Ted made the paper, but Kelly made the newsletter in color! I’m helping get the Saint John Neumann website restored after a catastrophic outage. Posting the January Neumann News (512K – big), I spotted Kelly in the CLAY* article (twice!)
*Christ Leading Active Youth
(This article was written for the Neumann News.)
“You must come down,” we first heard Father Ho Lung say during Jesus 2000. “Come work with the poor.”
Starting in 2000, Kathy and I decided to make an annual contribution to Missionaries of the Poor. We would take our Christmas budget– the money we would spend on ourselves and family, and send a matching amount to Father Ho Lung. If we spent $10 over budget, the matching amount would go up $10.
This was a great way to shop at Christmas. Every gift was also a gift to the poor.
In the fall of 2003, Father Brian, one of Father Ho Lung’s lieutenants, walked into St. John Neumann. Kathy felt like Jesus had walked into the room. He told his story of being called from his banker’s job in Jamaica to work with the poor. He told of being sent by Father Ho Lung to start a mission in the Philippines with literally a song and a prayer. Father Brian was inspirational. “You must come down. Come work with the poor.”
That night, Kathy and I decided we should go. With two little girls in school, we could not figure out how the two of us could go together. I think the Holy Spirit inspired us with a solution: I would go with our oldest, Nicole (21), and a year later, Kathy would take our son Danny (17).
Kelly and Mary Claire both had musical firsts in December. Mary Claire performed in her first piano recital along with her seasoned sister. Kelly performed in her first orchestra concert, playing violin. Mary Claire was “recruited” to play on a Genesis soccer team starting next year. Both are bringing home lots of “A”s from school.
Highlights for Danny were getting his drivers license and a job at Bruster’s icecream parlor (to help pay for insurance.) He also had fun during the fall baseball season where he got to pitch, catch, field, steal, and hit a couple out of the park. He is looking forward to trying out for varsity baseball in February. A low-light was having all four wisdom teeth removed at Thanksgiving.
Nicole and Jeb are going on a trip to Jamaica with 14 others from St. John Neumann (see her report.) Kathy and Danny plan on making the same trip in 2005. Kathy has been very busy between holiday preparations and the work she does for her survey company. She enjoyed her 40th birthday celebration more than you would think, and has really enjoyed her surprise present from Jeb: new bedroom furniture.
Jeb survived a round of consolidation at Harland and landed in the marketing department as Director of Web Channels (how we sell stuff over the internet.) He also helped land a new large account, Costco. For a great deal on checks, join Costco!
The Tybee Photo Gallery can now be found on mac.fiveforks.com under Galleries. These are combined digital photos from Jeb, Bob, and Grant’s cameras. If you want to save one for printing, use the “Show Full Size” link you’ll find under every medium size photo.
G, one of the greatest teachers on earth, will often* stop Danny in the hall asking about Nicole. (Nicole and Danny both took Latin from G, based on my recommendation. I told them it wouldn’t matter what he taught, they should sign up for it.) Danny will* give G an update.
The last time he asked Danny, “How’s Nicole doing?” Danny replied, “Why don’t you ask how I’m doing? I was in your class, too!”
G thought about that and said, “You’re not as pretty as she is.”
A good teacher will put you in your place.
* Danny… ask G what tense “will often” is. Funny way to talk about the past.
Winter has come with a cold front blasting through from Canada. Santa is on the way. Hope he is bringing a new iMac, although our old one is holding up well.
Mary Claire is sitting on the couch putting labels on our Christmas cards while I print out the remaining cards. A Charlie Brown Christmas is queued up in iTunes, playing through the iMac’s speaker sticks and iSub.
Kelly and I bought the Office Depot address labels #612-221 1″ x 2-5/8″ because they were better priced than Avery. Since Office Depot is one of our biggest clients, I know these labels were most likely made by Avery. The card stock came from Sam’s (although I would prefer to say our new client, Costco): Avery Greeting Cards Half Fold 8375.
