Random Thoughts

I am in a heavenly winter wonderland.
Christmas was fantastic this year. New Years celebrations are overblown hyperbole.
I am having a blast on my ski vacation. I've never skied more than 1 day in a row before- ever.
I love my new ski boots! (First pair I ever bought).
I love my wife.
I love my little girls.
I am SO thankful for grace and mercy.
Divine protection is priceless. Why would I walk out from under that umbrella?
No matter how much I grow, my old nature still lurks.
History repeats itself; and people keep forgetting that history repeats itself.
America's Obama-nomics = Roman Empire.
Getting healthy again feels good.
Irony = I'm tired but I can't sleep.
Prediction: there will be major archaeological discoveries that will dramatically & obviously prove long-disputed portions of The Bible (a la Dead Sea Scrolls) but they will still be disputed & attempted to be falsified (a la climate change data).
Atheists HAVE to have other theories about the earth/universe creation & can NEVER accept God's intelligent design. Their worldview (belief or 'faith') CANNOT let them consider otherwise. Creationist CAN apply scientific method & should because truth will ALWAYS stand up to investigation.
You can't prove God. But I can't deny what He's done in my life.
I don't know if the earth is billions of years old, or thousands; but I do know that if God created Adam, he appeared as a man (age 18-33 for example) but was actually 1 day old when first created. What are scientists' preconceived notions of time/dating when they study earth & the universe?
I find it intriguing that scientists say there was never a global flood, but almost everywhere you go there are archaeological traits of "major regional floods" or "great inland seas" on a massive scale.
Why are there sea fossils thousands of feet up in the mountains? If the sea floor was pushed up due to plate tectonics, why weren't the fossils pulverized by the incredible heat & pressures that is enough to make diamonds?
I'm asking some pretty technical questions for being so late.
I'm going skiing tomorrow!
I wonder if I'll find a trilobite fossil?

Looking into your eyes

I am in the mountain ski town of McCall, Idaho on a post-Christmas ski vacation with my family and I noticed something today.
I stopped by the grocery store to get a few things for dinner and while there, I was noticing other shoppers-- strangers to me-- kept looking at me. Directly into my eyes.
The first time or two I looked away-- as I probably wondered if I had goop on my face or something. But my shopping partner would've told me.
Then I quickly noticed that people were simply greeting me 'hello' with a quick connection of the eyes and perhaps a subtle head nod or smile. I began to wonder why I looked away and I believe I realized something then.
I am from a "big city" (Portland). Although Northwesterners tend to be more friendly than other areas of the country I've lived in before (Southern California, for example), they still don't necessarily look you in the eyes at the grocery store and nod "hello." "Were they flirting?" "Do they know me?" "Is something wrong with me??"
No! I was experiencing small town friendliness! Perhaps it was the week between Christmas and New Years and everyone still had their holiday joy going on. Or perhaps I did have a gargantuan booger stuck on my face and I was being laughed at.
But I choose to believe I was simply experiencing a phenomenon that only hearty travelers get to experience: Friendly faces in varied places where people aren't too busy or jaded to look a stranger in the eye and nod, "How ya doin'?"
I'm going to bring a little small town back with me the next time I go shopping in my big town.
Here's to looking in your eyes :)

What an answered prayer looks like.

