Month: January 2009

  • Making Detroit Cool

    I think this was a great move by GM. Bring Conan O’Brien into the Detroit Auto Show and letting him have some fun. Self-deprecation is actually a great way to start changing the mood towards the former Big 3.

  • Pet Resue Works

    This is Stoney. In my mind he is the poster dog for adopting from a rescue shelter.

    Stoney joined our family in October 2005, just a month after we bought our house in Romeo. We had a half acre of grass that was fully fenced and it was screaming for a dog to patrol it.

    After looking around a little, we decided to check out K-9 Stray Rescue League in Oxford, Michigan. We liked the idea of adopting a dog who had gotten lost and finding him a new home. We especially liked that this shelter rescued dogs from other shelters who were going to put unwanted dogs to sleep.

    I can’t lie. We went to look for a dog hoping for a beagle. I’ve always wanted one… heck, I still do! But after walking around the shelter we knew we had to adopt one of the larger breeds they had in abundance. We had actually picked out a female yellow lab first. But the attendant looked at our family and said, “There’s a really nice male you need to check out. But he’s down at PetCo in Auburn Hills right now.” As soon as we met him Kristen gave me “the look” and our hearts just melted for him.

    All the way home we debated names. The kids wanted something like “yellow” or some other descriptive name you’d expect from a 4 and 2 year old. But I managed to convince them that we should name our dog after a favorite park, Stoney Creek. His name has since morphed to it’s permanent name… Stoney J. Baloney McLane.

    Today, I took Stoney to the dog beach down in Ocean Beach. Stoney is still transitioning into a west coast style of January. A year ago I’d throw his ball in the backyard and watch him lop through foot deep snow to find the spot where the ball disappeared into the snow. As he chased the tennis ball, other dogs, and did all sorts of dog business it suddenly dawned on me. He is both a great dog and a very fortunate beast.

    I kind of wonder what he thinks of sometimes. A crazy family who first gave him a great yard than one day told him “car ride” and drove him 2500 miles west and south? Does he wonder if he’ll get to go back there and dig up all his old bones? Or does he just try to forget about yesterday and focus on the present?

    Does he think about the family who first bought him? Does he think about the day he ran away from them and got lost? Does he think about his time at the Humane Society in rural Michigan? Does he wonder about the other 100 dogs from the K-9 shelter?

    Stoney is a great dog. He is disciplined and gentle. His worst habit is waking us up at dawn to let us know it’s time for his daily meal. He rarely barks, and when he does we trust it is for a good reason. He even likes the family cat, Lovely.

    I don’t know if you’re in the market for a family beast. But if you are, let me remind you that there are shelters everywhere filled to the gills with pets of all shapes and sizes. Puppies and kittens are great. But slightly “used” animals are still fantastic.

  • Saturday Tunes

    Just another lazy Saturday in McLane land. Other than taking Stoney over to dog beach to let him sniff butts and chase tennis balls, I don’t have plans for today. It’s kind of cold and wet here, so it’s not as if we’ll want to do much else.

    Just like a typical Saturday morning, I’m getting it started with some Java (last of the Starbucks Christmas blend) and some headphone time. Here are the next 10 songs playing on my ipod. As always, totally random and my rating is included.

    #1 Life is a Highway by Rascall Flatts ****

    #2 Tell Me Something Good by P!nk ****

    #3 God of this City by Chris Tomlin ****

    #4 Head Over Heel by Sandra McCracken ***

    #5 Georgia on my Mind by Ray Charles ****

    #6 Hard Sun by Eddie Vedder *****

    #7 Insane in the Brain by Cypress Hill *****

    #8 Here With You by 3 Doors Down *****

    #9 Obsession by Starfield ****

    #10 Seven Bridges Road by The Eagles ****

    Bonus! My buddy and worship leader at Stoneridge in Romeo, Jimmy Savage, has a song on iTunes. It’s a single off his upcoming album. I really like it, its called “Tonight.”

  • New Skills

    A few times a weeks someone will introduce me by saying, “This is Adam, he’s a ____ [Joomla, WordPress, social media, start-up, online marketing, whatever else they think I’m good at, etc.] expert.” That makes me internally snort.

