Burlinton bound

In a moment of complete fiscal irresponsibility tonight, I found tickets on priceline.com, and I am headed to Burlington from April 20-23. I am going to see Great Big Sea in concert, but mostly of course I am going to see Caroline, my dear friend.

Woo-hoo!

Is that Easter weekend?

to Luther

A homeless man died in San Antonio this week. Not a huge surprise, I guess, especially given how cold it has been in the last couple of weeks. (Thank goodness spring is coming quickly. Every day in long pants is a day not as good as it should be.)

Luther was an alcoholic. It is a demon he battled throughout his life. He had periods of sobriety, but he could never quite sustain it. That disease had him bad.

I was not there when Luther walked in to Travis Park church; I was still in Florida. He came into the church looking for transformation. He found it in his own life, through fits and starts and horrible struggles. But the bigger transformation took place not in his heart, but in the heart of the church. A process started, or continued, gained momentum that day. And the momentum continues in the heart of Corazon Ministries, aimed at transforming the lives of the homeless in San Antonio. Travis Park church is not so monochromatic anymore; it is filled just with the affluent anymore. Now it looks more like San Antonio, and more like the kingdom of God.

The season of Lent begins on Wednesday and ends with Easter. I am saddened that Luther is not with us anymore; his face was always a bright spot in my day, even when it was painfully obvious he had been drinking again. I am sad that it took death to free Luther from his demons, but I am also profoundly grateful for a God so intimately involved with us that he invaded the world as Jesus so that death itself could be redeemed.

I looked around Corazon Ministries today while at work, and I was reminded that the Holy Spirit does not work through the kings and presidents and people of power and wealth. The Spirit works also through homeless drunks. We will miss you, Luther, but we will never forget you. Rest in the peace that you could never find here.

the Knicks are pathetic

Holy cow, they are terrible. I had no idea. The Spurs could have scored 150 points if they wanted to tonight. This is a team with no leadership, no plan, nothing. They could play the Spurs fifty straight games, and they wouldn't win. Egads.

Now it sets up the most anticipated regular season game for me in a long time Thursday night when the Spurs and the Mavericks battle. Mavs have won something like 21 of 23 to take the lead in the division. They have split their meetings thus far, both in Dallas, and have the two games in San Antonio with one game separating them in the standings. Bottom line is that the Spurs can really kick them in the shins by winning Thursday night. It is a big brother, little brother thing. The Mavericks have never really threatened the Spurs in the last seven or eight years we've been piling up championships. The Mavericks need a win, they need to win the division and have home court against the Spurs. It doesn't guarantee them a win in a play-off match-up, but if they falter and the Spurs win the division and homecourt, then I really like the Spurs chances.

Fans around here don't take the Mavericks seriously enough, though. They are a real threat. My brother even thinks they are the better team. He gets to watch them more often than I do, and I value his opinion. Thursday night is huge.

GO BONNIE!!!!

Ok, I am rather ashamed to admit that I spent most of the last five hours watching my sister-in-law play poker online. But I did. And she just won a tournament with some 1500 players and change. The buy in was $5.50 and she pocketed over $1400 for her win. She played beautifully, hit a garbage runner runner straight with pocket sevens against pocket kings to bust a guy. Though, truth be told, she had so many more chips than he did at that point - probably 30 players left or so then - that she wouldn't have been crippled with a loss there. Probably the key hand of the whole tournament, at least in terms of winning it, came with four players left. Bonnie was the chip leader, but not by a huge margin. Her stack seemed to hover around 900,000, with the others between 350,000 and 650,000. She was dealt pocket queens on the hand, and the guy in second chip position was dealt aces. She raised before the flop, and rather than reraise, he just called her, setting up the trap for later in the hand. (I like this play with pocket aces, especially when all but one hand has already folded. Bottom line is that with aces, you want to play a massive pot against one other player. You are basically a 4:1 favorite against almost any set of cards that doesn't contain an ace. So slow playing here makes as much sense as ever.) However, when the flop came with a Queen, it was all over and suddenly Bonnie had 1.5 million chips to the other stacks around 500,000. Nobody else ever made it over a million, and in the final hand, she had pocket kings against a KQ, which is basically the biggest favorite you can be in poker. The flop had a queen, but nothing else appeared to help the sucker, who was stuck with only $800 in winnings. Poor guy.

