VISION




"Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others." -Johnathan Swift, author



"Good business leaders create a vision, articulate the vision, passionately own the vision, and relentlessly drive it to completion." - Jack Welch, former CEO of GE



"Most people are not really free. They are confined by the niche in the world that they carve out for themselves. They limit themselves to fewer possibilities by the narrowness of their vision." - VS Naipaul, Nobel Literature Prize 2001



Such different men...



Are they all saying the same thing? or not?



Just thinking about being a leader...casting vision...God's 'vision' for our life and future. Thought I'd bring you along.

We are very blessed to share our lives with a whole bunch of people. The ups and down, good and bad. One person with whom I have shared some of the most extreme highs and lows over the past 13 years is my friend Kelly. This is her 4-month old Nehemiah sleeping on my chest today. Kelly and I met while working at Old Republic. We are the godparents of her oldest son Shayne (who will be 17 in a few weeks - OMG!!!!!), and we have held hands, slapped faces and truly explored what agape love mean as we've run this race together.

Seeing this little face makes me cry. He is so beautiful, and so perfect. In a couple of years he'll be crazy and start talking back...in 17 he'll be a week away from taking his first college tour. When Kel and I met, Alex was not much older than Nehemiah is right now. Sammie was just about to move from twinkle in the eye to...well, you know. It all goes so fast...

I think Kelly and I have learned, practically, what it means to 'honor one another above yourselves.' (Read Romans 12:9-21) Our friendship has trained me for some of the relationships God has prepared for me right now, and today I realized that and praised Him for her, her sons and the wonderful man He has provided for her.

David shared a verse that has become very important to him in his ministry and it struck a deep, deep chord for us as well. I think it sums it all up very well:

"we loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you no only the gospel of God but our lives as well, because you had become so dear to us."
1 thessalonians 2:8

You make the call...

this is mt. hood and you can see it pretty well from my folks' little town in oregon...

alex & i got to portland last night at 9ish and checked into a hotel downtown. (thank you susie & jessi for bringing her and talking your way past sercurity...loved having dinner with you). one of these trips, i'd really like to go explore the area of portland. downtown looks very cool...my mom and aunt were at a 'celtic women' concert, and were staying in town for the night. we got up and rode back with them this morning.

it's good to be here and see my sammie (it's been a week), and hang out. alex napped and now we're about to go check out a glass blower in town who does really beautiful work. rich has been doing odd jobs around the house and is on his last project now. nice sense of accomplishment.

tonight we're having 'mother's day dinner', and tomorrow is my cousin's son's first communion at the local catholic church. we're heading over to my auntie's after for brunch and then off to the airport.

at some point i'll have to tell you about the crazy, whirlwind trip...if i had been on candid camera it couldn't have been any crazier. from a jerry garcia look-alike shuttle driver, to losing my headphone cord, iPod and phone (i got them all back) to my off-road taxi driver, the celebrity voice impersonator/flight attendant, and of course the girl two rows who 'totally had a peanut stuck in her throat" (she was 'totally serious...totally...').

back soon....

greetings from the great state of texas!

on the road again to do some training, and this week the whole fam damily is on some trip or other. rich and sammie are in oregon, alex in california, me in texas...al & i will join everyone in oregon for mother's day this weekend.

i used to think travelling for your job was the ultimate in glamor...and i can still see why i did. it's pretty amazing to think that just a few hours ago i was thousands of miles away, and before noon on saturday i will have been in sacramento, l.a., austin, san diego, sacramento again, portland and then my folks little town. when you think about it, it's sort of miraculous that it's possible.

living it is really just exhausting :)

i brought dennis though, so i'm gonna have some fun playing with my new camera...catching some more shots of dennis miller chillin' texas style

thanks to all of the support at home...

packing done

4 projects launched

courseware written

alex's phone replaced

car is running

and tonight...i got home and my driver's license was in the mail...from the orange county airport sherrif's office :-)

it's all good

so there have been some things that have happened the past few months that were tough.

relentless actually.

folks that i'm close with at work are walking two feet away from me to avoid the black cloud. (their words, not mine). it's starting to get ridiculous...

so in the past three days (just ignoring the truly serious):

-i lost my i.d. (necessitating an early morning visit to the dmv today)
-the atm ate my bank card
-this morning, my car wouldn't start

there's more, but it's just too insane to give space. call me. we'll laugh about it.

so today, i'm claiming eeyore as my mascot. if for no other reason, i could use the rain cloud. it's freakin' hot outside!

as we close birthday week...a big shout out to all who called, sent text messages, emailed and were part of alex's birthday this year...she'll never forget it!

p.s. good thing i'm not doing parties anymore! (chagrin)

i just posted a bunch of pics to our flickr account and am now WAY too tired to try to blog it all...but it was really a lot of fun today, wrapping up the 13 dates. i'm still waiting on a couple of pics to come in from two of the dates, and when i get those, i'll do something creative to tie it all together.

so...since i've had a few people ask...here is a list of all 13:

1 - breakfast with tracy & co
2 - cartilidge piercing with dad
3 - shoe shopping with nona
4 - bella terra ceramics with begona, diane & amanda
5 - book shopping with megan
6 - breakfast with poppy
7 - spa & starbucks with mom
8 - tennis with the heltons
9 - bball with hannah (& cammy)
10 - roller coaster with tracy & molly
11 - tractor driving with the dawsons
12 - spiderman 3 with jason, aaron, matthew, laurence, & dale (& 10 hangers on)
13 - chinese & cheesecake with everyone

she had a FABULOUS time!! thank you to everyone for all of your effort and love :-)