Parking Lot Shuttle #4...Welcome Aboard !

I've finally made it. Yes, it's been a dream of mine to pilot some kind of "shuttle" vehicle for some time. From the first time I saw one of these in use was at University Baptist Church in Clear Lake. In their particular situation the church was using a nearby parking lot for overflow parking. To “shuttle” people (and shuttle was a VERY appropriate term since the majority of the church members with worked for NASA or it’s many contractors) between locations the church used small buses driven by volunteers. Oh man…was that ever the coolest church job ever. It was a service that was needed, appreciated and air-conditioned. The trifecta. How could I get in on this gig ?

Well of course at the time I was too young to drive. Something to do with the church’s insurance…whatever. I knew I could handle those machines. Once on a mission trip, when I was just a wee-high schooler, my youth minister let me drive the church bus around a parking lot. I even got to open and close the door. Yes I know, you can’t believe it. But it’s true. I was that cool.

So, dreams put on hold for a while, out next churches didn’t have such fancy parking lot services. Mind you it would’ve been a superb service to provide in Naperville in the winter. Not unitil we relocated back to Houston did I encounter the second coming…parking lot shuttles. LOTS of them. Scrambling around the parking lot, weaving in and out of the lanes, grabbing people, smiles galore. It was magnificent. This was where God wanted me. The icing on the cake…they were super long golf carts. The kind that hold 8 people. Super-stretch, Texas-sized ones…if only they had longhorns on the front. They do come equipped with snazzy vinyl zippered coverings for those “blustery” Houston winter mornings. Or to keep out the mo-skeeter, your pick. They were multi-functional.



The first chance I got (at new member class) I put down in my “ministry opportunity” box that I would like to be a parking lot shuttle driver. The ink wasn’t even dry on the paper before I got 2 phone calls and an email. After some length inquisitions about my golf cart skills I was trained on how to shuttle people from the lot to the back-drive of the church. Even some insider’s tricks on the traffic patterns of the lot, who has the right-of-way (it’s always me in case you needed to know) and how to swiflty navigate around the orange cones that separate the “shuttle lanes” from the lay-drivers. Oh and the most blessed part of this ministry…I was told that #4 was the fastest cart of the whole pack. Oh yeah baby…a swift 12 mph through the lot, wind whipping through those old ladies’s finely coiffed hair-dos and those old dudes’s toupee’s…major blessed excitement.

#4 Baby !!

Smocks, Cookies and Squeals

Paige attended her first Girl Scout info meeting shortly after we moved. I didn’t think much would come of it, typically it takes a modest amount of negotiation to get her interested in much more than staying home and drawing or reading. But for whatever reason this was different. She repeatedly told us she wanted to go and be a Girl Scout. So we (really I) begrudgingly agreed and she and Rachel went to the meeting. I still figured once they got home Paige would be nervous about doing it and my hypothesis that she’s not settled enough to do this and would back out at the last minute would come true. Boy was I wrong. In fact she was so excited the she got Rachel excited and I guess me too.

Not long after the intro meeting, we all went to Hockley Oil Ranch for a scout day. It was hot. I milked a cow; the kids rode horses and picked out pumpkins. It doesn’t sound like it should go together but it did. One thing Rachel and I both noticed was that there were 12 girls in Paige’s troop and the leader was a bit overwhelmed. She asked for help and Rachel decided that she would like to meet that need. This quickly turned into Rachel decided to lead her own troop. They split the girls up…Rachel took 6 and the other leader took 6. Rachel’s 6 turned into 10 within the next few days. Evidently the news hit the wire and at a book fair that week, moms were coming up to her and inquiring about being in her troop. I told her she must have been “all the rage” .

Smocks…that’s the Daisy Girl Scout uniform of record. It’s cute enough. All their patches just get ironed on anywhere. There’s a big daisy flower patch they get to work on through different activities, which Rachel has to come up with. Thankfully some over-achieving Girl Scout mothers have created websites and blogs to feed ideas. Because you know if I got asked to contribute the girls would be doing yard and housework to earn their patches. There are patches for almost anything you can think of.

Cookies…this is the first year Daisies were able to participate in the Girl Scout cookie sale. The idea of Paige selling things door to door makes me laugh. Halloween was interesting and thinking about her basically doing the same thing again (ringing doorbells and asking for stuff) was funny. But it worked. Of course if she found somebody who wasn’t interested in cookies she wanted to go home, she was done. However if someone bought some cookies she proclaimed she could do this all day..”I could sell 100 boxes mommy.” Ends up I sold some at work, mom sold some over the phone. All totaled we sold 97 boxes.

