about how good you are (like a Big 12 South team trying to convince pollsters) is unappealing at best. It feels so fake. Rather than be the annoying guy asking to be picked, I'd prefer to let my work speak for itself and "get picked."

But I'm told it's not as passive a process as that. I need to actively sell what I can do and how I can benefit another organization. That's just sort of how it works. So I guess I have no choice. But to be believable, I need to find some level of congruence on what I believe about myself and the manner in which I convey that to others in this networking process.

What is holding you back?

What is holding you back?

I was talking to someone today, and this question came up. My problem is that the answer to that question has so many layers. I tend to overanalyze things. The phrase "paralysis by analysis" comes to mind to a certain extent. But that doesn't completely capture it. Some of what holds me back goes back to what I shared on Sunday. I tend to see obstacles and rather than take a shot at something different, I stick with what I know -- warts and all -- because there's a certain comfort in the known.

Now if I was talking to someone else who was thinking about what was holding them back, I would be encouraging them not to let doubts about the unknown prevent them from taking a chance on something that may better suit them. So why can't I give myself the same permission? Or why won't I give myself the same permission?

What holds you back?

Tomorrow

I heard a good message this morning at church. David was talking about worry. I think most people worry about something from time to time. Some worry more than others, but we all worry about stuff at some point. I've heard messages about worry and specifically about the passage in Matthew 6:25 that David talked about today. This wasn't one of David's messages that opens a new perspective on the Word for me (but there have been a few of those). But it was a perfect message for where I am at the moment. I don't really want to share all of the details of that just yet, but suffice it to say, I could identify with the other people in the room today who identified themselves as "worriers."

Here's what I heard about worry today (that takes David off the hook if I screw up the paraphrase of his message). The Lord knows that we are prone to worry. But he wants us to know that he wants to take those burdens from us. He provides. He wants to provide. What that provision looks like for me or you or your friend or your co-worker or your classmate or your neighbor is different. But he knows what would work best, and he wants to provide. That doesn't mean we can just sit around and wait for that provision. We have our part to play. We have to work. Or we have to go to school. Or both. Maybe we have to pray. Maybe we need to ask for help. Maybe in verbalizing what it is that is worrying us we are admitting that it is bigger than us, and we need the Lord's help.

So why don't we take advantage of the Lord's desire to help? Well, if you're like me, you probably don't have faith that the Lord really will help you. I'm not saying I don't believe the Lord can help me. I do. I do because I've seen it before. In my own life. So if I've seen it before, why do I continue to doubt that he'd do it again? Why is my faith so ephemeral? (David didn't answer this question today, but it got me asking myself that question.)

I don't know the complete answer to that question, but saying that "I am just human" is a trite cop out. I know that I am way too self-reliant. I spend too much energy thinking about (read: "worry about") all the negative ends that could be reached instead of doing what I can do and trusting that the Lord will provide what I/we need.

David shared a couple of images today. One was God with a closed fist and us prying it open to get him to open his hands to us. That is the picture many of us have about making our requests to God when those things we worry about come to the surface. We think we have to convince God to open up to us. In fact, he's sitting there with his hands open already to give us what we need. If we'll ask. Without the faith that he can and will provide for us, we don't bother. How much faith is enough? A mustard seed's worth. (David's second image)

David actually had mustard seeds for us to hold to get a visual for the passage in Matthew 17:20 where Jesus commented to his disciples that if they had faith the size of a mustard seed, they could move a mountain. I don't know if I have that much faith, but I have enough to loosen my grip on the things that I cling too tightly.

So what I'm trying to do is hold onto a Matthew 6:34 perspective: "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

6 quirky things

I have been tagged by h to share 6 quirky things about myself. The hard part is limiting the list to 6 because I have a long list of hang-ups, um, quirks. See how many you can find that fall into the Freudian column of "anal-retentive."

So without further ado:

1) I always blow my nose after I take a shower. First thing. Something about the heat of the shower just loosens up the nasal contents. And post-shower, they must be eliminated. If I reach for the shaving cream or razor before blowing my nose, this alarm goes off in my head telling me that things are amiss.

2) I don't use dressing on salads. Waiters always do a doubletake when I say "no dressing." You have no idea how many waiters or fellow patrons have recoiled and blurted "No dressing?" like I was choosing not to breathe.

