todd

Random pictures during my hiatus from the blog-o-sphere...

Redding Sunset

Kole,Micah as Santas...

Micah growing up fast  

Grandma Reading Uncle Jeff a story...

Deborah and Micah at Kole's Thanksgiving Party at school...

                                                                    

                                Kole at his school's Christmas production...

and Micah & Kole hanging out  

Mushrooms...

I mostly grew up as an only child...so I often found myself hanging out with people much older than myself...parents, grandparents, and the like. I am not going to lie to you...that is, the four people who read this blog...when hanging with the grown-ups I found myself more times than not bored out of my mind...mostly due to the conversations that seemed ho hum.

But years later, I see a positive by-product of hanging out with people older than myself...Simply...I really enjoy  "old" people's stories, wisdom, humor, and perspectives.

I got a chance the other day to hang out with some old people...Bill Giovannetti, Erich Roehl, Roger Simmons, and Ken Jones...these guys are decades older than me...but I love them.

We all went to Rivers for lunch...now two of the guys are authors...one of the guys is a former IBM executive...the last guy is an ex-air force dude...all of them are wise...a couple of them are wicked smart (I'll let them decide which two)...all have a lot of life experience...so the scene is set, 4 old guys with solid, "man experience" resumes, and myself, just a youngster, ready to order food from the nicest restaurant in town.

The waitress begins taking our orders...I see the item I want on the menu; when my turn comes to order I say, "I'll have the Portabella Burger. Can I get that medium rare?"

To my surprise and chagrin, time stands still as all eyes lock-in on me. Bill, the author, says to me, "You know, there isn't any meat on that, the burger is a big mushroom." I didn't know that...furthermore...I hate mushrooms...in my mind I was ordering a burger, I didn't know what portabella meant, but I knew Carl's Jr. had a burger with the word portabella in it, and I figured I was good to go...nope...instead I was red faced, being laughed at and laughing at myself...hey, can't take myself too seriously, when you are an idiot, be the idiot...won't make that mistake again...thanks to the wisdom of my four old friends...

I figure it this way...if it wasn't for their wisdom...I would have ended up with a $45 medium rare mushroom in a bun.

One Month to the Day...

...since my last blog. What's the deal with me? Well...I, like Johnny Cash have been everywhere doing a little bit of everything...bought a minivan, a 2002 Honda Odyssey...I like it a heck of a lot more than I thought I would...thinking about trading in the Civic for a minivan I can drive everyday...visited the East Bay Area...saw some good friends...watched Kole and Bob Nishizaki become best friends...and went to the beach in Santa Cruz...it was the middle of November and it was 75 and sunny...saw Paul Skinner (my dad), who now owns a motorhome and a jeep CJ7...played a ton of basketball with Jeff, Chris and Lepinski...read a ton of pages for seminary...preached sermons...attended ridiculously long meetings...had Thanksgiving at Uncle Jeff's house...wrote long papers for seminary...attend more meetings...and read more books...and ate an obsence amount of mexican food...throw in some date nights with Deborah...sitting in the spa every night...and prayer....and we are all caught up...wait...and I have been all fired up about some core theological underpinnings that my generation and my kidbrother generation are screwing up; thereby wanting to start my own fight club where disagreements about God are not met with nicities, but with some good old fashion fisticuffs...and now you are all caught up.