This afternoon I had the chance to play a competitive game of balloon volleyball with Jason, my niece and brother-in-law. My poor niece didn’t have a chance with me on her team. It did bring back some great memories of high school sports, though. The excitement of a great play, the sting of defeat, the teamwork… sports are awesome for teaching so many life lessons. I didn’t even realize them all as I played as a kid, but now the metaphors are pretty obvious. …
Archives for July 2006
Speaking in Rockford
Whenever I share stories about speaking tour adventures, I invariably get e-mails from folks wishing they would have known about the event so they could've attended. I will admit that I need to do a better job of posting these little notices. So, for those of you interested, I will be speaking in Rockford, Illinois on Thursday, July 20th at 6:30 p.m. The talk will have a faith-based perspective, which means I talk about why I think Jesus invented noogies, wedgies, and wet willies. All are welcome, including kids as young as 5 and as old as 105. Drop by the Holy Family Catholic Church (4407 …
Gotta Love Spell Checker
We're currently working on producing a dead tree version of The Escape Plan, featuring all 40 challenges and journal pages to record your adventures. Today, Kim was proofing the first draft and alerted me to a passage from Challenge #37 (Tastes Like Childhood.) In it, I am describing my experience eating a childhood favorite, Sour Patch Kids. Here's how the original copy reads: ...Most grown-ups I knew didn’t know why I’d subject myself to such a horrible abomination disguised as candy. Sour Patch Kids truly are an assault on the ol’ tastebuds; I couldn’t get enough of ‘em as a kid. It’s been …
Use it or Lose it
Apparently many American’s do not take all of their allotted vacation time. What’s wrong with us? I just read a very interesting article about this on WashingtonPost.com, called “Vacation Deprivation: The Lost Art of Taking Time Off.” The article pointed out, ‘workers are expected to give back 574 million vacation days in 2006, depriving themselves of much-needed breaks, according to Expedia.com's annual vacation deprivation survey. The number of vacation days employees are skipping this year increased by one over last year. On average, Americans leave at least four days unclaimed annually. …