I didn't just watch poker. I have been participating in this doctoral study for a woman from Drake University, who is doing a qualitative study on young widows and widowers who lost their spouses to a long-term illness. I spent much of the night working on the questionaire that she sent me. The last question left to answer is: in what ways has widowhood transformed your life physically, economically, emotionally, and spiritually? I reckon I can whip out an answer to that in a couple of minutes tomorrow night. Sheesh.

Don't mess with the Monkey!

chemo food

Well, for the first time, I went back to the meal Becky and I would have when she was sick from chemo and couldn't keep anything else down: the grilled chicken sandwich from Wendy's with just lettuce.

And it has stayed down. I am still pretty wobbly on my feet, but definitely better than 20 hours ago or so. And after having spent 18 of 20 hours in bed or so, I am exhausted and turning in for the night.

I did get to read Katie her bedtime story over the phone, and that was fun. She is spending the night with my folks so that I don't get her sick again. Mainly it is so that I can rest, for it is not easy to rest with a playful five year old on the premises.

Good night.

sick today

Well, today I am hobbled by Katie's stomach bug from Wednesday. I guess it is my turn; my parents each took their turn over the weekend.

I think the first time I have been sick since Becky died, at least vomiting sick. I really am a lousy patient when sick. I want to be left alone as much as possible. Either I will emerge or cart my body off when it is over is what I would tell Becky. And she would honor that to the largest extent, leaving me alone except when absolutely necessary, but at the same time my water would always be full and she would clean the toilet after every vomiting episode, and usually without me knowing either. And it is one thing to not notice it while I was sick, but I didn't even acknowledge it once better. I am sorry for that, sweetie. I miss you again today in a new way. I know I did those things for you when it was my turn. But you at least thanked me for them.

I have been looking forward to spending a whole day in bed for quite a while now. I'd just hoped I'd convinced someone to spend it there with me. This is not quite what I had in mind.

ok, so I am a dork

But I find myself watching the final table of the 1995 WSOP on ESPN Classic. I like Dan Harrington; this is the one he won, and I like his style of play, and it was in reading his book that I really got going winning some money on Poker Stars.

But this stuff just isn't watchable. I mean, I guess it is, as I did watch it. But how? They had the father from 8 is Enough doing the play by play, and he doesn't know a thing about poker. I mean, clueless. Everytime he made a prediction about what the players had, he was off by a mile, and I am sitting there thinking, I wouldn't even consider those hands a possibility.

Here is my favorite example: the last two players are heads up, and the button raised to twice the blind and the big blind called. So far this is basically the way every hand starts heads up. It wouldn't be too different if we just changed the rules of heads up poker and went straight to the flop here. The flop comes KT6, and Harrington bets and the Howard calls. The next card is a 7, and there is another bet by Harrington, and the announcer is going on and on about one of them having an 8-9. I mean, if you called the post-flop pot-sized bet on little cards and a gutshot, well, you get what you deserve. The river is a 6, pairing the board. If I am playing this hand, and I am no expert, I am pretty happy to have any king. If I lose to a weird straight or him hitting trip sixes, well, that is just life. But the announcer goes on and on about well, he could have quad sixes and he could have a full house and he could have a straight. Theoretically, I guess, these are all possibilities. But it seems more likely that one of them had a king and the other didn't. (Harrington won the hand with a bet on the river. If I had to pick a hand for the other guy to be holding, I would put him on QJ, enough to raise with before the flop and enough to call a couple of bets to see if he could make the nut straight. I would guess Harrington had a K or a T.)

Of course, I could be the idiot here, and Harrington could have had quad sixes. (We can be pretty sure Howard didn't since he folded on the river and likely would have at least call with quads, a boat, a straight, or even a set.) Bottom line is that poker is simply unwatchable on television until the development that enabled viewers and commentators to see the hole cards. There are a couple of tournaments where Hellmuth did some color commentary, and those are actually pretty good. Because he wasn't emotionally involved, he wasn't a donkey, and his predictions of what the cards were turned out to be on the money basically everytime they would turn them over.

So now not only did I spend an hour watching an unwatchable poker program on television, I have now spent another fifteen minutes writing about it.

And on that note, I am quitting this and going to sleep.

A Year With Bonhoeffer

Jim Wallis just edited a new book entitled a year with Bonhoeffer about the German theologian executed by the Nazis for resisting Hitler. I have quite enjoyed it so far. I was given a copy of The Cost of Discipleship in 1989, and it remains one of the most influential books of my life. I would certainly recommend that over this new book because the short (page long) snippets from Bonhoeffer's writings sometimes would be better off in the flow of a whole work. But at the same time, it does make the reading easier.

