One Ordinary Perspective

My wife and I have three daughters. All three are 'wells of hyperbole,' you know those over-the-top ways parents describe their children: wonderful, beautiful, delightful, amazing, AWESOME! The difference in my case however (and I'm being completely objective here), is that these adjectives area 100% accurate. My girls are all those things and more. Our eldest is 16 and firmly in the midst of her teenage years. She excels at nearly everything she engages in and is a model student. He mom and I couldn't be prouder. When she was 13, we decided, somehow, that it would be an excellent idea to get her a cell phone of her own. It was a momentous occasion and one that will long be remembered. In those early days, the phone was new and the possibilities were yet unexplored. She enjoyed using it to arrange a time for one of us to pick her up from her dance class, or from a friend's house after school. It served the very purpose for which it had been acquired. My wife and I n...

The story that took the internet (and the world, for that matter), by storm today was the little six year old boy who supposedly took off in his dad's experimental "aircraft" for about three hours and who caused a huge stir when he couldn't be found after the helium-filled balloon came down in a remote field some 60 miles from where it took off. His brother (figures), reported that he saw the boy get into the basket, untie the thing, and float up into the sky where it was tracked by police and FAA radar for part of the afternoon. Turns out he was hiding in a box in the attic of the garage at his house. He never took off. I guess the balloon wasn't large enough to carry his weight or he figured he was going to get in trouble for letting the family project float away. I can imagine the conversation his dad had with him after he was located. "You caused quite a stir today, son. There were dozens of police and rescue people looking for you, a helicopter was sent ...

I arose early this morning for my regular Wednesday workout and found a thick blanket of fog had covered the neighborhood and streets of the town where I live. The drive was cautious and mysterious as streetlights and stoplights emerged from the gloom, then disappeared as we moved through the morning mist. The funny thing about fog is that while it conceals, it also at times reveals depending on where you stand - much like people. My family and I went to see the smash Broadway musical, "Wicked" last weekend and I discovered an important verification of what I've always been taught about people; don't judge based on only what you observe. Put another way, the same principle is taught: "judge not that ye be not judged." For those who haven't yet seen this production, the story is told from the point of view of the 'Wicked Witch of the West' and is based on the story from the L. Frank Baum novel "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." The audience i...