Children you may or may not have been blessed with

Let me tell you a story that in some ways is scary, relieving and to some points sad. I was at work Monday and Rene' received a court order in the mail from the state of Oklahoma, stating that I have a court date for over $12,000 in arrears of child support! Now never really being a ladies man, but I did drink a lot years ago, I really could not think of anyone who I may have had "sexual relations with." Now let's cut to my wife Rene', she calls me and I can hear the stress in her voice, but she is not mad, maybe a little scared also, because as all Americans we are feeling the financial pinch to. She tried to call, but they would not talk to her, I was busy at work, but hearing her voice meant that I needed to call now and get to the bottom of this. I called and the have a call center answer phones and you can not get to a case worker, they have 3 working days to call you back, so again still at square one. So fast forward to yesterday, my case worker finally called me and as soon as I confirmed my SS number all was fine. Well yes a sense of relief came over me, but then I got to thinking here is another child without a biological father to take them to ballgames or dance recitals. I will never say I am a great father but I do try, and it is very sad that the child in Oklahoma will never have his or her dad try. They got my name, which is not to common, ha ha, from Travelers Insurance, which is my workers Comp company at work. Why they have the right to even release my name is not known at this time, but I will find out. So if you have experienced anything along these lines, please tell me?

peps watchin

Just sitting here in the lobby of the Hilton downtown Houston watchin the peps go about their business. It is not your usual Hilton crowd. They have the business class peps here, and the relaxing come to the spa and shop to ya drop crowd. But then you have the beer drinkin, cusin, torn up tee shirts with provocative sayings on them mixing in with all the others. You see since the hurricane Houston has needed the help of outsiders. I see an attitude of gratefulness coming from the class of people that if the tree toppers, lineman, construction crews, were to come in here any other time of year, they would not be welcome. You see fellowship is always needed and sometimes welcomed.

God's Fury

Why do they always call natural disasters " God's Fury?" I am not sure, but I believe that God uses everything for His benefit, whether it be a beautiful sunset or a snowy covered mountain or in this instance a hurricane. I know that I am praying for people I do not even know, there are allot of people staying in this motel from Houston and Galveston areas. They sit here hour after hour just watching and praying that they have a place to call home again, and not knowing if loved ones or pets that are left behind will survive. No telephone or mobile phone service, no one ask, to get answers from, that has to be real scary. I met two young girls around 13 or 14 just sitting on the elevator floor telling each other secrets being normal like young girls do, until I asked them what they had to leave behind, then the fear, concern, anxiety and uncertainty set in. They said pets, friends, their schools, their dads jobs, at this point I realized these two young girls would never be the same. Their world as they new it was gone, all the innocence we grow up with, was stripped from them. The look in their eyes told me that they never get that back.
Now all of the sudden my mission and reason for being here seems rather small and inconsequential. Going to Houston tomorrow to do assessments on banks is a crucial necessity, but now I can also be a link to a world that all these people here can not see or understand yet. I took the two girls addresses and told them that I would do what I could do to look at their homes while I am down there, if I was near them. All of the sudden they started to cry and thank me, a conversation of approximately five minutes seemed to bring them some hope, joy and peace. Thank you Jesus for showing me that there is more than just doing my job to the best of my ability. I will try to blog later as the week goes on and include pictures.

Airports and Storms

Life of a business traveler is not fun anymore! Storms make you wait and if not storms then mechanical, if not that maybe the crew has timed out! Whatever it may be it sure makes flying a challenge. I am in the Greenville Spartanburg International airport, supposed to have left for Atlanta at 5:40pm and make my connection to Newburgh NY at 9:30pm. Well just been told it will be at least 6:45pm and my connection has been delayed till 10:10pm. Always a silver lined cloud somewhere, the Southeast is in desperate need of rain and thank God we are getting it! Well I will write more later and tell you how it all ends, bye.