There was a point in my life when I was ready to either completely trash my christian faith or actually try to live it the way I've read it described in the Bible.
My life wasn't working. It had basically fallen apart. And I knew that I had pretty much only myself to blame. I had to honestly admit that I'd never really lived it according to the principles I'd read and knew of. It was at that moment-- a couple years ago now-- that I spoke to God in the most honest prayer I'd said in my life up to that point. The gist of my words were: "I'm willing to give you the remaining 2% of my life that I've kept 'secretly' for myself; I only ask that you be REAL and POWERFUL in my life."
God got a sucker bet that day because He is, after all, real and powerful.
One aspect of God demonstrating both His reality and powerfulness is in Him answering prayer. I'd like to share a short story of just how God has been answering a prayer for my wife and I.
My wife is a psychologist who has been working in a group practice in Salem... a 1-hour drive each way.
After we got married and moved in together in Milwaukie, it was apparent that a more desirable work location was in order. We quickly decided that instead of placing supreme importance on pounding the streets, putting out 'feelers' and checking the want ads, we would pray about our need and express our desires for a better work situation to the One who knows all things.
Within 2 weeks, a grad school friend of my wife's returned a call to let her know that his office was expressing a desire to expand and he would put in some good words.
Fast forward a few weeks and a few meetings & interviews... My wife has been hired at her friend's office.
What is so cool about this location is that (no lie) this is the CLOSEST office building of any kind to our house. She could NOT have gotten hired at any place of business closer to our home than this one... which just happens to have a psychology practice.
Due to the practice's expansion, my wife gets to have a BRAND NEW office... with a wall of all windows... overlooking a water fountain. Not bad for the new girl, eh?
Moving from one practice to another had also presented some insurance issues. One must be approved to various "panels" in order to bill each corresponding insurance company. Some insurance companies' reimbursement rates are better than others. It seemed that the "sucky" insurers gladly accepted my wife's change in venue, while one (very popular) better panel in particular decided that they were "saturated" and would not allow her on their panel in the Portland area. (Although an online search through the company's OWN website showed only ONE other psychologist treating similar populations in a 100 square mile area. Nice). This represented a sizable client base. So we prayed again.
Fast forward a few weeks...
The company rep who had basically told my wife that 'it wasn't gonna happen' called out of the blue one day and said that the company had changed policy and my wife could simply transfer her contract to her new practice. My wife was the "first person that came to mind" months after their initial and brief contact. So now my wife is again on one of THE best paying panels there is. Because they had a sudden and unexpected policy change. And did I mention it's the panel that most of her previous clients were insured by?
Oh, did I further mention that an unusually high percentage of my wife's clients are going to follow her up to Milwaukie?
And finally, we got notice from the new location's office staff that yet another highly-utilized panel in Portland not only accepted my wife, but they wanted to make her one of their "preferred providers" right off the bat-- which is basically unheard of. This panel was denying one of Milwaukie's current & long-standing providers that status! Anyway, OUT of THE BLUE this panel wanted to make my wife one their "preferred providers." Just like that.
There are coincidences and then there are definitive, blow-your-mind answers to prayer beyond what you are able to ask for or even imagine.
And literally, out of the blue yonder!
THIS is what I meant by REAL and POWERFUL: ability to meet our very real & pressing needs in concrete and definitive ways... and in such a way that shows it is beyond simple coincidence or 'good luck.'
It's a GOOD GOD, my friends. :)

I have a cold

It's a head cold.
It could be worse. It could be in my chest. I could have more of a headache.
But it blows nonetheless. Literally.
Regardless of how I feel, I made lasagna for dinner and I'm pretty excited to try it. It's my first.
Instead of ground meat, I used linguica sausage & noodles that don't require boiling. We'll see how this Barilla noodle invention works out. If no-one likes it, I shall blame Barilla.
The meat sauce came from the freezer as we try to eat our way through it... only to make room to put more Costco mega-foods back in that frigid box of cryostatic sustenance.
The meat sauce started out as chili. Or that's what we thought it was as we defrosted it. After the odors thawed, we ended up with Surprise Spaghetti last night.
Tonight is Barilla Lasagna. Unless it's good, then it's Troy's Linguica-zanya.
For desert it's NyQuil on the rocks.
Hey, it could be worse.

Messed up!

How's this for messed up?
My wife's cousin was coming out of her gym the other day with a friend. As they approached her friend's car, they noticed a couple fellows had broken in to his car! The thieves jumped into their car and as they sped out of the garage, almost hit my wife's cousin!!
Fortunately, besides being completely okay, she saw the driver's face VERY well and was even able to identify him in a police mugshot lineup.
Here's the messed up part... the cousin SAW THE PERPS WORKING OUT AT HER GYM a couple nights later!!! She made eye contact and everything! She even called the police, but they weren't able to stay long enough to do anything with the "suspects."
So, what we have here is a young girl who saw a criminal in the midst of a theft. The criminal then almost hits her as he makes his escape. Mr. Scofflaw knows she knows who he is... and they both belong to the same gym. And they both know it.
Does this sound a little scary to anyone else but me??

