Tag: el cajon

  • Lunch at Rodeo’s Meat Market

    If you are ever near the YS offices in El Cajon. Drop by and we’ll grab a street taco at Rodeos.

  • The return to golf

    I’m excited about getting back to golf.

    Earlier this week I snatched up the opportunity to play 18 holes with a new friend. Wow, did it feel good! I should correct that, it felt good to my soul to play… but my body thought I was nuts.

    Ditching out of work early I met Kevin over at Cottonwood. It’s a nice little muni on the south side of El Cajon. As I drove to the clubhouse I got a chance to see a number of holes and felt pretty good about the simple layouts. Not a shooting gallery and not a resort. Perfect for where my game is after 3 years off!

    I had meant to go to the driving range on Sunday… but the Chargers game stole my daylight and it didn’t happen.

    So there I was on the first hole feeling like a complete nimrod. Literally, the ball could go anywhere. I assured Kevin that anything could happen… this wasn’t going to be pretty.

    Long ago I learned that golf is a mental game merely executed with muscles and bone. If you let pride or ambivelence get in the way you’ll always play terribly and have a miserable time. Instead, I try to play the game at least semi-intelligently. For me that meant embracing the obvious. Forget the driver. (The hardest club to play in the bag.) It also meant that I needed to find 2-3 clubs that I was comfortable with and just take my medicine with them.

    That strategy worked for the most part. Predictably, when I tried to hit the 3 wood off the tee it sprayed violently. This forced me to hit crazy shots from awkward distances, around trees, over other tee boxes, etc. After a few holes I just resolved to teeing off with an iron and things improved from there.

    Kevin was a lot of fun to play with. We have very different games. He has a low ball trajectory that is mostly straight. Thankfully he was infinitely patient and had a good attitude that my shots have a high trajectory and tended to spray all over. It was pretty funny because we’d go over to his ball in the fairway… then go try to find mine off in another fairway or the rough.

    All-in-all it was a good day. With a couple mulligans I can somehow say that I broke 100. It wasn’t pretty unless you count hitting some crazy recovery shots and snaking in a few putts in the 15-20 foot range.

  • Move Update


    our big move    With the move just a few weeks away I thought it would be good to give a quick update on our move. 

    The Romeo House. We had a flurry of showings last week and only one this week. No offers, not much we can do, just keep waiting for God to reveal His plan. We are at the point where we really need to find a caretaker to live here until it sells. I’ll be the first to admit that I’d take a tenant as well. 

    The San Diego House. That’s a big part of why the whole family is going out next week. I am pretty cheap, so the expense has Kristen and I upside down. But we wanted to involve the kids in picking a place to live so they knew where they were landing. While we’ve not made a final decision we would definitely prefer to be in El Cajon, La Mesa, or some of the other town near th YS office. Lots more on that next week.

    Our moving date. I booked the truck to arrive on August 4th and leave August 7th. That’s really soon! We will likely be leaving shortly after that. School starts August 25th at the latest so we have plenty to do before Megan and Paul go to school.

    Megan McLaneSale! Yes, we will be having another, larger and longer, garage sale. Depending on the place we rent next week we may be unloading a little stuff or a lot. We’ve made decisions on a lot of inside furniture. But all the outside stuff completely depends on the place we’re moving. The more stuff we sell the more cash we have for decorating the new place and the less we need to pay to ship stuff 2300 miles. 

    The car. After 10 years we are selling the Camry. It’s been an awesome car for us. 136,000 miles and no maintenance issues. Seriously, a car wash and a fresh set of tires and its ready to sell. We’re going to sell it way below Blue Book too. Right now we are talking to various dealers about getting a new car out there. 

    The kids. They are super excited about going to San Diego to pick out a house. And I think they are ready Paul McLaneto move. Of course, they are sad that we are leaving friends behind and that they won’t be going to Amanda Moore anymore. I know I’m really sad that Paul won’t have Ms. Berringer since Megan had such a great experience there with kindergarten. At the same time they can’t wait to explore all the new things San Diego has to offer for them. 

    The job. Loving it. My co-workers are a blast! They don’t take themselves too seriously. The stuff that I’m doing, work wise, is perfect for me. It’s awesome to interact with so many youth workers around the country about our shared passion… reaching and teaching kids with the message of Jesus Christ. I’m very excited that the project I’ve been working on since I started are about ready to “go public.” There is a lot of stuff coming for this fall that just has me jazzed. Can’t wait.

    The hobby. A side benefit of having a job which captures so much of my passion is that I’ve now got new found free time. Before I had a job at the church and a hobby with YMX. Before YMX it was golf, coaching golf, watching golf, and doing anything golf. So I’ve been thinking a lot about what my hobby will be. I still don’t know. I’m thinking it may be golf… which would be right on schedule. I typically play a ton for 3-4 years then take 3-4 years off. I’ve not played much in the last 2-3 years… so I’d love to be in a league again. Maybe even go back to coaching if I can. 

