Thoughts on a day in the life of Pat

It was a day alright, very cool from start to finish, it went like this;

Awake at 5AM, I knew that we were trying something new at work and so I was worried.  I told them to call me if there were any problems.  No calls.  I tried to sleep.  Couldn't

Up at 5:30.  It's the weekend?  No matter.  In my mind I figured out the timing on when to call and knew I was too early for any problems.  I fed the dog instead.

6AM, still to early to call.  I know, I'll work on that contract that needs to get out next week.  Nothing major, just massive cutting and pasting, at first that is.  Soon enough I had 2 sections that needed extensive rework.  I knew what I was trying to say, would I be able to write it?

7:30, the re-writes were done and it looked pretty good, from our perspective, the supplier that sent the original will be wondering what happened to 4 pages of the original 16 page document.

Made the call and everything was working great with the changes.  Whew, that's a load off my mind, it was a fairly big gamble, but I knew the odds were in my favor the way that I played it.

Time to get Holly and the boys up and moving.

Breakfast was every man for themselves.  I offered to cook but no one was interested.  I had a fried egg sandwich with provolone cheese on an everything bagel. It was wonderful!

Once everyone was up, washed, dressed and fed, not necessarily in that order, we headed to the Battle Creek for Brad's funeral.

Got there and started hanging out with some of the old gang from our old church.

How old do you need to be when you start saying, "Hey, let's not wait for another funeral, let's get together and have a ...(fill in you own option, for us today it ranged from hot dogs to hamburgers to dinner to pizza.)?

Nice to see the old gang, bad circumstances, but still nice to see everyone.

Funeral was not what I suspected, but are they ever really?  It caused Holly and I to talk about what we'd want and wouldn't want.

After the service we had a true Methodist Church Lady luncheon.  It was wonderful.  Holly thinks this is a dying art, like blacksmith work.  She may be right.  Good stuff with good salads and sandwiches.  yum, cookies!

Great time visiting afterward but we needed to get going, so a long set of good byes that eventually lead to the door.  I'm not complaining, but 2 teens in the house were ready to go long before we were.

Next stop, Frontline church for "Rock'in from the Roof."  They gave away over a ton of free clothes.  Very cool.  The crowd was estimated at 1000+ that waited about 1/2 hour to get to the clothes.  This shot is from our local Fox station's visit.  By the time we got there the crowds were thinning out and the clothes pile was significantly smaller.

For me the cool thing was running into my peep's as Holly calls them.  They are the kids that I hang out with in the Children's ministry area.  Lots of high fives and what not.  I always feel better when I see these kids that I'm supposed to help.  Ya gotta love it!

Dinner at the Score, a local place that's got a sport bar feel to it.  Too bad the service was so bad.

Have a great day!
Pat

Home is where my heart is

I have been on the road again for work.  I buzzed out to visit a customer.  I had 7 or so hours of meetings with various members of that customer.  In all, a success.


Thanks to all for the kinds thoughts, it means a lot to know that I have a great network of people that care for me.

While driving home Holly called and she let me know that she and Spencer were headed to a baseball game with our favorite Class A team, the Whitecaps. 

Since I was making good time I called home and invited Ian to get the lawn mowed and then I'd take him out to dinner.  I heard a not so happy voice say; "Sure."

When I got home he was almost done and in a better mood.

We opted to leave Rockford and headed to the Score, a local sports bar about 10 minutes out of town. 

When we got there we headed to the new, out back location that's really cool.  It's kind of a beach party feel with plastic table and chair, tiki torches and it's all on sand, complete with 3 sand volleyball courts. 

We were seated near the band and well away from the volleyball games, just as well, while I think I'm still in great shape, the shadow that I cast at sundown reveals a pudgier me.

The band was pretty good, drum set, 5 string acoustic bass and an acoustic guitar.  They played some tunes that Ian knew and so that led us into a good night of conversation.  We both enjoyed each others company.

For the photo tonight I have a soybean field.  Why a soybean field you ask?  Because my traveling companion this trip was a nice guy from southern China.  He looked at all the corn and soybeans as we drove along on interstate 80 in Illinois and he remarked, "I guess I understand the corn, but why so much soy beans?  You don't use that much soy sauce and I know that Tofu is not popular here."

That's my favorite quote for the week, by the way, I know that it's used as part of the crop rotation plan to put nutrients back into the soil and that it's really rich in protein, which is used in feeds.

Have a great day!
Pat

Working through things

Many of you know that I use this as a communication tool mostly.  Occasionally I'll use it as my low cost method of acknowledging milestones in peoples lives( I don't like to buy cards), and rarely, I use it work through some stuff that I need to mull through.  Today's post is a thoughtful post, if it's too deep, sorry, just close it, I'll understand and I'll be back again with something lighter.

Last night we learned that a friends roller coaster ride with lung cancer has come to an end. 

These are the random thoughts that I've pushed aside today:

• Why Brad, why not me?  I smoked for 30+years.
• How can the doctors not know how sick he was until a week ago? 
• Am I feeling OK or is it just allergies?
• Are we getting close to winning against this disease?   Will we ever?
• How many friends/loved ones have I lost to cancer?  
• Why would I want to count that!
• I remember watching MaryAnn, my favorite mother-in-law, battle cancer, she did it with dignity and determination.  In a way, by those behaviors, she was the one that led me to Jesus.
• I watched what it did to my own Mom, it was brutal.
• Thank goodness he'd "found the Lord", because now he's in heaven.
• Can I make the funeral?  When will it be?
• I can't believe the tributes on facebook for his wife, Jen to read.
• I hurt for Jen and his daughters, they will miss him.

In the end, while I am deeply sad that he has been taken from us, I am glad to have known him, had fun working and playing with him and generally feel that meeting such people is always a plus.

Jen and Brad

I struggled looking for a picture, but alas, I don't have one of Brad other than the one that I snagged off a post on facebook.  Thanks Randy!



 

Here's to Brad!  A good man cut down too early.
Pat