A Perfect Night

As I've mentioned, I tried to start a blog before ("TroyStories") and actually stayed with it for nearly two years. But I gave up the web address to start our family's web page (web.me.com/sfoflyguy/LownFamily. You gotta ask for the login and password to visit-- which you can do by sending me an email via my profile on this blog page you're reading). That site has a lot of photos & fun stuff. Let me know what you think!
From time to time I will repost some things I had written before on my other blog... especially when I am having one of those writer's block days. Quite often I find myself feeling this pressure that I "HAVE TO POST SOMETHING" or people will stop checking in on my blog. Hopefully, my readers can figure out how to "follow" my blog or click somewhere to get an update whenever I post something new... thus allowing me to chill from such self-induced pressures.
So that being said, I'd like to post one of my favorite entries from my previous blog. It is a true story that happened to me about 2 years ago now. It was written when I was going through the most difficult time in my life-- more difficult than when my 1st wife died of a brain tumor. It was written when I needed more than just encouragement; I needed a CLEAR and CERTAIN experience of God's real power in daily life.
And I got it.
It's called "A Perfect Night."

On this night I took my 8-year old daughter to a Portland Winter Hawks hockey game. It is something special we had done a few years ago when my soon-to-be-ex-spouse and I were first together, but we had been unable to repeat due to the emotional manipulation being played against me whenever I expressed any affection toward my daughter-- no matter my efforts to be “fair and equal” with all the girls. Anyway, due to the current circumstances I thought it a cool idea to have a special night with my first-born doing something she recalled being very fun and bonding with Daddy.
My girlie was SO excited to go to this game. She asked about it twice a day, unsure as she was that something so exciting would actually come to pass as promised. There have been so many broken promises in the past 4 years. All I knew is that it WOULD happen no matter what and that it would be HER night. Actually, it turned out to be God’s night as He blessed it and gave it to us as a perfect gift.
It started out that we got out of the house a little later than desired. Even with no traffic, the chance of finding parking and being on time were slim to none. Nearing the coliseum, traffic got worse. There was no parking anywhere around as there was also a Trailblazer game going on next door.
As I was circling the huge complex and stuck at a light in creeping traffic with “lot full” signs everywhere, I began to fret. As has become my habit lately, with fretting comes the realization that what I actually needed to was “be anxious for nothing” and instead pray. So I prayed, “Lord, I believe you put it in my heart to attempt to have a special night of bonding and healing with my daughter. Right now, we are SO close to our goal... THERE it is! But we can’t get there! I give this evening back to you and ask if you could, please help us find parking.”
Completing a full lap around the huge place, finding no metered space or open lot anywhere, we continued around to the dark, lightly traveled back of the building-- praying more. Pulling beside a rear entrance where the roadies and teams enter, my daughter saw open parking spots. But surely there had to be signs that said “Designated Parking Only” or “By Permit Only”? Try as we might, we could see no such sign or any official guarding the lot barring entrance. So we entered. I still didn’t see exactly where the spot was that she spoke about, but the lot did seem to be “open” for some reason. As I was creeping in, I said, “Where is the spot, honey?” She kept pointing but I didn’t see. Then she gently touched my chin, turning my head, and said, “THERE, Daddy!”
As I pulled into one of three open spots in a row, with minutes remaining until face-off, I fully realized something: We had just parked right next to the building... for free... with perfect timing.
And that was just the beginning.
As we strolled up to the ticket window I asked for 2 of the best seats they had. The lady said she had 4th row behind the penalty box. Not bad for some up-close action and better than I have ever had before! So we bought them. Finally finding our seats: section 13, row DD, seats 3 & 4, I was confused. This wasn’t the 4th row... it was the FIRST. Right up against the glass. But there it was... tickets matching the stencils on the ground... in the front row.
Soon it became snack time as the game progressed. It was simply kind of cool how the usher apparently let us go through the bowels of the coliseum to cut through to the refreshment vending area. As we were walking past kitchens, storage rooms and VIP dining areas the thought struck me that the Lord has granted us access to areas that would normally be restricted. He moved to grant us the favor of man and open doors that might have been closed.
Back in our seats at the end of the first period, it’s always fun to watch the Zamboni re-glaze the ice. It was especially cool when one of the men working the ice tossed a game puck over the glass to my blonde cutie. She was SO stoked! What a gift!
Later, at another intermission, they had a remote control blimp that flew around dropping prize certificates. Now you know, you never get one at these things. If it even comes close, it flutters into someone else’s hand at the last second... but my girl got one. ‘Buy one, get one free’ roller skating. Actually, a little later in the game, she had her foot on a second prize-- but gave it up for a littler kid who was trying to grab it out from under her foot. Kindness and goodness: good fruit.
At some point the team mascot, “TomaHawk,” came by again. J-lo (my little nickname for her) showed him her puck she was so proud of. Surprising to both of us, he fumbled with the wrist of his furry-feathered costume and came out with a pen to sign J-lo’s puck. Such a simple gesture, but that MADE the night for my baby. As she gushed with excitement I remember saying, “Oh baby... this was such a great night! What could have made it more perfect?!?” And as kids can do, she thought of a way: “You could get a puck too.” It was so cute. The sweetness of the consideration for Daddy coupled with the innocent naivete of how rare it is to ever get even ONE game ANYthing blessed my heart to no end.
As the game ended I continued to marvel aloud how incredible the night had been, how blessed we were and how good God was. I was blathering on when my sweet girl gently got my attention as in the parking lot. “Daddy, look...” As I lifted my eyes, I saw a player from the opposing team looking straight at me immediately on the other side of the glass. He motioned with his hand and tossed another game puck over and straight into my hand. Daddy got a puck too.
There could be no argument that our wonderful and loving God had indeed given us the gift of that night... and his gifts are PERFECT.
I recognize that night for what it was: an encouraging reminder that my loving Father cares for his children infinitely more than I can imagine; and His care extends to the real-- to the here and now-- in concrete ways when a life is entrusted to Him.