Making new friends

Again funny how God works, my wife had a very good friend and her husband was best friends with my ex-husband in-law and now because of some choice rantings by a mad man my wife has stayed good friends and the circle now includes me. We are spending the 4th with them at Lake Lure in NC. Friends without them we are alone. Friends at times can frustrate us and annoy us, make us mad, sad and hurt us. But then they can also make us happy, smile, love and enjoy things that being alone would just not make sense. Friends are community and God says community is a good thing. I have some good friends that I wish I could see more, but what I really look forward to is all the new friends that God has in store for my life in the years to come! Happy 4th of July I hope you are spending it with ones you love and friends you wouldn't know what to do without.

California in 24 hours

Did you ever notice God has an awesome sense of humor and great timing to teach you humility and compassion? Well my kids were sick Sunday and Monday. So my wife took care of them as she knew that I had a plane to catch Tuesday morning, well you guessed it, 1am I awoke throwing up and diarrhea. My flight was in Atlanta at 8:30am and I live in Spartanburg SC, so you know that is a two hour drive. So I planned on leaving at 4am. Well I got out of the house at 4:30am and drove with much difficultly to Atlanta. Well getting to my plane with 10min to go was awesome, still not feeling well I am seated next to an older couple that the wife has never flown but once before and is very scared so I joined her in her prayers and this seemed to help to ease her fears somewhat. All the while I am feeling terrible and I find out after I am back home Wednesday that now my wife is sick and she had been praying for my release of my illness and for her to take it if that is what is needed! Wow what a woman I have and by no means am I a saint, I am being taught everyday that I need to treat my wife with more respect and love. Hence the name of my blog, I am just a guy who tries everyday, some days I get it right but mostly I fail miserably. Sorry about the ramblings I am still a little sick and jet lagged. I will post more about my trip to Carmel-By-The-Sea, California later and my flight back from San Francisco.

Hello blog world I am going to quit being a slacker and start posting more regular. My wife and I were in Atlanta Friday night, I had to look at a future job site so i thought it would be nice to take her to dinner and spend the night. We ended up in Roswell, GA awesome small town, lots of antiques and outdoor dining. We went to a small place on the main drag called Cevechi's, great, maybe awesome Mexican food except for one problem? Our waiter was not very good, he was not attentive to our needs and very forgetful. Well when it came time to pay the ticket, we did not put a tip on our card, and he hovered around our table for awhile while we finished our cokes, which was the most we saw of him all evening! As we got up he snatched the payment from the table and as we walked across the street to our car he called out " Sir is there cash?" Now first let me tell you that being a Christian that I will tip well above the 15% if our service is pleasant and have way enjoyable and has nothing to do with the meal. Since when is it mandatory to tip and worse yet to be forced to tip? Like I was saying before I firmly believe that if you can't tip then don't go out, most people work hard for their tips and this is respectable, but when did it become an unwritten rule that a tip is always expected? The most fun Friday night was seeing this on the main drag in Roswell.....
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Starting a blog

This is my first attempt at writing in a blog. It is scarry, a little. I just will sit here and write about what ever comes into my mind, well that was a short blog! I guess I will tell alittle about me and my life. I am married with 4 kids and three grandbabies. I have two aewsome boys at home who make my life crazy, but mostly enjoyable. I feel lucky that God has allowed me a chance to help raise these boys. When my daughter was growing up, I did not do such a great job in the parenting department, and I reap the rewards now. Even though she lives 800 miles away, she could be next door and we would still not have a relationship. My wife is increadible, she goes to school and helps raise the boys and still has time to spoil me (which like most men I do not turn down!)I do some insights to life, we have been saving money and trying to get out of debt, so we cut out satelite tv. To my amazement I did not have a stroke or a heart attack without ESPN! Just having the networks is really what we watched most of the time anyway! Something else I was reminded of one day last week at work is that you can not do anything without God's help. I lost my keys and had my wife drive 35 miles to open the car up to find that they were not in there! So she left me her key and I went back inside and checked the refridge, bathroom and all over the office, no where? I sat in my office and asked God to please help me and I then moved my computer bag (which I had been all through) and underneath sitting on my desk in plain site, there they sat! Sometimes it just takes us asking for help.