3) The clock in my car is set 10 minutes fast. My alarm clock beside the bed and my watch are set 5 minutes fast. I hate being late. This helps prevent that. The clock in Jen's car is not set ahead. Oh, I'm not going there ....

4) When I get a new CD, I have to open it up as soon as I get in the car and listen to it. For the younger crowd that only downloads music, let me explain. See CDs are these things that were like records .... Wait, um, records were these things that you played on a record player with a needle .... Oh, nevermind.

5) I hate it when papers are stapled and the pages are not flush together in the corner where the staple is. When the pages are all messed up or fanned out and then stapled, it just looks like you don't care. People should care about how pages are stapled together. As an attorney, I deal with a lot of paper and a lot of stapled sets of paper. A while ago, my assistant copied some documents and put them in an envelope to send to a court and to opposing counsel. At the last minute, the client wanted to change something so we decided to wait a day to send the documents, so we held back the copies that had been made. I took the envelopes from my assistant to avoid inadvertent mailing (shut up, I confessed my anal-retentivism above. It could happen. Why not prevent it if you have the chance?) So the next day, on a lark, I opened the envelopes just to see what she was planning to send. The stapling was atrocious. (Yes, stapling can be atrocious people.) Fanned pages just stapled. FANNED! Then I flip over the document to see that the copies had come out of the copier that way (you can tell this because the staples from the copier close differently then that double-humpbacked way they do on your traditional Swingline model.) So, I'd identified a lack of attention to detail but maybe not a stapling deficiency on the part of my assistant. The documents in the court's copy were the same way. Not acceptable. You think I'm anal-retentive. You don't want to cross a judicial version of anal-retentive. Trust me. So I walk over to my assistant and show her one of the copies with the crazy stapling. You know what she says? "Yea, I saw that."

Don't tell me that! You saw that these things were coming out of the copier all cock-eyed, but you just threw them in the envelope anyway? At least fake ignorance. So I nicely tell her that we cannot send out copies that look like this even if they come off the copier like that. This sends an impression of me, the other attorney on the case, and the firm in general. No can do. (I didn't actually say "no can do" -- THAT would sound so condescending.)

6) For all my anal-retentiveness, I keep a messy office. At work and at home. I just pile things up and work on what's at the top. When things from the bottom or middle of the pile require attention, they get moved to the top. See, look for yourself:


So those are 6 of many quirks. Now, I get the opportunity to pick others to provide 6 quirks about themselves. I tag Randel, Caroline, John Mark, Sean, and Matt.

Nourish

I am switching up the playlist on the blog for a while. This is a collection of songs that I have labeled "Nourish." I've had this list for a while but decided the time was right to add it. Given some of my experiences in Scotland and some other things I/we are praying about, this list is resonating with me right now. I figured why not share it with the handful of people who visit the site? Be nourished.

(Photo: sunset over Paisley, Scotland)

Memories

Do you ever wonder why you remember some things -- even the most seemingly insignificant tedium -- and fail to recall details of the more momentous occasions? Perhaps the seemingly insignificant is really the momentous.

My earliest memories date back to living in married housing at UF when my Dad was finishing his undergrad and graduate degrees (right across the street from the law school I would attend some 23 years later -- cue the theme from The Twilight Zone). My first memory is looking at myself in the mirror in my room at our UF apartment and realizing that was "me" in the reflection. Could that be more narcissistic?

I can also remember one of the first days I wore underpants. (This one is pretty significant.) I recall getting some instructions before I went out to play -- something along the lines of "if you have to go to the bathroom, come home and go and then you can go back outside." Later, I was playing at the playground with a bunch of other kids. I could sense the need to excuse myself and take care of my business the way "big boys" do, but come on people, I was playing at the playground, and I was two and a half (or 3 - I don't actually recall). So as you may imagine, after it was too late, I realized that there were a few extra ounces in my shorts. Off I ran, turd in tow! I was beside myself with terror. Afraid what my mom was going to do to me for soiling my shorts after her very clear and reasonable directions. Why didn't I just go home when I felt the first sphincter twitch? When I reached the apartment, I am sure I was a weeping mess with a fecal jiggle in my pants. Despite my worst fears, my mom showed me mercy and simply cleaned me up, gave me some new briefs and sent me back out there. (I have no doubt that this episode is the seed of my anal retentive personality. Shut up.) Jen can attest that my response to that situation is typical of my response to mercy even now. I don't appreciate the mercy; I much prefer to beat myself up for doing whatever I did to get myself in the situation from which mercy rescued me. (How warped is that?)