We used an AppleWorks database to print off the labels. The photos in the Christmas card came from iPhoto. The card was composed in AppleWorks. The font for the card is Mac OS X’s Papyrus. The graphics were enhanced with Graphic Converter. The elves were drawn using PaintShop Pro 8 (… on my Dell.)
Nicole helped proof the card on her FlowerPower iMac sent via AppleMail to Athens. The inspiration for the back of the card came from the movie Elf. Danny is wearing the same outfit as Will Farrell.
I’m typing this in Kung-Log to post to the MovableType system which publishes to the Apache Web server on the iMac.
iMerry iChristmas. Only if Ted and his iPod were here…
Around 8:30 I was ready for morning mass (DC’s on call tonight) and Kathy was in the shower. I went to check the internet for something and saw this photo. At first I thought Ben Lauden had been caught because of the beard, then I read the story. I went up to announce to showering Kathy that George Bush had just won the next election. She couldn’t believe Saddam had been caught. She was so excited she almost couldn’t finish taking a shower.
In church, we were reminded by Father Stuart that we were called to pray for our enemies and that we should pray for Saddam Hussein. I figure he’ll be eating well and get some great health care for a while. Better than living in the “Spider Hole” where he was reported to be found.
Danny’s wisdom teeth have been causing a lot of pressure in his mouth, pressing his other teeth forward. Two different dentists recommended the teeth come out before they got impacted.
Kathy scheduled the surgery for the Monday before Thanksgiving to minimize the amount of school missed. It was a quick operation in the morning, and I stayed home to help assist Danny home in case he couldn’t walk on his own.
We found Danny in the recovery room (a little hall) asleep on a gurney, hooked up to a heart monitor and gauze hanging out of his mouth. He was really out of it, but woke up and recognized us. He said he had been dreaming of playing soccer. He was in good spirits, and was able to carefully walk to the car with little assistance.
This photo was taken after Kathy got him all tucked away on the couch with an ice pack wrapped around his face. All-in-all, Danny found the whole experience much worse than he had anticipated. His advice: take your pain killers early and often.
Greg asked if there was a video of Danny’s Rat Trap Racer in action. There is not. Danny accomplished his mission in AP Physics, but when showing the racer off in another class, the front end was snapped off by the repeated blows. With a 96 grade on file, Danny tossed the racer in the trash. (He’s not a pack rat like his Dad.)
With no video available, I can only describe what I saw in our hallway and our driveway during test runs the night before. I also want to offer this clickable front view of the racer:
Sleek, huh?
In early tests in the kitchen the racer had some design problems. Danny tied a single string to the trap arm with the other end to the rear axle. Danny would wind the string and set the trap. By dropping a pebble on the bait lever, the trap would violently spring, spinning the wheels. The car would move a foot or two, and more often than not the string would be broken.
After many experiments, three modifications turned the Rat Trap Racer into an amazing machine.
First, Danny stopped tying the string to the axle. I told him how my Grandfather, Papa, used to wind a string around a top and throw it. This solved one problem, because the string was being rewound on the axle, acting as a brake.
Second, he added duct tape along the edges of the rear CD wheels. This gave the wheels much better grab, especially on slick surfaces.
Third, Danny put two strings on either side of the arm and either side of the rear axle. Instead of the arm violently snapping, it would close in a more controlled way, allowing the car to accelerate to top speed.
By this time, the hallway was far too short to contain the speedy Rat Trap Racer. Final tests were conducted in the driveway where the racer zipped along some 30 to 40 feet on an upward slope!
The teacher has video of Danny presenting the physics of the Rat Trap Racer. I hope to get my hands on that and provide a transcript.
July 24th 2002
Dear Mary Claire,
I have been waiting for this tooth for a long, long time! I did not know you were going to lose it in Florida. I’m glad it did not fall in the sand.
Your sister saw me when she lost her fifth tooth, so you can, too. Only she thought she was dreaming, so you might think that, too.
Have a fun vacation!
Love, T.F.
