After third round, Cardinal chances still looking good

An alert reader revealed the fact that I was not counting Ohio, Illinois, Virginia and West Virginia in my Cardinal stats. Each of these states share the Cardinal as their state bird along with the ones that I have lived in: Indiana, North Carolina and Kentucky.

Welcome Xavier, WVU and Kent State to the Cardinal stats.

We know that at least one Cardinal will fall today when Louisville plays UNC...

	Third Round	Teams Left	Remaining Teams
Cardinal	33%	4	Louisville, UNC, Davidson, Xavier
North Carolina	67%	2	UNC, Davidson
Ohio	50%	1	Xavier
Kentucky	33%	1	Louisville
Tennessee	25%	1	Memphis

	Wins	Losses	Penetration
Big Ten	5	4	R1: Indiana R2: Purdue R3: Wisconsin, Michigan State
SEC	4	6	R1: Kentucky, Georgia, Vanderbilt R2: Arkansas, Mississippi State R3: Tennesse
West Virginia	2	1	R3: West Virginia
Indiana	3	4	R1: Indiana R2: Purdue, Butler, Notre Dame
Illinois	0	0
Virginia	0	0

Second round strips Indiana of its State Bird

I'm not sure how Butler, Purdue and Notre Dame all ended up losing in the second round, but they did. Butler's loss to the only remaining SEC team was particularly embarrassing.

I had lunch with a UofL graduate today and he seemed to think Louisville's chances in the tournament were unrelated to their Cardinal status. We'll see.

	Second Round	Teams Left	Remaining Teams
Cardinal	50%	5	Stanford, WKU, Louisville, UNC, Davidson
Kentucky	67%	2	WKU, Louisville
North Carolina	67%	2	UNC, Davidson
Big Ten	50%	2	Wisconsin, Mich State
Tennessee	50%	2	Memphis, Tennessee
SEC	17%	1	Tennessee
Indiana	0%	0

Indiana University let me down yesterday

I went to bed last night with great confidence the coachless Indiana University Hoosiers could come back against the champion of the SEC conference, but was disappointed this morning to find that they couldn't pull it off.

Indiana was the only team in Indiana to lose, and the only team in the Big Ten to lose. Indiana and Kentucky were the only teams in my "Cardinal Connection" group to lose.

I used to wear a shirt that said I cheered for two teams: "Purdue and whoever plays IU", but last night they really let me down.

I'm still a believer that this is the year of the Cardinal. Eight teams left... but I think the second round could give the state of Tennesee a chance to move up a few notches in this list.

	First Round	Teams Left
North Carolina	100%	3
Cardinal	80%	8
Big Ten	75%	3
Indiana	75%	3
Kentucky	67%	2
Tennessee	50%	2
SEC	50%	3

Adam heads to Washington

Adam left Thursday night on a school field trip to Washington, DC. They drove all night and had a tour of the White House on Friday morning to start out a three day weekend. Adam's Uncle Keith planned on walking down to see him on Friday but it was raining.

The two of them hooked up on Saturday: Adam in DC

As I read Keith's blog about him buying Adam an Oreo McFlurry, my mind raced back to the evening that we spent with Keith's friends during 2001. That evening, Adam made chocolate milk shakes for about 10 people and climbed all over everyone. I think he thought he had about four extra Uncles.

In 2001, Carmen was tougher than Adam as she demonstrated by wearing shorts on a cold day.
In 2001, Adam's hair was the same length as his Uncle's.
2001 was only seven years ago....

Six Lanes of Slush around Six Flags, St. Louis

I made a trip to Rolla, Missouri on Tuesday to speak to the Tau Beta Pi engineering honor society at the Missouri University of Science and Technology and the interview some candidates on Wednesday morning. As I headed around the Southeast side of St. Louis, the traffic crews closed the roads while they cleared trucks off the hills near the Six Flags exit of I-44. I migrated my way around several tractionless trucks and stopped at the St. Louis Bread Company to have lunch and read 300 emails that had accumulated in the first six hours of my trip.

Bradford Pear: Designed to break

While we were in Nashville a few weekends ago, there were strong winds there overnight. Apparently those same winds made it to Lexington on Sunday morning and pruned a Bradford pear tree in our back yard.

It took Adam, Becca and I two weekends to get this cleaned up, but it is done now.