Another memory of mine is from playing little league when I was 8. It's sort of two memories really. I can only recall one at-bat from all of the games that I played that season. It was a double that I hit to right-centerfield. What I remember is how true I hit the ball. I caught it right in the sweet spot. The bat was a wood bat my Dad bought for me at Sears. At the time, Sears sold bats marketed by Ted Williams (then, his head was still attached). This was a 26-inch model that was painted kelly green. I remember that we won the game, but the score evades me. And I recall that I was awarded the game ball that day. The other part of my memories of that first little league season is stealing the sign that the coach of the Dodgers team was using to tell his kids to steal. As a catcher, that came in handy. (NOTE to any would-be coaches reading this. When an 8-year-old can steal your sign, you need to put more effort in disguising your intentions.) He did the same thing every time, he took his hat off and wiped his forehead. If I didn't have an 8-year-old arm with the accompanying accuracy (or lack thereof), my discovery would have been much more helpful.

These memories say something about who I am. If you can figure that out, please let me know, so I can benefit from your insight!

Tag

I've been tagged by h. and tasked with telling you ten random things about me. So here goes.

1) I skipped second grade.

2) But I failed calculus in high school. Not like just barely failed. I got a 47 in fall semester calc. Those concepts just didn't register with me at all . . . not ever really studying for the class didn't help either.

3) In fifth grade, I was offered the chance to audition for The Atlanta Boy Choir. I didn't go. I played baseball instead. (Not sure I chose wisely there.)

4) My senior year of high school, I had a problem with No Doz. One really shouldn't take 6 of those things before a first-period physics class. (That might also explain my inability to focus in Ms. Cole's calculus class.)

5) For my first semester of my freshman year at UF, I lived in a dorm (Murphree Hall) that was not air-conditioned. The school offered this option at a lower cost for people who wanted to reduce their expenses. I think I just signed up for housing late. I was in a triple. We had a system of box fans in the windows to try and deal with the heat. Two fans blew air out of the room and two drew air in. [The electrical system in that old dorm couldn't handle everyone having window AC units, so no one was allowed to.] August and September were brutal months in that room. I showered at least twice a day just to try and cool off (not because I was OCD). But it was right next to the north end zone of The Swamp, so it was very convenient to roll out of bed and into the stadium on game days to watch Emmitt during his sophomore year. Second semester, I moved over to the old Hume Hall which had AC.

6) Grammar-related pet peeves:

(a) "Irregardless" is not a word.

(b) There is no need for the word "prideful." The noun is "pride." To be full of pride is to be "proud."

(c) At least 90% of the time, you do not need to use "or not" when you use the word "whether." The "whether" alone is sufficient. Trust me.

7) I've only broken one bone on my body. The pinky toe on my right foot. When I was 17 or 18, I woke up one morning and stepped out of bed. In my post-slumber stupor, I did not appreciate that my foot was asleep. I put my weight on it, and the toe went right while the rest of my body fell in a heap. Luckily, my foot was asleep, so I didn't really feel the pain of the break. No real need to go to the doctor to confirm that break though. The 90-degree angle the toe was making with the neighboring toe was all the evidence I needed. I just taped the toe to the adjacent ring-finger toe and went about my day. Along with some Advil for pain management.

8) If I could do anything, I would coach soccer full-time. If I had to do something else in order to coach soccer, I would try to teach -- preferably on a college campus. This law firm life doesn't allow the freedom necessary to coach.

9) I like to cuss. And I cuss a lot when I play sports (or watch sports for that matter). I blame it on my Irish blood. Jen just says I'm a freak.

10) I get annoyed by all the talk about closing off our borders and stemming the tide of immigrants (even the "illegal" ones). And not just because my son is Hispanic. This is a country founded by immigrants. There was only one "native" people group here when the pilgrims discovered the "new world" in their brass-buckled clogs. If we took some time to get to know these immigrants, we'd see that most of them are here because they believe in the same American Dream that the rest of us do. Many of them are making far greater sacrifices to realize it too. Frankly, I'm not sure what everyone is so afraid of.

I tag STK, JM and Anita. Tell us some random tidbits about yourselves. Give us a glimpse into who you are.

And keep voting for Modern Skirts (see below). Yesterday afternoon, the band had taken over the top spot, but this morning, they had slipped back to #2 again. Vote HERE. And vote as often as you like/can.