    A quick addendum. A few friends were quick to point out on this post that while we won’t be seeing our Michigan friends as much, we’ll still be friends! The internet has made the world so much smaller. In fact, I’ve been reconnecting with high school friends via Facebook.  Between Facebook, blogging, IM, twitter, etc. While our proximity will be different, friendship will remain in tact. 

  • Finding a church home: Pre-search thoughts

    Pre-search thoughtsThis week marks the beginning of a new era. For the first time in more than 10 years Kristen and I begin a search for a new church home. Sure, there were other searches before– but they were always tied to employment so that’s a little different. Now that I don’t have a church job we are looking for a new church from a whole new vantage point, and that’s kind of exciting!

    And so the search begins in earnest.

    What are we looking for? There’s no simple answer to that. I wish I were one of those people who could say, “I’m looking for a church of 350-500, a certain type of music, a certain program of discipleship, a certain set of theology, a certain demographic, and looking for families like ours.” But I’m not that kind of person and this isn’t that simple.

    So, here’s the deal. We’ll visit a church at least two weeks in a row before deciding if its worth more of our investment or not. It’s simply not fair to judge anything on one shot. (Well, unless the vibe is bad. Then we may not stay beyond the cup of coffee.) We’ll play the role of visitors. We’ll fill out the cards, chat with the people welcome team, etc.

    How will we chose the churches to visit? The old fashioned way. We’ll ask some friends. We’ll search the web. We’ll drive around where we live. Stuff like that. But we’d be open to a church marketing to us. Want us to check you out and play secret shopper? Leave a comment or send me an email. Here’s a family of four looking for a place to not only attend, but contribute… come and get us! San Diego, East San Diego County, bring it.

    The non-negotiables… because we do have some standards.

    – We’re looking for a church that teaches the Biblical truth.

    – We’re looking for a church where kids are important.

    – We’re looking for a church that expects us to jump in and get involved but will be patient enough to let us settle in.

    – We’re looking for a church that is practically passionate about reaching the community we live in.

    – We’re looking for a church that values its people, all of ’em.

    Other than that, we are open. It can be an old church or a church plant. A big church or a little one. One that has a pretty white steeple or meets in a store front. A church that is huggy… uh, better skip the huggy ones. Fast and loud music or soft and boring.

    Last Sunday during the service I looked at Kristen and said, “I’m ready for the next step.” She nodded in agreement. As much as we loved our time in Romeo, it is time.

  • Brave things

    brave heartToday we booked everything for our upcoming trip to San Diego. That’s right, I said “we.” The whole family is making the trip out to check out houses and get excited about the move. We leave in less than two weeks and will be gone for 8 days. After that it’ll be less than 2 weeks until we fly out to move “for good.”

    Megan (7) has started to feel what is happening. She told mommy today, “This is a brave things we are doing together.” I think that that may have come from a conversation she and I had on Saturday. I told her, as we worked together, that this was probably the last time we’d be trimming these bushes. She shot back at me, “Yeah, we’re moving and we’ll never come back here again!”

    The word “never” lead to a discussion about God’s sense of humor and how God was laughing at our move to California. Just a couple of months ago we joked that “We’d never live in California again, we just don’t like it. It’s not for us!” Who is laughing now? I think God is. He has a funny way of rewarding my “never” with a “Oh yeah?”

    I believe God calls us to recklessly follow Him. I don’t mean we are called as Christians to be fools. But I think we are called to have “stupid faith.” God wants us to put faith in Him beyond logical fact.

    And the McLane family is learning exactly how that works. We’re taking a major step of faith. We’re leaving the security of people we love. We’ve walked away from a job we loved. We’re leaving the perfect house on the perfect street. And why? Well… because daddy (me) is pretty sure God has called us to leave.

    That’s why we can look at these tough few weeks ahead with a smile through the tears. You better believe there will be tears as we pack the truck and watch it head down Bailey Street. We’ll hug one another as this chapter of our life departs for the next one.

    I know that the kids are sad. I know Kristen is sad. And I know that life will never quite be the same for all of us… because daddy is pretty sure God has called us to leave Romeo.

    Where do you go when you’re entering times like this? I run to the classics. I think of Moses. I think of Joshua. I think I don’t want to be Jonah. I want to look into God’s eyes (figuratively, of course) and say… “It’s a crazy plan, but I will wrecklessly follow You.”

    Everyone in our house is more brave than I am. Let’s be blunt about that. For me, there is little fearGun Show because I’m not stretching myself as much as they are. I know what San Diego is like and I know where I will work. I don’t have to start at a brand new school. I don’t have to find all new friends. I don’t have to find a job. But Kristen and the kids do. Heck, even Stoney and Lovely (our dog and cat) are more brave than I am. You don’t see me getting in the cargo area of a plane.

    We’re brave together. I like that about what Megan said. To be honest, it’s a good thing to be brave together. I want to take big, bold, crazy steps of faith together as a family. God has proven Himself to me over and over… I know I can trust in Him. And I love teaching that to my kids.