I cut up small branches for Becca to carry to the front yard, but I couldn't get her to stick at it very long. The only way I could motivate her to help was to suggest that she play a game with Buster while moving the sticks.

Adam, on the other hand, motivated himself in a couple of different manners. First, the opportunity to use a hatchet and second, the potential of creating a fire.

The picture on the right side is the "fire pit" after it sat outside a week in the rain. Obviously, he never got around to the fire part.

Now to the question... Why would God design a tree to break?

These trees are the beautiful flowering variety that are found all over the commonwealth of Kentucky. Yet, in every ice storm or windstorm they are the first to go.

We purchased our house with one in the front yard, but it collapsed before we moved in. Inspecting the bark, a neighbor pointed out that this particular branch had started to fall away years ago.

This is the tree that the kids climbed and swung in while they were growing up and I was always telling them to be careful with all the contraptions that they put in the tree because of its weakness.

Looking back on the two weekends of work to remove the branches, I now think I was wasting my breath with the kids. Although these trees were designed to break, knowing that a half damaged branch could sustain that much weight through the torque of many storms, makes me believe there is nothing the kids could possibly do to damage a 20 year old tree with weight or leverage from swings or stands.

I'd still like to keep Adam's hatchet and fire away from all of our things in our yard.

Pictures from Aunt Helen's Photo Album

Cardinal Connections in College Basketball

I've only lived in three states. All three have two things in common, basketball and state birds. This restricts my mobility, but it does give me a unique view of the top 17 college basketball teams in the country. ( BTW, those youngsters at Purdue are hanging in there....)

I think the nation should be watching out for Louisville, they have a multiplying Cardinal factor. The might even get cubic cardinal points if you consider the fact that Louisville has a high concentration of catholic residents.

Rank	Team	Record	State	Cardinal Connection
4	UCLA	25-3	CA
8	Stanford	23-4	CA	Mascot
15	Connecticut	22-6	CN
11	Georgetown	23-4	DC
12	Indiana	24-4	IN	State Bird
14	Butler	26-3	IN	State Bird
16	Purdue	22-6	IN	State Bird
17	Notre Dame	21-6	IN	State Bird
6	Kansas	25-3	KS
13	Louisville	23-6	KY	State Bird & Mascot
3	UNC	26-2	NC	State Bird
7	Duke	24-3	NC	State Bird
9	Xavier	24-4	OH
1	Tennessee	25-3	TN
2	Memphis	27-1	TN
5	Texas	24-4	TX
10	Wisconsin	24-4	WI

Eby Family Heritage

Converting Dad's slides to digital pictures was a lot of fun and I sent DVDs to my cousin Gene Klein. Gene went up to his Mom's recently and took these digital photos of Aunt Helen's photo album.

These photos of my Dad (Kenneth) with his pet cow and my Grandpa (Charles Victor) with his mules explains at least partially why Becca loves animals.

I wish I had a bigger picture of the old mules or workhorses.

Thanks for sharing these, Gene!

Lunar Eclipse

I took a few pictures of the moon from our front porch and something got in the way... I've been assured that it won't block my view again until 2010.

Impact Tournament in Nashville

Carmen will be playing at the Impact tournament in Nashville next weekend. It doesn't look like there is much to do in the area other than play volleyball in what I hear is a very congested matrix of courts.


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College Basketball in Indiana

I've only lived in three states my entire life. All three have a high respect for the game of basketball.

I was born in Indiana where high school basketball was the biggest deal going. High school basketball took a drop down when the IHSAA decided to have 5 champions instead of one.

I moved to North Carolina where college basketball is king. That state has several schools that hold National Championships and the whole state watches college basketball and neighbors align with one of the several choices: UNC, Duke, NC State, Wake Forest, UNCC, etc...

I then moved to Kentucky, which worshiped UK Basketball at the time. Now it seems like the fans are tearing it apart piece by piece.

One of the things that happens in Lexington is that SEC is elevated above every other conference in order to make everyone believe that UK Basketball has a harder time than say a team like Purdue.

As Purdue faces Wisconsin tonight to battle for the top position in a lesser conference like the Big Ten, I thought I would look at the rankings and I noticed that there were 4 teams from Indiana in the Top 25.

It looks like basketball in Indiana has moved from High School to College in the last 20 years.

I wish I knew which teams were in the SEC so I could count them.