    I’m completely self-taught. I don’t know the academically correct way to do just about anything. Poverty is the best trail to competence. All of my skills I owe to having to learn something in order to make something work. [Usually in a pinch] In all the things I’ve taught myself I have really been fortunate to find a friend willing to tutor me as I stumble to learn.

    In the past month I’ve made the time to teach myself how to use Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Fireworks, and Adobe Dreamweaver. These are “big boy toys” for dreaming, designing, and implementing things in my web world. Between reading online tutorials and begging help from Dave, I’ve been able to increase my competency in these areas. I’m not an expert in using them…. but I can confidently get some small things done.

    I don’t think I have a higher aptitude for learning new skills than the average person. But I do think that I have a higher than average willingness to add new things to my repertoire. While I fully recognize God has given me talents in this world… I think that the real talent He gave me was the ability to adapt and excel in new situations.

    This is true in a lot of areas of life, isn’t it? There are people who say, “I don’t know but I will figure it out.” And there are people who say, “I don’t know and I don’t want to.“

  • My new column at YMX

    In December I was looking for some column ideas for a new weekly thing I’m doing for Youth Ministry Exchange. After a ton of discussion, brainstorming, and banging our head against the wall, Patti and I settled on the idea that I would write a weekly column called, Be Strong.

    So far, I’m pretty happy with it. Here are the first three. Let me know what you think.

    – Start Small

    – Roll With the Punches

    – Disappoint Someone

  • Avocado and Limes

    Part of our integration into San Diego life has been the addition of two staples into our diet. It seems like all of the best foods are either cooked with or come with a side of avocado and/or lime. Once novelties, these are pretty normal on our plates.

    Also part of our normal diet these days, which typically requires both ingredients mentioned above, the fish taco.

    The first time I heard the phrase “fish taco” came on my first trip to Southern California. It sounded gross. Almost repulsive to think of fish in a taco. But I have to tell you that if you tuck a slice of avocado in there and squeeze a lime over the top it’s pretty good.

    I would hazard to guess that just about every restaurant in San Diego has both items in their kitchen. Sure, it might not be on the menu, but I guarantee you that they are used for staff meals almost every day.

    Why are the lime and avocado such a big deal? I don’t know exactly. I love both ingredients. I think it has something to do with it being so cheap though. A recent trip to the grocery store scored us some avocados at $.25 each and limes for $.20 each.

  • Back to School Day!

    For our kids, today is the first day back to school from winter break. Since they are on a year-round schedule their last day was December 19th. Kristen and I are especially thankful for our flexible work situations. I have the opportunity to work from home at least a day per week and so does Kristen. Along those lines, between my Christmas vacation time and Kristen’s parents coming to town, we really only had 6-7 work days where either Kristen or I had to flex our schedule.

    It was a fun break for them. They had lots of visitors. They got to go to lots of cool places like the beach, Birch Aquarium, Cabrillo, and about a hundred other places which I forgot. And we used this time to draw a line in the sand on some discipline things which will hopefully help mom and dad in the months to come. (It is a fact, our kids are normal!)

    So, today we are back to the family routine.

    7:00 AM Everybody up. Mom takes her shower and the everyone else rubs their eyes and does early morning trance walks around the house.

    7:30 AM Breakfast for the kids, coffee for the ‘rents.

    7:45 AM Everybody dressed, except dad who usually starts his morning blog routine at 7:15.

    8:15 AM School uniforms on, mom marches the kids up the hill. Dad publishes whatever he is working on and gets showered/dressed for work. (Hey, I’m a dude… only takes me a minute or two.)

    8:30 AM Kristen comes back and we drive to the YS offices.

    8:45 AM Kristen drops me off and heads to her office. (Sometimes this is reversed.)

    2:00 PM Either mom or dad leaves work. Since Kristen’s job is PT right now… that’s usually mom.

    2:40 PM Paul gets out of school.

    2:50 PM Megan gets out of school.

    3:00 PM Home, snacks and homework for everyone.

    5:30 PM Go get dad from work. Sometimes earlier or later.

    6:30 PM Dinner, play time, TV time, etc.

    8:00 PM Kids bed time.

    It has been fun having them home. This is our first go-round with a year round school and we are already stressing out about what to do in April for their 3-week break and July for their 6-week break… but so far we like it.