Squeals…Obviously 10 girls congregated at our house for scout meetings means 1000 decibels of shreaks, squeals and giggles. Jake and I usually take these opportunities to get out of the house and go do something manly: we go to my parent’s house and play video games or watch the news. Where it’s quiet, girl-free (mostly) and we can talk about whatever we like. I would like to say that Jake enjoys it, and mostly he does. But he does enjoy playing chase with the girls. Guess that’s practice for the future.

4greens

We've Found Facebook and it's Moved In

I remember hearing about Facebook when Elizabeth was working for OBU. It was social networking site for students. She was all about it…telling us how she used it to communicate and keep up with her students. Sounded dorky to me. What was wrong with email ? Whatever I thought, it didn’t apply to me or fit into my idea of keeping up with people. After all there was MySpace…and that was proving very useful for stalking people.

We tried MySpace for a while, using it mainly to post pics for family and friends to see. Of course something always bothered me about the fact that if my MeMa logged in to see pics of her precious great-grandbabies there would most likely be a scantily clad female on the right side, in a banner ad. Plus all these annoying friend requests from randoms that I had no interest in knowing. I found Google’s Picasa, cancelled our MySpace account and started posting there.

The only drawback to not being involved on a networking site is you can’t stalk people. There’s nothing Rachel and I enjoyed more at night, after the kids were in bed, than logging into MySpace or Xanga and seeing what the crazies were doing. Now we were cut-off from the world. I had a LinkedIn account, but that’s like trying to find out what’s going on in the word by reading the Opportunity Valley News (Orange joke). I got better scoop at kogt.com.

Chaise brought up facebook one day and mentioned that anyone could join now, not just students. Well that was it, I made an account and began the stalking process. I found out we were pretty late the party. Lots of our friends had already found it. Good, that would give us at least a month or so of good stalking before we had to maintain our own site.

It was refreshing that the site wasn’t wrought with skanky-ness and unsolicited friendship. Instead, Rachel…once she found out it was easy to navigate and you could log in through emails; that was it. She spends as much time as I do on it. Posting to walls, instant messaging (gasp), and making comments on people’s pictures or status. She even half-way arranged a social event using the site. This from someone who couldn’t attach a document to an email a year ago. We’re so pround of our Luddite. She’s growing up so fast. Now if we could only get her to use the GPS on the first try we’ll be good.

4greens

Merry Christmas / Happy New Year

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Yes Christmas was almost a month ago, but I did drive past a Vietnamese church yesterday and evidently it’s Vietnamese New Year…so I figure I’m still safe on that part of the greeting.

This was our first Christmas in Texas in 3 years. Let me tell you, it was nice to run around in shorts and flip-flops for a change. Although White Christmases are cool too…I’m so indecisive about what I want sometimes. For a week SOLID we entertained family members from several branches of the family tree, both Green and Finch. We enjoyed some great cooking thanks to Raye and her army of sous-chefs. And this year we ventured off the beaten menu and had surf and turf for Christmas dinner. It was fantastic. Plus it was nice not to have to head out to the airport multiple times over the holidays. GG and Big Daddy’s is only 7 mins away, so no additional drama there. We bounced back and forth all holiday season quite effortlessly.

The kids scored quite to load this year. Although this year Santa didn’t bring any large gifts…for some reason no one asked for anything of substantial size. This made Christmas morning a bit anticlimactic for me (of course it’s all about me right ?)…there were no huge toys. But they were plenty excited, even Lazarus. This was his first Christmas in 9 years without Baby. We lost her days before we left Illinois to cancer. Super sad story that I won’t be posting. Anyway…he was sufficiently bothersome (his usual self) and roamed around the living room looking for candy. He found lots of it later in the week. Did you know dogs could eat candy through the foot of stocking? Even Lazarus has some talent left in him.

Easy Bake Oven, new bike, Dora Pegasus, Swim to me Puppy, i-dogs, Hulk hands…a very eclectic morning but precious too.

Most of the week was refreshingly uneventful, with the exception of one evening. All of us were tired of “snacking” on leftovers, candy, junk, etc. Someone mentioned fried chicken and of course, instead of everyone moaning and saying “please no more” we all joined in “sure…that sounds GREAT”, let’s add on another layer of winter insulation to our bodies. It will make the New Year even more challenging; we all love a challenge right?

So I ventured out to the nearest KFC and attempted to order enough chicken for 12 people. Which really ended up being enough chicken for 30 people. The manager was wheeling and dealing with me too. It really was quite a unique experience. I’ve never bargained for food before, not in Spring, TX.