Keep the P in xmas

HUH?!?
One of my personal pet peeves over the years has been the ever-increasing use of "Xmas" instead of "Christmas" during this time of year. I know you might think that some people overreact about using "xmas", arguing that it's simply shortening a word we ALL know is too long for most signage. But with every passing season, I see it used more and more when there seems to be PLENTY of room to spell 'antidisestablishmentarianism!"
I remember when I was in Hong Kong for Christmas in 1995. For one, the city reminded me of New York City times 3. Secondly, I was struck by how secular the entire city's celebration of the holiday was. In a way, it made sense. That culture is by and large Buddhist or Confuscian-- NOT Judeo-Christian like the underpinnings of our American culture. In that vast city which was decorated in full bloom with lights on skyscrapers and the whole works, I did not ONCE see "Christmas" spelled out-- much less one single nativity scene. Huge buildings literally said "Merry Xmas!"
Talk about 'lost in translation'!!
What I began to realize was that in that culture, they literally WERE keeping the Christ out of "Christmas." The whole city's celebration was about partying and giving presents and not one shred of remembering the real meaning of Christmas. A first-hand experience like that really sensitized me to seeing the slow-but-sure process of secularization of the holiday back in my own country. Now, 14 years later, I see a little less and less emphasis of the birth of Christ, the nativity, etc every year. It's as plain as a skyscraper to me.
So, ONE way I have decided to make a personal statement to directly combat this creeping process is to change how I write "Christmas" when I too wish to save time or space. Instead of "xmas" (which appears to me to be a BLATANT attempt to "X" Christ out), I write "Pxmas"! (See symbol above for when handwriting)
Have you ever seen that symbol before? If you are or grew up Catholic, you would probably recognize it. I just learned that it's called the CHi-RHO cross although I've used the symbol itself for years.
The letters P and X are often used as another symbol for "Christ". Evidently, the first two letters of Christ's name in Greek are X and P. In the Greek alphabet X equals CH and P equals R.
So if one were to write a CHi-RHO cross together with "mas" after it (or type "Pxmas"), one would LITERALLY be keeping CHRist in CHRISTmas! And that is what I do and have done for over 14 years now.
For those of you tired of seeing the true meaning of the holiday eroding, won't you please join my one-man movement to literally KEEP Christ in Christmas by covering the "x" with a "P" and writing the CHi-RHO whenever you can? It's a little statement, but it says a LOT.
MERRY PxMAS!

Civil War

Today is a momentous day for many Oregonians. Normally good-natured, friendly sport supporters will come out this day frothing and spewing taunts clad in in either yellow/green or orange/black. Of course I am referring to the Civil War of the Roses: the day U of O and OSU play to decide who goes to the Rose Bowl this year.
As you can tell in my photo from this morning, I have quite a little civil war home brew going on as well. I like to call the photo "A Family Divided."
The cute thing is that even though I am officially dubbed a DUCK fan, every time I say "Go Ducks!" in public my 3-year old replies in great earnest: "GO BEAVS!!"
It never ceases to get laughs and adoring smiles.
Like the one I will have when the Ducks escort OSU out of the top 20 tonight and rip the ticket to Pasadena right from their wanton hands. :D