	Rank	Team	Record	State
	5	UCLA	21-2	CA
	9	Stanford	19-3	CA
	19	Connecticut	17-5	CN
	6	Georgetown	19-2	DC
	16	Marquette	16-5	WI
	10	Butler	20-2	IN
	14	Indiana	19-3	IN
	22	Notre Dame	17-4	IN
	24	Purdue	18-5	IN
	15	Drake	21-1	IA
	4	Kansas	22-1	KS
	20	Kansas State	16-5	KS
	11	Michigan State	19-3	MI
	2	Duke	20-1	NC
	3	North Carolina	21-2	NC
	13	Xavier	19-4	OH
	21	Pittsburgh	18-5	PA
	1	Memphis (72)	22-0	TN
	7	Tennessee	20-2	TN
	23	Vanderbilt	19-4	TN
	12	Texas	18-4	TX
	18	Texas A&M	19-4	TX
	17	Washington State	17-5	WA
	8	Wisconsin	19-3	WI

Gathering in Columbus

I'm exhausted after a weekend of watching 8th, 9th and 10th graders praise God, learn how to share their faith, share their faith, confirm they dedication to the Kingdom and help each other.

Because of some last minute changes the day before we left for Columbus we added several adults to the trip that had not planned on going. One of these folks was Don Vanzant who is starting a church near Hamburg.

While we gathered in Columbus, I thoroughly enjoyed hearing his testimony, calling and methods for planting a church in an area of Lexington that is exploding.

If you would like to check out his church, please do so: The Gathering I love the name and the people oriented, relationship oriented purpose of a church in equipping the saints.

I would suggest the best way to meet Don would be to seek the truth by attending Bible 101... studying truth is one of the best ways to interact with a stranger because the truth will be a constant in any stage of any relationship.

I hope Tatesbrook will eventually be able to offer some of the same foundational teaching as a part of our outreach to the community around us.

Dare2Share "Survive"

Tomorrow, we will be heading for Columbus for Dare2Share. There are over 30 eighth graders and graduates from Southern Middle School. Some of these teens will be experiencing this weekend training for the first time and some have been there several times.

We will be staying at Beechwold Christian Church. This is the third year that they have hosted a group from Lexington and it is exciting to see the similarities in their vision, the calling that God gave to me when I was a teen, and the theme of this year's dare to share.

It is also exciting to see these friends of my children desiring to know God.

Future Quarterback

This young man was very patriotic in 1971 as he participated in the 4th of July parade in Wakarusa. At this point in his life, no one would have guessed that he would lead his high school football team to a State-Runner up finish and compete with Jeff George to replace Jim Everett in the Cradle of Quarterbacks.

Jim Everett headed for the Los Angeles Rams where he would hand the ball off to Eric Dickerson who later returned to the Indianapolis Colts. Jeff George won the position at Purdue for one year, but then transferred to Illinois.

Can you name this little fellow?

Digital Memories for Keith's Birthday

My little brother will be turning 40 next month and he asked me to go through mom and dad's slides and get them converted to digital for his birthday.

It has been a lot of fun looking at these pictures that have only been projected faintly on a silver screen. With color correction, these memories have come alive.



Happy Birthday Keith!

Read Great Books

While shopping for a Christmas present for Jackie in a bookstore, a book titled "Good to Great in God's Eyes" caught my attention. The subtitle was also intriguing: "Ten Practices Great Christian's have in common".

This book grabbed me from a couple of different angles. The title and appearance were very close to one of my favorite books, "Good to Great" which transformed the way I believe a successive company should be developed over a long period of time.

The subtitle also reminded me of a book I read back in 1992 by Kent R Hughes that interviewed great Christians to see what they had in common.

It also said "Ten" things, which implied there was a list. I love lists.

So, I bought the book to see what Chip Ingram had to say.

In the picture on the left, I put "Disciplines of a Godly Man" on the bottom of the pile to point out the books that I have read after knowing what Godly men read. I put Chip's book very near the top since it represents a second opinion about what men that are "Great in God's Eyes" do.

Note: this is not a complete stack of my favorite books. It's just the top 10% of what I have here in the house. Some of my favorite books are loaned out to friends and some are on a bookshelf at work ready to be referenced.