I get back and we attempt to enjoy the cheap, lukewarm fried chicken, smiling all along and refusing to admit that none of us needed it or that it really tasted bad. The usual activities then began, the kids started one of their many new movies they got for Christmas and the adults began a game of Mexican Train dominoes. AT the end of the game, my great uncle Archie Jaroy (pick one of the names, he answers to both…usually) got a little ill feeling and needed to get up from the table. I don’t need to tell you how it all ended, but just to give you some snippets…several of us bailed from the room, the garbage disposal was needed and Rachel entertained us all with her extremely sensitive and LOUD gagging reflex.

Poor Arch…but he’s better now. And Rachel and I have added yet another new word to our unusual and cryptic vocabulary…Arching. Plus we got to use this new term only days later with Paige. What a nice segue…guess I’m getting the hang of this…
As part of the adventure that is entertaining 6 kids and four adults (Rachel’s brother’s family visited for a few days over Christmas too) we decided to go out for brunch and hit the bowling alley. Cracker Barrel was chosen as the place lucky enough to host all of us (it takes 2 cars). We headed out for the 20 min car ride over to the Barrel, ate and headed back 20 min back to go bowling. Andy’s minivan is equipped with the ever popular flip-down DVD player. It’s a hit with my kids especially since our bus doesn’t have one. So Paige and Jake rode with the other cousins in the van while Rachel and I chose solitude in our car and typically Caleb, their oldest son. It provided us with a parenting break and let us only be Uncle Jason and Aunt Rachel for 20 min stints. It was nice.

When we arrived at the AMF lanes, Paige was getting out the van (she was in the very back row and watching a movie). She mentioned that she felt sick and needed to throw-up…Rachel acted quickly and tried to get her out. It all happened so fast…she Arched in the van and on the parking lot, shoes, clothes, anything that was within a 5 ft striking distance. Nice…in the van ? Yes IN the van, on the carpet, the seat belt…and all those little places that you don’t know stuff can get in until it does.

The next 30 mins were spent with Andy and me driving around the neighborhood with the windows down, the sliding doors open, my face out trying to find a car wash. We found one and we found some very potent body spray too (it’s amazing what you can find in a family of 6’s minivan).

You know what they say about a new word..use it 3 times and it’s yours..let’s not hold out for that 3rd time.

4greens

RSS Feeds

So I've stepped into 2007 century now that I know what RSS Feeds are...If you're still back in 2006 like I was just a moment ago then check this site out.

Commoncraft.com It's awesome. They explain things in "plain English." This is how I learned that I can update my blog and subscribers can see that I've done so...without me sending an email every time.

This is cool. Check it out. Click on this link and watch the short video. Follow it's directions then click on the "Subscribe to Us" gadget at the top right and hopefully you won't have to wait until the Summer to see if it works.

4greens

Circle of Life/Weather

I spent quite a bit of time writing about winter in the Mid-west. Lots of snow talk, fascination with the temperature gauge and coming up with interesting ways to pass the time when it's colder than God ever intended me to be exposed to.





Lo' and behold (a little Christmas talk...lo)...it stinking snowed here last week. Talk about a swift kick in the you-know-what. It was cold and the stuff fell from the sky.

Now to the credit of all who live north of the Red River...it wasn't snow that you could do anything with other than take it's picture. But it was white, it stuck to the car, the roof, the picnic table and your hair. I've included some pictures of what it looked like here. You have to look really close to see it...but it's there.


That little bit of home-sickness I had earlier this month when Chicago had their first real snow of the season. Thanks arctic cold-front for making me appreciate the crazy weather we can have here in SETX. Within 48 hrs of the snow it was 60 degrees.

Famous Rachel part deux

Before we bailed out of the Great White North Rachel had an opportunity to go to a food show in Chicago. Just to give you an idea of the gravity of that experience here's a few examples...

• For sports fans it's the equivalent of going to a world series game
• For NASCAR fans it's Daytona with pit passes
• For car fiends it's the LA Auto Show

Get the idea ? Well not only was it a huge-mongous exhibition of all things fancy foods but there were celebrity chefs there too. Some of you have already gasped at least once since you started reading this; for those of you that haven't let me go ahead and help you get it out of the way...GASP !

Now if you've known Rachel at all over the past undisclosed years that she's been alive, then you know that when she wants something she gets it...sometimes with carnage in her path. From the get-go she was on a mission to get signatures and pictures of her and the varios chefs that would be at the show. Once she actually got around a security dude and got a picture before the celeb could say "OK thanks folks...I'm outta here." Below you can see the results of Rachel's kamakaze mission.

Best part about the whole experience...for me at least...the loot that she brought home !!