We've really done it now...

What's the logical thing to do when you are already going nutso and living a life of chaos? Get a puppy, of course! We go into Wal-Mart for a quick visit for diapers and bread and we come home with a puppy. This family was at the entrance to Wal-Mart with a litter of the cutest puppies and we were just not able to resist. His mother is German Shepherd and they think the father is Golden Retriever. He has the calmest personality for a puppy that Kim and I have ever seen. The boys love him and he has been very good with them so far. He spent the first eight weeks of his life with kids and you can tell by his demeanor. Yes, we are crazy, but we think we made a good choice with this particular doggie.

Introducing Roscoe Anakin Whited:

Kim had me read this article that she got in her regular ArcaMax emailings. As I was reading it, I just kept thinking, "Wow". I was thinking this dude has been spying on me and my family and is writing an article about it! But after I read through the whole things and thought for a few moments about it, I quickly decided that it was one of the best writings I have ever read. Then when I opened up my email this morning at work, I see that Tom sent me a link to the very same article. I've never posted someone else's writing on TWN before, but this is good stuff...

When is Fathers Day?
Mark Brandenburg MA, CPCC

I'd had about as much as I could handle for one day.

My computer was frozen, I was tired from a weekend with too little sleep, and I was working in a yard that would soon need a scythe to manage it. End-of-the-year school activities were crowding an already crowded schedule, and there seemed like no time to relax. When do other people find the time to do all these things?

As I entered my house, I marveled at how sore a human body could get from yard work. I was still annoyed that my kids had left stuff in the backyard after repeated requests to pick them up. And, I'd been noticing that the rest of my family had done their share of relaxing while I toiled in the yard. Where was Fathers Day when I needed it?

I was not ready for any more to be put on my plate. "Honey, will you make dinner?" my wife called from the family room.

A very angry voice appeared in my head, saying things to me which weren't supportive of maintaining a kind, loving family. I considered a few suggestions from this voice, before discussing the dinner plans with my wife. It became clear from this discussion that my wife had her own issues going on.

I swallowed hard, and went into the kitchen to start dinner. The angry voices went with me. "That's some gratitude for you!" I said to myself. "Does anyone notice how hard I'm working? I'm absolutely invisible!" Where was the adoration for a job well done in the yard? Where was the back massage and cold drink that I was so deserving of? (The fantasies of a victim have no boundaries!).

In the drama that played out in my head, I was a hard-working father who did all the right things, and a victim of an unappreciative family. I felt completely justified in blaming my family for not acknowledging me. And of course, by blaming them. I would spread the virus of blame around my family faster than a brush fire. I would feel "right," and I could feel justified in seeing them as "wrong," and as "blameworthy."

Fortunately for me, there was no back massage and no cold drink. There was not even any acknowledgement for a job well done. There was only the realization that I had failed to remember my purpose in my family and on this earth. I had failed to remember that I am not "owed" love by my family. Our job as parents is to discover love as the fundamental fact of life. It is to bring this expression of our love into the world.

Parents across the world have reason to be grateful, for we've all embarked on the world's most complete and intensive course on love. While we may resist it at times, we're called every day to express the deep reservoir of love within us. But sometimes, because we're busy blaming others, we miss the call completely.

Fathers go through periods when they feel "outside" of their family. They feel neglected, or they feel invisible. Or, they feel as though they're simply a "paycheck." But what's really happened is they've forgotten they're not on this planet to "get" love from their family members. They're here to discover the boundless love that's always been in them.

After catching myself in my "victim's dungeon," I began to climb my way out. "Hey, have I got a great dinner cooked up for all of you," I shouted.

And although the response wasn't overwhelming, I didn't even flinch.

I’m always encouraging people to report interesting news to TWN and I really don’t get many contributions, so when I do I get excited. The following news event is out of Texarkana, Texas. The source was my Aunt Mary Wilson.