Here's the list of ten practices that Chip proposes are common to great Christians:

1. Think Great Thoughts
2. Read Great Books
3. Pursue Great People
4. Dream Great Dreams
5. Pray Great Prayers
6. Take Great Risks
7. Make Great Sacrifices
8. Enjoy Great Moments
9. Empower Great People
10. Develop Great Habits

In chapter two, he closes with the following statement attempting to inspire the reader to develop a curriculum of reading.

Books have shaped my perception of God, my confidence in the Bible, my marriage, my ministry, and my relationships with other people. They've done the same for countless other Christians throughout history, some of whom have impacted the kingdom of God on earth quite dramatically.... that's why I'll never regret the practice of reading great books.

As I was reading chapter three, I decided to compare my favorite books with the list that a great person like Michael Card has read. I fall short. I need to read more great fiction and more great history.

A quiet, cold day at home

Today is one of those rare days where no one needs anything right now and there is no noise. A day like that defines all people.

Adam took off yesterday to spend some time with some great people in Hardin, KY. I don't know what Bob will be talking about but the people that gather there are incredibly interesting and I always leave there inspired to be a better person.

Jackie and Becca took off this morning for Nashville, TN with some great people. Emily, one of Becca's friends, invited Becca to go along with her to Nashville while Emily's class headed for Chicago. Looking at the weather this weekend, I think Emily made the right choice. Jackie talked with Carol and just yesterday decided that she would go along to make it a foursome. Jackie and I will be spending many weekends with Carmen at volleyball tournaments in the next few months, so this is some great Becca time and Jackie couldn't pass it up. I'm sure there will be some great Carol time as well.

Carmen will sleep late and be quiet and productive all day long, so there will be peace and order with Carmen. Of this, I have no doubt.

After seeing Jackie and Becca off this morning at 9:00, I shut all the TV's off and read for half an hour in uninterrupted peace.

Appreciation for Mothers

As Jackie hits the job market, I think this video points out why just about any mother that can raise three kids in today's world deserves great appreciation.

I found this on a blog from someone in Kenya, and find it very ironic that I also heard from some missionaries on furlow in the United States from Ecuador that the energy that is required to raise a family in the United States is excessive. (crazy?!)

Somehow, the best mom's have the energy to do this and creatively eliminate their stress and motivate others to do better.

Jackie dusts off her resume

No one needs to get out any tiny violins for us, but 2007 was a difficult year financially. Anyone that has spent any time with me, knows that one of the five biblical financial principles that I teach and live by is "Spend less than you make".

As a Christian, I believe the proper perspective is to be grateful for the income and always address the expenditures since that is what He commands us to do well until God changes the income. That is a hard perspective to teach, learn or live. For whatever reason, I believe that God has a reason for the Eby family to live on less income these last few years and I am grateful for the opportunity for Him to continue to teach us how to do this as a family.

• The kids' college savings dropped to half the 2006 value. This is my own fault for making investment choices that I continue to hope will recover to a point that will be able to help the kids. This is by far the largest financial impact to us and it has been difficult for me to trust God to restore those investments that we have made a little bit at a time over a period of many years. ( I also am wondering if God has intended for our children to work their own way through school as we did. We benefited from that experience, why wouldn't they? )
  
• We had both of our vehicles demand some attention. ( 100K+ miles cars from the 20th century )
  
• In October, we turned around and "suddenly" our daughter was 16 and we will be paying higher premiums for car insurance next year. (50% higher if she doesn't get a car, 100% higher if she gets a car )
  
• In November, we had wind damage to our 20 year old roof that cost us $5K that we had hoped to spend in 2009 or 2010. We thought we could put that off until at least 2008 even after the visible exterior damage but water damage to Adam's bedroom ceiling forced us to action.

So... with each drip, drip, drip of financial events of 2007, Jackie threatened to go back to work, and I pulled equity out of our home to make ends meet. Although this is a violation of several principles, I think it is prudent while we consider more sustainable options that I have suggested like downsizing our home.

She worked full time from 1986 through 1991 as a medical lab technician before having Carmen and continued to work very part time through 1993 before having Adam. When she left the position in 1993, she suspected that she would never get back into medical lab business, but didn't know what new business it might be.

In the first position she has accepted in 15 years, she will be working a flexible schedule at close to minimum wage for a company that makes sure us consumers buy stuff at retail stores because evidently that is something that employees of retail stores don't do. I'm not a big fan of this new job, but I'm grateful that she has taken the initiative and hopeful that it will pay for groceries or gas or the last few years of sports while we trust God to tell us what we should do next.