I have also been reading a John Irving novel recently called Widow for a Year or something like that. An interesting book thus far; I am not far enough in to give definitive word on how good it is. I have never read any of his work before, so who knows? I am interested so far.

a little blogging before bed

Not much to report. Katie is feeling better after her stomach bug, though she ran out of gas something fierce tonight about 7:00. So she is still not quite herself, but she is doing well.

I fired up the e-harmony account again this week for the first time in six months, and within a week have a couple very promising prospects. Who knows?

I just finished playing in this $2 tourney at Poker Stars with some 2000 people in it. I managed to come in 53rd. A key hand down the stretch killed me. I had AQ and got my money all-in before the flop against KJ, so I am a solid favorite. Not quite 3:2, but solid anyway. And I think you have to win some hands like this in order to really move into the top places. My stack was at about 35K, just a hair below average with blinds at 1500 and 3000. The KJ dude had about 28K, so when he hit his jack I was pretty much wiped out, especially with the blinds a couple hands away. I was happy to pick up KT under the gun and move in with that, had two callers, so a win would have put me back over 20K and not in desperate straights. Flop came JTx, not bad for me, and they both bet. Next card was a K giving me two pair and I was really hopeful. But the second caller had TT and I was basically dead to running kings though I didn't know it.

If I win the big hand, I am up over 60K and in the top 20 in chip position and have a chance to win some real money. As it was, I won $9 or so, which is quadruple my investment, so what the heck.

And now I am going to read some more of the Irving novel I started last night, and then I am headed to bed.

three in a row

You would not think it possible to get KK in three straight tournaments, especially not the hour long or so sit and go tournaments I usually play in. But I did, relatively early in each.

And I got a poor sucker in with me, roughly a 4-1 dog each time. And each time, my opponent caught a hand bouncing me out of the tournament. Twice two pair (once with Q8 and once with JT) and another with trips (88 hit a third eight on the turn).

So it was not my night to play kings, I guess.

the second worst day of my life

Valentine's Day, three years ago.

Three weeks after Becky's diagnosis, she has surgery. The plan is to go in and test her lymph nodes. If they are cancerous, then the surgery will be short and minor and we will do chemo and radiation first before surgery later. If there is no cancer in the lymph system, then the portion of her right lung with tumor will be removed.

The surgery began very early in the morning on Valentine's Day, and we were in the room with several other patients' families. There was a nurse who went from operating room to operating room and then came back about every hour to report on what is going on.

After a couple of hours, we found out that they had opened Becky's chest, meaning that the lymph system was clear and that the tumor is being removed, the best case scenario.

After a couple more hours, the doctor shows up. It was not the best case scenario; it was the worst case scenario. The lymph nodes were cancerous. But when they tried to close up the small entry in her neck, they could not stop bleeding and had to crack her chest. So she got the major surgery but not the tumor removal. She would have to heal from the surgery for a few weeks before chemo could begin.

And in the mean time, I got to wait. I had to be the one to tell her what had happened. I knew she would wake up and think she was free of the cancer because she had had the major surgery. I had to be the one to break this to her. It was probably another three hours before she was awake, and the despair in her eyes as I told her is one of the most haunting things I have ever experienced. She couldn't talk; she was still on a respirator and a huge dose of morphine. But she knew how much harder this fight was to be.

It is weird, three years later, that I can basically remember that day minute by minute. I can remember what the little kids were like in the waiting room. I can remember the accent of the nurse who reported to us every hour. Every detail of that day.

I guess the good side is the strength I got from the people around me, talking to my brothers on the phone and our dear friend Barbara in Atlanta. But this day was the worst. In many ways, it is even worse than the day she died, which was a pleasant time most of the day.

So if I am extra-curmudgeon today, it is not because I am single and wish I weren't. (Though I am not particularly happy about that......) It is because I find my thoughts in St. Luke's Hospital three years ago.

holy crap

I read this in the Daily Dime at espn.com, a wonderful little recap everyday of nba happenings.

Interest in Cleveland's Drew Gooden is understandable. Gooden's contract expires at season's end, his salary is lower than the league average at just over $4 million and he's averaging nearly a double-double (10.9 points and 8.8 boards) in less than 30 minutes per game.
However ...
The latest signals I'm hearing suggest that Gooden, a restricted free agent come July, will still be in Cleveland after the Feb. 23 trade deadline in spite of outside interest and the Cavs' ongoing search for another point guard.


Just over $4 million is less than the league average?!?!?