AUNT MARY STALKED BY SNAKE

Mary Wilson has endured the last several days under the surveillance of a black racer snake and she has been living in fear of this vicious creature that has posed a legitimate threat to her life. There have been multiple sighting and interactions with this animal since an initial incident occurred several days ago on the property. According to Ms. Wilson, she was in the process of clearing leaves and debris from the edge of their property with her commercial heavy duty leaf blower. Apparently this device is very high power and is strapped to the operator’s back, similar to what the Ghostbusters use to zap ghosts with. As Mary was blowing the leaves off the property, she uncovered a Black Racer Snake described as being about 4 feet in length. Much to her surprise, the power of the leaf blower began lifting the snake of the ground and the animal actually levitated over the ground for a considerable amount of time. As the snake was hanging in the air, Mary was faced with a decision, either to take off the equipment on her back or to just start running. Either way, she knew she needed to get the hell away from the snake as quickly as possible. She elected to leave the equipment on her back and haul ass back to the house (can’t you just envision her sprinting towards the house as fast as she can with this enormous pack on her back?). She reported that she got back to the house, where the Wilster was relaxing with a nice cold beer. After she explained what had happened, the two of them headed back over to the site of the incident and the snake was still there, dazed and confused. The Wilster identified the snake as a Black Racer. A few days later, the same snake was waiting at the end of the driveway near the mailbox as Mary made her daily walk out to get the mail. The snake began chasing her back to the house, but halfway down the driveway took a 90 degree turn back into the yard where it has been stalking her ever since. Mary is considering getting a restraining order against the snake, but is uncertain if a judge would grant this wish regarding an animal. She has asked her Sunday school class to pray for the safety of her and her family as she deals with the crisis and recovers from such a traumatic set of circumstances.

When I think back to some of my fondest childhood traditions/memories, one of the things that is way up on the list is going to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway with my Dad every year to hang out at the track, watch the cars, and have some quality father and son time. Getting to cut school and go to the track was my little treat for having a school year with good grades and good attendance.

Ever since I was a kid, I always thought this would be something I would like to do when I had kids of my own. With Jackson turning 5 just this week, I was thinking that this year would be an appropriate time to start this tradition. I had mentioned it to him a few weeks ago, and he seemed really excited about it. The first day with all veteran drivers was set for Tuesday, May 9th. I talked to my bosses at work on Monday and made arrangements to be off on Tuesday, and checked the weather forecast, which called for sunny skies and 72 degrees. Jackson goes to preschool on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday so he wouldn’t have to miss school on Tuesday. Everything was set…

I didn’t say anything to Jackson about it on Monday evening, just in case the weather forecast changed or something else came up. Plus I thought the element of surprise would add to the excitement and anticipation. We let Jackson and Carson sleep in longer than usual since it wasn’t necessary to get them up at the typical 6:20am time, so when Jackson got up and it was broad daylight and I was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, he knew something was up. When I told him what I had planned for us, he was very excited. Sometimes Jackson will claim that I do not spend enough time with him, and he is probably right, so he was happy that we would be spending the day together, just he and I.

We left for the track at about 9:45 am. We sang along to the radio and danced in our seats as we cruised along on I-70 east. I had a cooler packed with Kool-Aid pouches, Coke, and PB & J’s. We had a bag packed with snacks, sunscreen, and a digital camera. The weather was gorgeous. We were set.

