Bet you wish you had dated me now, don't you various girls in my life?

Hey everybody! I won an award! I got second place for feature photo at the Texas Press Association Awards. I won in the whole state of Texas for weekly papers in our division. Woo-hoo!

I don't feel as though I am being pompous because the only other award I remember getting was when I got third place at the science fair in first grade.

There were three entries. And yes, there were more than two entries in this contest. There were like five or six. I actually don't know that to be true. There could have been only two. Oh well, I don't care..I'm an award winning journalist!

Not a Man...in the traditional sense

I have discovered that I don't like doing things that most people would call "manly."
I don't work on cars or repair things that are broken. I strongly believe there are people who God gifted with the ability and desire to fix all sorts of different objects, so in a way, if I were to want to repair them myself, I would be taking away some joy in someone's life.
Also, I am fat.
I'm not saying that in the "Oh, feel sorry for me because I am insecure." No. I am very secure. I also am aware of my larger-than-normal stomach (that seems most pronounced whenever I am trying to look nice.) So, as a fat man, I obviously don't like doing too much because I get sweaty and tired and cranky. I am am much less sweaty, tired and cranky when I am just sitting down or eating...hence my fluffy exterior.
The other day, I picked up my lovely wife, Sarah, and her co-worker from the airport after a business trip. We took her co-worker home and Sarah offered me as a bell-hop and said I would carry the girl's bags up the stairs. I didn't recall ever offering this myself so I was confused as to why Sarah would think this would be something I would like to do.
As I carried the girl's bags up the stairs, Sarah made another discovery. The girl's car had a flat tire. And then it happened.
You know those moments where you vocal chords and mouth act entirely on their own and your brain can't stop it. That happened to me as I said, "I could help you change it if you want."
Why in God's green earth would I say something like that? To this day I do not know what evil being took control over me for that small moment, but it happened.
I was hoping she would do the friendly thing and say, "No, that's okay. I have AAA."
That didn't happen.
She looked at me and said, "Wow, that's awesome. I will get the keys and we can get out the spare and tools."
Now before this moment I had only changed one tire. And by changed the tire, I mean sat next to my friend and watched him do it and almost had my foot crushed when the car fell off the jack. By the way, my one job was to set up the jack.
Well somehow, I managed to remember most of what you are supposed to do and didn't do too badly. I did scratch the girls car almost every time I turned the tire iron, however.
I managed to survive with dirt on my hands and a shirt that looked like it was painted on because I was sweating profusely. Afterwords, my sweet Sarah said, "See, aren't you glad you did that, my man?"
No. No, I wasn't. It confirmed everything I believe about working on stuff that I have no business working on. I took the joy away from some mechanic who would have loved to change that tire and wouldn't have put a scratch on the car.
However, working on the car did cause me to write this story, which is something that I enjoy doing, so I guess it all comes full circle. Sometimes you have to do something you hate so you can do something you enjoy.
P.S.
Ladies, I am not a terrible husband. I clean up around the house and do the laundry. I have also recently learned how to boil water, so I'm on my way to being a cook and a full-fledged house-husband.

I Hate Severe Weather

When I was a child I saw an episode of a show called “Magee and Me” in which a tornado tears through a town when a child’s parents aren’t home. The episode climaxes when a tree branch breaks through the window of the child’s house.

How terrifying is that?

Honestly, every time I knew that scene was coming I would hide behind my couch and clamp my hands over my ears so I wouldn’t even hear it. Yes, I watched the episode more than once. Why? I have no idea, I wasn’t exactly a brainiac as a child. Ever since that time I have not been comfortable during storms.

Okay, truth be told I get really, really scared.

This fear of harsh weather was particularly poignant in the spring because of the storms that blew through the area. I have a wife now, so I try not to be as scared around her. However, she has a job that requires her to travel and she has been out of town during the past two storms.

No wife, no having to act tough. Scardey-cat mode activated.

During one storm, I was pacing my apartment chanting, “You are fine. It is just a storm. It can’t hurt you.”

Then the power went out. Somewhere, God was laughing.

My chant then changed to, “All right, I am going to freak right out.”

My phone rang and I saw that my friend was calling. I thought, “That’s nice. He saw that there was a storm and he knows I don’t like (AKA am terrified of) harsh weather and wants to see if I’m okay.”

I picked up the phone only to hear laughter and my friend say, “Dude, there is a huge storm where you are. I hope a tree branch doesn’t break through your window.”

I hung up on him.

Word to the wise: never tell your friends what makes you scared. I probably deserve it though because I know he has a crippling fear of snakes and I always pretend to see them when I am around him and he freaks out. I now know what it is like on the other side and I am a changed man (not really, I owe him a rubber snake in his truck).