Wow. I had no idea. I mean, I knew they were overpaid, but sheesh. I mean, Drew Gooden sucks. He's made every team he's been on worse for having him, and he makes $4 million per year. So four nights per week, the owner of the Cavs pays Gooden $50K for the privilege of being more likely to lose that night.

Next someone is going to tell me Troy Murphy is guaranteed another $51 million. You can find out these and other interesting tidbits at http://www.hoopshype.com/salaries.htm. Like the Knicks, who have four of the largest fourteen contracts on their books and one of the top two paid coaches - I couldn't figure out quickly whether it was Brown or Jackson topping that list - pay $29 million more than any other team for players only, and still - still have the fewest wins in the league.

Did I mention Troy Murphy is guaranteed another $51 million?

America is a wonderful country.

to continue last night's topic

As it turns out, Bill and Helen were at the Super Bowl party hosted by our ministers, and I got to share with Helen most of this story about how inspired I was by them. As it turns out, they have been dating for just over a year now, and they also met through e-harmony.

Anyway, we were all at Bonnie's funeral on Wednesday. And, for me, this was the second funeral I had been to since Becky's. The first was a few months after she died when my stats professor lost his wife, also to lung cancer. But that ceremony was not tremendously emotional for me, most of it was in Chinese so they could just as soon be telling knock-knock jokes as anything else. My classmate Nikki was there with me and she was also a great help.

So there was more about this funeral that was about Becky's death than it was about Bonnie's death. And I could tell that the same was true for Bill - he was thinking more about Anne's death and the pain of that loss. That he could share that with someone made me tremendously jealous. And not only that, but he could share it in such a way that made their relationship all the stronger. Seeing them together reminded me of why I am dating in the first place. It is not primarily about sex, though sex would be welcomed. It is about sharing life again, not the perfect life we dreamed of in our youth but the real life, stinky as it is, that we get to have every day.

I was a good husband once and a decent father. And now I am a great dad and would be a much better husband than Becky ever had. But I am lonely this weekend and wondering who will ever take the time to find that all out.

interested in dating again

For the first several weeks after breaking up with Cathy in the early part of December, I have been interested in dating again. I think emotionally I needed to get through my anniversaries as that is a very introspective time, and Christmas, our wedding anniversary, and Becky's birthday all happen quite quickly. It was just a couple of weeks ago we had the anniversary of diagnosis, and Valentine's Day will be the anniversary of her surgery that failed so miserably, and obviously in March the anniversary of her death.

So I think part of the longer delay than previously has been due to the fact that I am more reflective this time of year on those things than maybe in the summer and fall. And part of it is making sense of what happened with Cathy. Not that it was all that dramatic - in fact, there was as little drama as could be imagined, though perhaps that is indictment enough of how little of myself was really invested in that relationship.

And so I feel myself being back on the market, so to speak. I am interested again in the attractive women that surround me. After prior breakups, I have felt compelled to rush back into online dating, but not so this time. I don't know why; e-harmony has worked well for me insofar as I have met a host of attractive women that way including Cathy and Alisa among others. But for now I am just going it alone and seeing how that goes.

A powerful witness was made to me about this on Wednesday. I went to Bonnie's funeral - she had worked at our church a few years ago, and she died last week of breast cancer. Bill was there; he is also a widower and we have grown close in the last year and a half. He is also a member of our Friday morning breakfast gang. I think Anne died a couple of months before Becky. He has been in a relationship with Helen, also in her early 50's, I'd reckon, for several months.

I will finish this story later, just looked at the time and realize I need to go to bed.

stewardship

I am yapping in front of the church again tomorrow, begging for money. So now I am preparing my thoughts .....

I am an accountant by trade - you might not suspect it when you get to know me, but I will prove it to you with one little statement: I like budgets. I like having a plan and a direction; Jim Wallis wrote that a budget is a moral document because it tells us what we value and what we put our faith in.

Stewardship is not just about pledge drives; stewardship is also about vision and about making tough choices, and since I have been named stewardship chair for this year, I am going to be talking a lot about that. And the importance of vision and tough choices is very apparent during the budget process. The vision comes from the staff. If you want to be invigorated about this church, sit down and talk to Joe about what he wants to do with music in the next year to bring people here closer to God and to grow this church. Or Evan with the youth. Or Minot with the new accounting software he covets.

The tough choices are obvious too. We could spend our contributions many times over before we ran out of worthwhile projects. The church council ultimately has to make those decisions, and that is the part of this process that is not fun at all. It is, however, a part of stewardship.

The simple message I have this morning is that every person associated with Travis Park church has a role in stewardship. Now is the time for us to do our part.