Favorite Movies we all viewed in 2007

In order to make this list, all five Eby's must have seen this movie during the year it is nominated. There are a few movies that have been nominated by individual Eby's that were disqualified because they were not viewed by all of us.

For example: Spiderman 3, Amazing Grace, National Treasure 2, Alvin and the Chipmunks and other popular movies were seen by some but not all Eby's.

Here is the list for 2007:

1. Ultimate Gift ( Carmen, Mom )
2. I am Legend ( Adam, Dad )
   
3. Evan Almighty ( Becca )
4. Bourne Ultimatum
   
5. Shooter
6. Wild Hogs
7. Astronaut Farmer
8. Deja Vu
9. Blood Diamond
10. Surf's up

Bennigan's Restaurant ( Take 26 )

Every year since 1982, Jackie's friends from NorthWood High School have picked a restaurant in Northern Indiana to meet and catch up with each other between Christmas and New Year's Day. Mark and Michelle picked the Elvis room at Bennigan's this year.

This was one of the smallest groups, but we still had fun.

Fayette County Public Schools listed as #16

As a parent of three students in Fayette County Public Schools and a friend of many teachers in Fayette County, I was pleased to hear that Forbes magazine listed Lexington as one of the top 20 places in America to receive a public education.

Well done, Fayette County!

Forbes Top 20 Public Schools

Educators that attend Tatesbrook that are fighting the good fight in the FCPS:

• Duane Keaton
• Jordan Johnson
• Mike Brady
• Robin Potter
• Ronnie Brock
• Tony Jones
  

Since Jackie and other "stay at home" mom's often receive little performance feedback, I think this would also be a good time to recognize all the volunteers that help make the school systems better in our community...

Oh, we've got "T"rouble

Mothers of River City!
Heed the warning before it's too late!
Watch for the tell-tale sign of corruption!
The moment your son leaves the house,
Does he rebuckle his knickerbockers below the knee?
Is there a nicotine stain on his index finger?
A dime novel hidden in the corn crib?
Is he starting to memorize jokes from Capt.
Billy's Whiz Bang?
Are certain words creeping into his conversation?
Words like 'swell?"
And 'so's your old man?"
Well, if so my friends,
Ya got trouble,
Right here in River city!
With a capital "T"
And that rhymes with "P"
And that stands for Pool.
We've surely got trouble!
Right here in River City!
Remember the Maine, Plymouth Rock and the Golden Rule!
Oh, we've got trouble.
We're in terrible, terrible trouble.
That game with the fifteen numbered balls is a devil's tool!
Oh yes we got trouble, trouble, trouble!
With a "T"! Gotta rhyme it with "P"!
And that stands for Pool!!!

Merry Christmas and a Happy 2008

In lieu of a lengthy letter, this year the Eby's wish you and yours a spectacular season celebrating the birth of Christ our Savior.
( Thanks also to the folks at OfficeMax )

Dan poses as Charlie Brown

Dan Dedrick had family in from New York over the Thanksgiving holiday and the Herald Leader photographers got this shot of him hauling off a tree.

Front page article

Guess which co-worker turned him in?

The World is Flat ( Missionary 3.0 )

The World is Flat.

I've been reading this book that compares Columbus' discovery of the world being round to the fact that today's world is flat.

Columbus was looking for a short path to India for trade back in 1492, but today, smart people from India, China, Russia and all over the world are learning and working effectively from wherever they are with businesses that were founded in the country that Columbus mistook for India.

Last night, I received an email from Michael Harrington who is serving as a missionary in Africa about how he taught an African family to use a yo-yo. That same night, I received an email from a friend with photos from a zoo that she had visited in Singapore.

Certainly, because of the factors that are discussed in this book and the experiences that I have had in the last 15 years and the last 15 days, I can truly say that the world is flat.

Happy Birthday Dad!

My dad turned 82 today. When I called to tell him Happy Birthday, he told me that the lady from Human Resources at Lycro Products asked him if he was really going to be 82 this weekend.

He responded with a short and affirmative, "Yep!"

She told him that he was a pretty incredible person to be working at his age.

As Dad was telling me the very short story, I was imagining what was going through the mind of the lady from HR and how different that a small company can be.