My wife called me amidst the storm and tried to tell me about her day at work. I was obviously not listening because I was in a major crisis. There was a storm outside and it was trying to get in and get me. My wonderful bride did not yell at me and tell me to quit being a pansy. She comforted me and told me to quit being a pansy. I love her.

In the end, I was able to weather the storm and come out okay. I was even able to fall asleep at 2 a.m. when my adrenaline stopped pumping and had a very good night’s sleep.

Pointer Tooth

I had a pointer tooth when I was a child.

I called it a pointer tooth because it jutted out of my mouth and, wherever I looked, it pointed in the same direction. Aside from being just an annoying looking tooth, it also proved to be very dangerous.

One summer while I was at a summer camp in Tyler, I found out how dangerous my pointer tooth could be. The whole camp was playing a giant game of freeze tag (or some other game that required a bunch of hyper middle-school students to run around in circles) and I wasn’t exactly doing a good job of looking where I was going. At one point I looked behind me to see if I was being chased and when I turned back around, it happened.

I slammed into another camper’s head. I grabbed my mouth and he grabbed his head. Almost instantly I knew what had happened. I had stabbed his head with my pointer tooth. He started to look up at me and I bolted. I didn’t want to be known as the kid who ran around biting people in the head.

Oh how wrong I was.

The next day I was standing in line at the concession stand when I heard, “What happened to your head?” I slowly turned around to see a familiar face with a giant bandage on his head. In answer to the inquiry about his head the boy just shrugged but one of his friends answered the question for him.

“Some guy was running around during the game yesterday and bit him in the head.”

Suddenly I wasn’t in the mood for the concession stand anymore. I had gone from a fun-loving middle school student to the “Anonymous Head Biter,” scourge to all camp games. Needless to say it didn’t feel good at all and it mostly didn’t feel good because I was hiding from what I had done, even though it was an accident.

The guilt wrecked me for the entire week and I could just picture in my mind the boy who I bit growing up to become a shut-in because he didn’t want to leave his house only to be attacked and have his head chewed on once again.

So, the last night of camp, I went looking for the boy with the bandage. I found him with the girl who had told the concession stand line that someone had “bitten him in the head,” and just pointed at his bandage and said, “Hey man, that was me. I’m really sorry about that.”

He looked at me with a shocked expression and his friend looked at me like I was a monster. Then the guy said, “That’s cool man. I’m sure you didn’t mean to do it.” Suddenly a weight was lifted off my shoulders. I could live life knowing that I had not caused someone to become a recluse.

Jolly Rancher

I know it has been awhile since my last update, but I'm pretty sure the only person who has read this is me so I'm not too worried. Anyways, I thought I would update the blog with some columns I wrote for the Burleson Star. Here is the first one. Hope you enjoy.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When I was younger, I thought the world was a simple place. If I had $5, I knew where it was going…straight to the gas station to buy me an ungodly amount of Jolly Ranchers.

Needless to say, after graduating college and getting married, my priorities have changed. Not about the Jolly Ranchers, they still are and always will hold a very special place in my heart. However, I have noticed some other significant changes in my thinking.

I have been married for nine months now and while I know that is not a long time, it has changed me. I love my wife, Sarah, and I would do anything for her. I would even (and I know this is crazy) share my Jolly Ranchers with her. I have discovered how lucky I am to have all the things I have.

In a not-so-great economy, my wife and I have jobs. I have a loving family and in-laws that like me. I even have a movie theatre right across the street from where I live (proof that God likes me). Sarah and I don’t have a lot of money. We aren’t working on buying our fifth yacht or anything, but we have enough. We are happy.

It is a really great feeling to be able to look at your life and be happy with what you have. I don’t have a lot, but I have enough. I would like to have more, sure, but who wouldn’t?

I see people whining about what they don’t have all the time and even I fall prey to the materialistic wants of the world. But most of us are doing pretty good. I ate lunch with a Sudanese family that attends my church last week and they are some of the happiest, friendliest people I have ever met. These are people who carried two children across a desert while being hunted by soldiers who thought of them as nothing more than a pest problem that needed to be exterminated.

They made it to America and live in a small apartment with a family of nine. The father works nights at a factory loading heavy equipment into trucks and the mother irons other people’s clothes all day. But every time I see them, they are smiling. They know how lucky they are to have what they have, which isn’t much.

And here I am, grumpy because I can’t go out and buy the new DVD that came out this week because I already blew my money on a 100-gallon tub of Jolly Ranchers. Let’s all take a cue from my Sudanese friends and find the happiness with what we have in our lives. Enjoy the Jolly Ranchers in your life.