We got up to the track a little before 11am and entered on the main straightaway off of Georgetown Road. I was a little surprised when the yellow shirts directed me to park in turn three. No big deal, but since I wanted to find a spot to sit in my favorite place near where they wheel the cars out to the pits from Gasoline Alley, that meant we would have to start our day by walking from turn 3 to Gasoline Alley. Anyone who has been to the track before will attest that this is quite a jaunt, especially when you have a little boy with you. So we walk all the way over there, walk by the new pagoda, stop for a picture at the yard of bricks and then made our way to the spot I was looking for. It was about 30 minutes before the green light would flash to start practice, so we got a great spot. Things were going great. We had noticed as we were making the walk to the main stretch that there were some cars on the track taking some laps. I was surprised about this because it wasn’t noon yet. It turns out that these were the 2-seater cars that the Speedway gives people a ride with after they empty their saving account for a ride in an Indy Car. Well, I should have known we were going to have a problem, because the noise of the 2 seaters at 170 MPH were clearly bothering Jackson already. Tack on another 55 MPH and the sound, while awesome to me, would almost certainly be frightening to him. And it was. As we sat there, waiting for practice to start, we quickly saw (up close) Mario Andretti, Helio Castroneves, Eddie Cheever, Danica Patrick, Rick Mears, just to name a few famous folks. So that was pretty cool. OK, so the cars start hauling ass at the start of practice. About 2 minutes into this Jackson has scooched up right beside me and wrapped my arms around him. About 4 minutes into this, he was on my lap. About 6 minutes into this, tears were running down his face and he was informing me that he was ready to go home. The sound of the cars were totally freaking him out. Some nice lady could see what was happening and walked over and was trying to tell me that she would save our seats if I wanted to walk him down to get some ear plugs – I think this is what she was trying to say because I could only here about every third word out of her mouth.


Well, we got out of the stands and went to a spot near Gasoline Alley with picnic tables. We sat there and ate out PB & J’s. Jackson improved greatly by getting out of the stands. It was still loud, but not as deafening. Then we checked out the gift shop right there by the picnic tables. I thought it would be cool to get Jackson a souvenir and he picked out a matchbox car Indy Car – Target Car, since he loves to shop at Target. They were selling ear plugs for $2 and I encouraged Jackson to get some. He told me that there was no way that he would be wearing those things. Despite my strong suggestions, he continued to refuse the ear plugs in the way that only Jackson can – emphatically and unwavering. I was not about to waste the 2 bucks, so we paid for the Target car and left. We strolled around the garage area, got Dan Wheldon’s autograph (last year’s champion!), and then I thought it might be a good idea to find a grassy area where we could hang out and Jackson could roam around a little if he needed to. But this meant walking all the way back to turn 3, near where we parked the Jeep. After the 20 minute walk, we find a real nice place in a small mound in turn 3 and stretch out in the grass. They were under yellow when we get there, so it was a few minutes before they had cars back on the track.

Sure enough, as soon as the cars started flying by at 225 MPH, Jackson says “Daddy, I want those ear plugs”. I about crapped my pants. I said “Jackson, I tried to get you the ear plugs, but you said that you would not wear them”. He says “No Daddy, get them for me”. My hopes that his insistence to get the ear plugs would diminish away were futile. He continues “Daddy, I need ear plugs right now!”…So of course, since I did not want to leave already, and I certainly did not want to hear him constantly whine about the ear plugs for a couple more hours, I took hold of his hand and here we were walking way the hell back up to the freaking gift shop at Gasoline Alley. We get there 20 minutes later. As we are approaching the door to the gift shop, Jackson has a small announcement to make……”Daddy, I wanna go home”. After a slight internal nervous breakdown on my behalf, we marched into the gift shop, gave the old woman the 2 freakin bucks for the ear plugs, and headed back to turn three. I had decided that we were not going home, and that we were going back to turn 3 and enjoying some fast cars. To wrap up this story, we ended up spending another 20 minutes walking back to turn three, 25 more minutes watching the fast (and loud…Jackson was by now informing me that the earplugs did not help) cars. I had had enough of his complaining and told Jackson that we were leaving. As we are getting into the Jeep and I am buckling him in Jackson says to me: “Daddy, can I keep these ear plugs for when we come back next year?”

OK, the last two posts were wordy and lacking pictures. This post will be the opposite. Things are good. We are getting into one of the busiest times of the year with our family. Kim finishing school, our anniversary (9 years....can you believe that), Alex's birthday, Jackson's birthday, Mother's Day, my birthday...alot of stuff.

I never posted any shots from Easter. Here are two of my favorite from Easter Sunday..these two were taken at Kim's Mom's during the Easter Egg Hunt there on April16, 2006.
















Here is a good one of Alex at his 7th Birthday party on April 30.

These last two were taken on May 2...I had the day off work for Election day and the boys and I were just hanging out in the backyard with the camera.