I do agree with her. My dad is an incredible person. He worked 37 years for the first company that employed him while he was working and living on Grandpa's farm and establishing his own home later.

He has now worked nearly 25 years at the second company.... that is loyalty.

Adam Recognized in Fayette County Newsletter

As a parent and volunteer guest teacher in the Fayette County Public School system, I believe it is important to listen to the leadership. The school superintendent really does a great job of communicating on a regular basis.

Here is the text from the "Kudos" section:

To Southern Middle School students Adam Eby, Tyler Farquhar and Lauren Shields for placing 7th in the Leadership Challenge team event during the 2007 National Technology Student Association (TSA) Conference.

Old Men in the Balcony

It has just recently come to my attention that a peer of mine and I have been compared to the two old men in the balcony on the Muppet Show.

Having watched that show as a kid, I was sure that the people at work who made this comparison were mistaken.

Shopping for transportation

This afternoon, Carmen and I drove around town looking at potential makes and models of cars that would be satisfactory to her. She started out with a Jeep Wrangler because it is different from her friends and it ties her to her cousins Heidi and Bethany.

Seeing how Carmen doesn't like us to leave any windows open in the mini-van and likes to have the temperature "just right" all of the time, I'm not convinced that a Wrangler is the right car for her.

Her Uncle Bill, her mother and Carmen all went to a car show in Cleveland in 2004 and saw a Pontiac Solstice and her Uncle Bill believes that is the car for her. I think it is a nice looking car, but I can't find any that are five years old with 80,000 miles.

Seeing how I bought my own first car for $1,500 when I was a freshman at Purdue, I have a hard time looking at these prices...

Vehicle Description		Blue Book Value		Candidate Price	Candidate Miles
1999 Ford Tauras SE Sedan 4D		$3,625		$3,795	111,466
1999 Pontiac Grand Am SE Coupe 2D		$3,810		Not Priced	124,212
1999 Volkswagen Jetta GL Sedan 4D		$5,400		$7,450	88,732
1999 Nissan Altima SE Sedan 4D		$5,470		$5,900	127,473
1999 Volkswagen Passat GLS Sedan 4D		$6,745		$7,000	97,000
1999 Jeep Wrangler		$7,875		Not Priced	127,158
2006 Pontiac G6 GT Sedan 4D		$12,300		$11,950	49,035
2006 Pontiac Solstice Convertible 2D		$16,565		$21,977	16,517

She won't be able to drive by herself until April, so maybe I can buy a motorcycle and just let her use my Jeep.

Community responds to a Tornado

What a Weekend for Nappanee and NorthWood High School!

• Tornado Ravages Nappanee on Thursday night
• Band Places 6th at State
• Volleyball team won the sectionals (delayed to Saturday morning, and moved to Tippecanoe Valley)
• Football wins thrilling first game of sectionals (delayed to Saturday night, and moved to Bremen)
• 3000+ volunteers meet at NWHS on Sunday to help tornado victims

Wherever I have gone in the world in the twenty years since I have left, Wakarusa and Nappanee have remained home to me. One of the things that makes these Northern Indiana towns special is the community that is modeled to the world.

It doesn't matter if the community is modeled in the many small churches, a high school, a football team, an Amish heritage, a mega-size missionary church or the Amish people that still live simply and live at a pace that doesn't exist elsewhere.

Community springs to action when trouble comes.

Interesting links about the tornado and the community:

• National Weather Service description of Tornado
• Amish Acres: Mutual aid versus insurance

Celebrating Carmen's Birthday in Indiana

Bill and Cheryl invited us to the farm to have a hot dog roast on Friday night before the football game and then have a hayride on Saturday night and then have a family pork chop BBQ on Sunday afternoon after Dustin and Heather's first child Charlie was dedicated at Nappanee Missionary Church.

Those plans were adjusted by a Tornado, so we had a lot of extra time on Saturday.

I replaced a hard drive that was damaged due to the power outage and the phases of power restoration on a farm and Carmen washed Ben's steer.

Becca played with the goat.

When Jackie was Becca's age and Carmen's age, she cleaned the pig stalls in the pig barn that stood on the concrete foundation that now serves as a parking area in the background of Carmen's picture.