    We need a regular sitter. Bad! Either that or we need to adopt a teenage girl to live with us and watch the kids when they come home. With my crazy schedule and Kristen getting more and more hours reality is setting in… we can’t do it alone!

  • Rickroll History

    You know you have a Rick Roll story to share. Come on, do tell!

  • Why do conservatives like to be told what to do?

    Excuse the snarkyness of this post. I’m really curious if this is my crazy observation or if I’m just a jerk.

    Have you ever noticed that conservative folks (politically and religiously) like to be told what to do? I don’t mean they will say “just tell me what to say, do, or think” but I mean that the people they flock to admire tend to be people who will tell them what to do and not challenge them very much to come to their own conclusions. (Or to examine how they came to the conclusions they evangelize.)

    Example #1: Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh. These guys are certifiably nuts. (But entertaining) They spew all sorts of nonsense and political conservatives love them. People even call and email them to proclaim them as right in every situation. 90% of Stephen Colberts schtick is mocking them and still some peopel think they are brilliant.

    Example #2: Dave Ramsey and Suze Orman. Don’t get me wrong, people should be conservative with their money. But if you have to call in to their show to hear this… “pay cash, pay off your credit cards” than I suspect you won’t notice that their making millions by humiliating you on TV, radio, books, and curriculum. Again, their shows are fodder for comedians. I hope someone gets a show on Comedy Central to teach people how to manage their money soon.

    Example #3: Alpha male pastors. Look, I’m too close to evangelicalism to start naming names. I don’t care to get myself in that kind of trouble. But over and over I see these guys become succesful. They aren’t saying or doing anything special… just alpha dudes who get their jollies telling their congregations what to do. (Politics, money, and sex tend to be their top topics.) And yet, conservative people flock to them. This isn’t just senior pastors either! I see worship dudes and youth ministry dudes taking the same stance. It’s a powerful addiction as the more authoritative and the more they manipulate an audience, the more fervor people follow them. (The flip side is that the most successful ministry leaders are extremely humble, it’s only on their rise that they seem to be like this.)

    Why do these conservative voices go unchecked? This is the beauty of the conservative system. If you dare to mention someone’s name or second guess some of their proclamations… just watch what the fan boys do! It’s as hilariously and predictable as the Cubs failing to mkae the World Series.

    See, once these fans admire/idolize someone, once they learn to love being told what to do by them, these fans become vipers. The scour the earth looking for people who dare to question their dude’s authority and then they lash out. “How dare you question Dave? He helped me get out of debt.” (As if Dave Ramsey actually paid your bills… no, you were the one who got yourself out of debt!) “How dare you question my pastor? Because of him I am a new man!” (No, you are a new man because of grace and your pastor doesn’t impart grace.”) “How dare you question Rush? He was right about Bill Clinton!” (OK, I’ll give you that. But it was a decade ago.)

    What’s the other side of this coin? Ah, there is a deadly side to this game as well. Being loved by conservatives is a double-edged sword. The moment that someone slays these dragons… or more often… their own actions disqualify them from holding their authoritative voice over conservatives, they are stricken down.

    The sick thing about being a conservative voice for politics, money, or religion is that you are only the voice-du-jour. One day these people will turn on you. Not only will conservative people turn on their leader-du-jour, they will austrecize them. Then they will pretend like they never really listened to you, cared about you, or bought your book.

    It’s a sick system. And I’m part of it.

    So, I wonder… what’s with the psychosis of wanting to be told what to do?

    Is it that we don’t want to think for ourselves?

    Is it that we long for the simple life?

    Or is it something else?

  • Websites for the kids

    Today I finally acted on something I’ve been meaning to do for more than a year. I registered both of our kids names as domains.

    MeganMcLane.com

    PaulMcLane.com

    Now, I don’t know if this is for everyone. But for me it makes sense on a lot of fronts.

    #1 I can buy today for $10 what may cost thousands when they are adults.

    #2 I got to teach the kids about what I do and how I do it. They got to pick the pictures, tell me what they wanted, etc.

    #3 They are so excited about having their own websites. Mom and dad talk about theirs all the time. This is just the beginning for each of them.

    #4 I have a few more sites i can practice some skills on, quietly.

    Essentially, these are just placeholders. But as time goes on I can see us growing these to something more all-encompassing as time goes on.