Transparency

Here's a little more about me and why I am writing...
As my introduction states, I have been through a few pretty intense life-experiences thus far. I figure if I haven't learned at least a couple lessons along the way then I wouldn't even be here right now. What I'd really like to do is try to start a process of openness and transparency that can increase appropriately over time. More to the point, my goal in writing is to hopefully be a light where others in darkness can avoid the missteps I've taken and prevent the needless pain those missteps usually bring.
I intend to write candidly on my past and struggles with pornography. I wish to tell of my crisis of faith after my wife died leaving me with a 2-year old daughter. I will detail how I married a drug addict and survived co-dependency. I will admit that I cheated on the woman I took a vow to multiple times.
In sharing all this, I will certainly not miss detailing the utterly incredible power that I tapped into (finally) that got my life back on track.
Today, I have the most amazing woman on earth as my wife... who knows every single detail about me-- and still loves me incredibly. She even considers me with all my failings to be the BEST thing that ever happened to her (hear Ray LaMontagne in background:)! Think about that... (it'll hit you harder when I tell you a little bit more about both of us later).
For now, let me just end with this: The key to the beginning of my journey from darkness to light (turmoil to peace, weakness to power... whatever you need to hear for me to convey an A to Z experience) was a willingness to walk IN the light. That can mean a lot of things, but for now let's just say it means 'a complete willingness to embrace the TRUTH no matter what those consequences may mean.'
THAT is what I want to communicate!

A Portland Original (redux)

This evening I am taking my wife on a date to a legendary Portland establishment that is now BACK in existence after a short hiatus: The Braserrie Montmarte.
Think moderately priced french food, live jazz, escargot and.... magic (both literal and esoteric). I'll let you know how they stack up against the original.
We're dressed moderately nice and ready for some kid-free spouse time.
Au Revoir!

Hurricane Dodged, Back from Mexico

Today completes my first full week as a house spouse after returning home from our family trip to Playa del Carmen, Mexico (just south of Cancun).

What a way to celebrate the end of one's career, let me tell you!

We spent two weeks in a beachfront timeshare complex with some of my wife's family. And I mean it was RIGHT on the beach! It made it

doubly exciting when we had front row seats for Hurricane Ida. It actually turned out to be somewhat of a non-event as we realized we had a romantic

walk on the beach the night Ida actually passed us (perhaps 100 miles abeam us, beyond Cozumel). All we experienced were some heavy downpours,

the resulting mas grande mud puddles, and occasional gusty winds.

One of the absolute highlights of the trip-- and my LIFE-- was going scuba diving with my wife in a Yucatan cenote (the photo to the left was actually

taken of us on our dive). Cenotes are underground fresh water rivers that have been filtered by the limestone ground. You can see the utterly amazing clarity

of the water. There is no photo trickery here! What you see is what we got! There were fossils and caves that went on and on. It was breathtaking and I

highly recommend the experience for anyone who ever gets the chance. I am still amazed even looking at the photo now.

Takeoff and landing: An airline pilot becomes a stay-at-home Dad.

This is my first entry on my second attempt at blogging. If the third time's the charm, then this is a pointless waste of time. But time is what I have and writing is what I do, so let's just press on and see what we come up with. Off we go then!

As of eight days ago, I am a former major airline pilot and currently a full-time, stay-at-home Dad. My (former) airline gave me the chance to either be one of the most junior pilots on the property, or be furloughed (read "laid off"). When first notified of being let go, I was relieved because it's really quite hard to willingly give up a (close to) $100 grand per year job.

I say "relieved" because I had realized that being home to raise my two daughters was exactly what I had been waiting, hoping and praying about for almost two years. And now my chance had come. When the company called to tell me that there were enough volunteers to allow me to stay employed & flying, I literally said, "But I wanna leave!" And so I pretty much got the choice whether to stay or not. I was one of the lucky ones.

How can I be so lucky losing out on a nearly six-figure income you ask? And WILLINGLY?!? Am I crazy? Did I mention my wife is a doctor? A psychologist to be exact. And you'd have to ask her about my mental stability or lack thereof. She'd tell you.

So now, here I am at home with a sugar momma and two blonde princesses aged 10 and 3.

I have the world and a keyboard at my fingertips as I prayerfully consider what my future entails. I have some ideas, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. Right now it's time to get dinner started.

I'll c u tomorrow.

The Grounded House Spouse