By Sunday afternoon, the tornado cleanup in Nappanee was well underway and four generations of the Mattern and Etsinger families plus three generations of Eby and McMillan families gathered in New Paris to consume a good portion of 55 pork chops cooked on the half barrels that crashed the hard drive on Saturday. (long story, involves a PTO generator and a welder)

Marcus has a great game against LTMS

One of the things that I looked forward to the most about Adam's 8th grade year was the chance for him to play with Marcus Wilkerson.

Marcus and Adam were together in Children's Church for five years and his Dad helped me teach the class the year before he left for Afghanistan.

In this first photo, Marcus is pulling the pile forward while the football is exposed and in a position to be easily stripped away. The right side line backer is no where to be found.

In the next photo, you can see that Marcus got safely to the ground without having the ball stripped.

If you look closely on the right side of the pile you will see Adam showing up a second too late to strip the ball away from Marcus.

Playing ultimate frisbee with these two allows me to know just how competitive they are.

In this particular game, Marcus probably ended up on top of the individual effort while Adam's team ended up on top of the scoreboard 14 - 7.

I'll keep pushing these two to do better until they have a chance to play together at Tates Creek High School in two years for JV and three years for varsity.

This last picture is Marcus with a solo sack for a 10 yard loss to end the first half of play.

Southern Football Game ( a defensive struggle )

Adam had another decent defensive game but the score was a lot closer than anyone expected.

From his position of outside linebacker on a blitzing defense, Adam gets a few sacks per game. On this play, however, he leaves the running backs ( #32 and #30 ) and goes after the sweeping quarterback in trouble.

A risky play if the quarterback is able to get a pass off. In this case, it pays off. Adam is all about taking risks.


The picture on the left side is a linebacker's dream picture.

You can see the running back coming through an open hole wrapping the ball up in fear of being hit. Adam is #64 and Tyler Morris is #4.

If both ( or really either of them) had any forward motion to match the running back, this play would have finished perfectly with a crushing collision and a cleanup hit putting the running back down for no gain.

Since both of them were on their heals, Adam took the legs and Tyler took the shoulders and the running back got a few yards out of the play and got up happy about not being crushed.

Jacob Ivey (#84)is the defensive end to the left of the play dropping back in good position to help out in case of a fumble or a broken tackle.

Adam "celebrates" his birthday at home

Celebrating your 14th birthday at home by blowing out candles on a cake has never been so exciting...

Ohio State at Purdue

Adam and I made a day trip to West Lafayette for Purdue's latest starting game in its very long history of football. Two undefeated titans clashed and Purdue ended up on the down side of the 23-7 score.

As we watched the two teams warm up from our lofty perch, we could tell that OSU was the real deal and it only took a few plays for the Buckeyes to demonstrate why they would again be #1 in the nation for a good portion of yet another season.

Purdue is a great team and they are having a great year, but it sure wasn't fun to watch them get beat that night. I bought a book about Joe Tiller to read a little more about the transformation that has occurred since he has been there. It is very interesting to hear about the poor boy from Toledo that went to Montana to play football.

Adam and I had lunch at Triple XXX Family Restaurant at Austin Mattern's recommendation. He said they had recently tried to upscale their food quality.

Before the game, we drove all over campus visiting bookstores to outfit our family's youngest Purdue fan and decorate his room. After accumulating more Purdue stuff than I have ever owned, Adam and I parked at the remains of the shuttered Smitty's Supermarket and played frisbee in the street for a while before heading to the engineering buildings and the fountain.

After the game, we drove back to Wakarusa to visit my mom who was recovering from back surgery. Adam and I got to the house about 1:30 AM and crashed in the basement.

After visiting with Mom and Dad for six hours, we headed back to Lexington. We were making great time traveling with the stereo blasting and all the windows open until we hit mile marker 141 on I-74 between Indianapolis and Cincinnati. While traveling along with speeding traffic and fortunately in the rightmost lane, the Jeep just quit on us.

A credit card and flatbed truck enabled us to get back to Lexington late that night.

Engineering Centennial 1888-1988

I took Adam to a lecture hall in the electrical engineering building and told him stories that I could remember.

Later, I took him to the basement to show him where the computer lab used to be ( and why there ever was such a thing as a computer lab ).

We were surprised to find a hall filled with pictures of Electrical Engineers from 1888 to 1988 and found my photo.

Here's the story behind the pictures:


1888 marked the graduation of Purdue's first two electrical engineers. In the next one hundred years, 20,272 men and women would join this select group granted Purdue Electrical Engineering degrees. Our Wall of Fame recognizes the first century of students to matriculate with bachelor, master, and doctoral degrees.


The "Nice Guys of Eta Kappa Nu" began producing class composites as a service project to the school using pictures taken from the Purdue yearbook, "Debris." Kent Fuchs, department head, had the composites installed in the hallway of the Electrical Engineering building in 2000. This pictorial history grew and became a source of enrichment to visitors, alumni and current students. Comments like, "Is that grandpa?", "Look, I can't believe my hair!", "I didn't know the school existed back then!" could be heard as people viewed the classes.


While the composites are impressive, they are incomplete (only including those people in yearbooks) and sometimes inaccurate (people appear in yearbooks other than their official graduation year). When it was decided to include the Wall of Fame on the Electrical and Computer Engineering website, Engineering Computer Network's Marian Delp agreed to manage the project and worked with students for forty months to scan 79% (16,014) of the images.


Difficulties were abundant as efforts were made to assure name and picture agreed. For example one record might list a person as "L. T. Smith" and another as "Lewis Tobias Smith" or "Lew Smith." Or the yearbook has a fall picture for "Sheila Marie Jones" and the registrar has a May graduation record for "Sheila Marie Wolfe," reflecting her married name. Placement of upper and lower case lettering was also inconsistent between sources: Dewitt versus DeWitt, or Del Costa versus DelCosta. Is all of the information accurate? Perhaps not, but as alumns submit correct information about themselves on the website, our accuracy can only improve.

My Brother: Deputy Travis Junior

This past Sunday, Kent Billingsley told me that I looked like Deputy Travis Junior on Reno 911.

Since I have intentially deprived my children of cable TV in order to accelerate brain cell growth, I had no idea what he was talking about.

After a little research, I think that he could be my long lost brother. What an AMAZING story!

Carmen's Tates Creek JV Season is over

Carmen's sophomore year was packed full of games with playing time at the JV level and sitting time at the Varsity level.

Unlike last year when the same six freshmen played together every game with the same rotation to go 13-4, this years JV was an exciting different combination that varied depending on the level of competition, the availability of freshmen and sophomores that play varsity, and chances to develop varsity players in different positions. All in all, it was a very exciting year and winning games helps make it more exciting. The JV team finished with a record of 21-5-1.

Having completed five seasons of volleyball, there are plenty of roles that are not exciting. No one can make them look less exciting than Carmen.

I love jobs like score keeping, line judging, or running the scoreboard during games.

Worship Philosophy

At our life group ( aka small group ) ( aka cell group ) (aka shepherd group ) meeting tonight Kent asked us all to write down our worship philosophy and share it. I thought this was an excellent exercise since each individual has a very unique perspective to anything that occurs in the church. This is true whether it is something spiritual, something doctrinal, something religious or something trivial like the color of the carpet or something major like sitting in a pew that belongs to someone else.

So here's the way I see worship today:

Worship is a celebration of Christ that unites us with our creator.

We can be united or restored in isolation or in mass gatherings of strangers at coliseums. Our hearts can receive peace in coliseums and rejoice in solitude.

Creativity and worship can occur without Christ as the center, but it can not occur without Christ. After all, where does creativity come from if not from our creator?

The opening ceremony at each Olympic gathering is an example of a highly technical, complex, amazing worship of the human spirit, but it falls short of the Glory of God that exists when Christ is worshiped from our hearts.

Becca's first year of LTMS Volleyball

It is hard to remember the level of play that Carmen's team had in the sixth grade four years ago. I think Becca got more touches than Carmen because Becca's diminutive stature relegated her to the setter position.

One clear difference is that the officials have to stop the game to remind Becca that line judges can not cheer for their team and to stop using the line judge flag as a pom pom.

As seen in other posts, Carmen shows absolutely no excitement or motion when line judging. Drawing the attention of an official probably would have crushed Carmen.

Becca enjoyed playing with a few neighborhood girls that attended Veteran's Park elementary school with her. Volleyball seemed to help the transition from elementary to middle school.

One thing about the kids going to LTMS is that is so close to where I work that I can make more of the 5:30 games. I'm not sure if I ever made it to any of Carmen's sixth grade B Team home games at Southern. By the time I fought through traffic, it always seemed to be time for the A team to start playing.