Unsolicited advice that Sue say's I shouldn't leave on Katies blog

Katie, Katie, Katie….

Let me start by saying I love reading your blog. You are certainly able to clearly and thoughtfully articulate to the world (all 5 or 10 of us) your thoughts and dreams and fears. It made me smile to see me listed by name in your dream sequence. You should know that we all love you dearly and want the best for you in all that you do. So – against the advice of the smartest person I know who tells me that bloggers don’t really want to hear my opinions, and that women don’t want men to fix things but just listen – I will foolishly offer you some well intentioned words of advice and a well aimed kick in the pants (all with great love and caring).
(What can I say – I’m a father and part of a fathers job is to give unwanted advice, so here goes).
(ps: does the phrase “Be afraid, be very afraid” come to mind here?)
(Stop me if you’ve heard this one before)
(Stop here if you don’t want to hear this at all)
=================
Katie, Katie, Katie,

you have clearly determined that God has:
1. given you a calling
2. created you with the ability to fulfill that calling
3. shown you signs
4. offered you an opportunity
5. done this all with unmistakable clarity

you are able to eloquently convince all of us that:
1. this is all true
2. you are ready for this change
3. you are excited for this to happen

why do you insist on:
1. worrying about if you should do it or not? (you already know the answer)
2. looking to friends and family for advice and guidance? (we would rather give support for your decision, but until you decide, we can't because we don't know what to support)

If you resist following God’s advice (advice you prayed for and clearly received an answer for), why on earth would you follow ours? Faith is trusting in the unknown. If you are on a journey of Faith, how can you not trust?
In your dreams, God has shown you all of the wonderful things He has already provided you with on one train. On the other train He shows you many more wonderful things that He has in store for you. At some point in time they will join together (instead of crashing into each other with one winning over the other - maybe your feeling of being pulled in different directions is a result of the effort you are supposed to go through to join the two trains together. God will give you the power to do so). He has offered you this possibility at the perfect opportune moment in your life.
(remember Captain Jack Sparrows advice: Wait for the opportune moment).
You have free will and can choose whatever path. If you are destined to be somewhere, He will get you there – no matter how hard you make it on Him (and on yourself). If you take a different path than the one He offered you, He will walk with you on your path – constantly getting in your way to try to divert you towards the right direction.
(and you will hear Captain Jack’s voice saying “If you were waiting for the opportune moment, that was it”)

Here is a question that you have probably heard before (it’s not my own).
“What decision would you make if you had no fears?”

I already know the answer because you have already made it clear, which means that YOU already know the answer, which in turn means that your next blog should be about what to pack and whether to fly out of Boston or Manchester.
Of course you know all of the wonderful people that you will be leaving behind – people that will continue to love and support you. What you don’t yet know is all of the wonderful people and adventures that are awaiting you in Chicago. Maybe whatever you have hoped for in life but have not yet discovered is waiting for you out there. Every moment you hesitate to go find it leaves you standing here unfulfilled and incomplete. Maybe you will go there, find what you are supposed to find, and stay. Maybe you will go there, find what you are supposed to find, and bring it back to share with us. Whatever the answer is, it’s out THERE – not here.

So there it is. My unsolicited advice, advice that I was advised against giving (clearly I don't listen to advice either). I was sternly told that normal people who write in a blog DON’T REALLY WANT TO BE GIVEN ADVICE. I am evidently not normal people – If I write a thought that inspired anyone to want to offer advice, I would hope that they would not withhold it from me – even if the advice was “DON’T BE AN IDIOT - LISTEN TO YOUR WIFE!”

Carver Townie Tune

My favorite morning radio station WROR with Lauren & Wally is having a contest. One one the morning team guys, Tom Doyle, does parodies of songs and local towns -- called Tom's Townie Tunes. They decided to have listeners submit "Townie Tune" songs of their own about their own towns, with the grand prize being $5000 and having Tom Doyle record it and play it on air.

OK -I can do that (and could really use the 5 grand!!!)

(sing to the tune on Jimmy Buffet’s Margeritaville)

Livin’ near the Cape
Way down route 58
Watching the tourists at King Richards Faire
The traffic is a pain
Down by Savery Lane
Pickup trucks of all sizes are all we own here

Wasting away our day down here near Edaville
All our houses surrounded by bogs
Some locals complain that no one knows our real name
well it's CARVER
and no, it's NOT on Cape Cod

I don’t know the reason
Our taxes are squeezin’
Now no one who’s from here could ever afford
but we’ve got 20 sub shops
And one Chinese restaurant
With this kind of nightlife no wonder we’re bored

Wasting a whole days pay down here at Edaville
Trying to get my family a ride on the train
Some people say the Lights look good in the snow
All I know
Our winter’s nothing but rain

Over there at the gun club
It’s not even a good pub That's too bad,
maybe all the zealots would just stay in there
Our Catholic Church filling
The old Star Market building
If our God's in a strip mall we haven’t a prayer

Wasting away a day down here near Edaville
Waiting for those cranberries to float
Some people say we’ve got some old gov’nors name
But I know
We have no reason to gloat

Yes and
Some people complain theres chemicals, noise, and fog
Why’d they buy
A house by the bog

Blog MEME

it's another meme! (received from the wonderful MARGMOR - I wonder who she really is behind that ghost-writer name?)
Here's a fun quiz made up especially for bloggers. The rules are easy. Just post the quiz on your blog and answer the questions, then pass it on to five other bloggers, and link to them in your post.
(sorry, you mistake me for someone who’s savy, or who follows the rules)

1. Do you attend the Traditional Latin Mass or the Novus Ordo?
the what’s it's?
2. If you attend the TLM, how far do you drive to get there?
can't get there from here
3. If you had to apply a Catholic label to yourself, what would it be?
run-of-the-mill-poorly-trained-formerly-Protestant-basic-believer (is that even one of the choices in the available drop-down list)
4. Are you a comment junkie?
ABSOLUTELY – love to leave them (have been known to go overboard), love to see if they will actually get posted or not (someone gets all snooty and refuses to post comments that may have any hint of dissagreement or dissent - where's the fun in that, so I am compelled to see how much I can get away with saying before I cross her editor line -- BAAAH HUMBUG!) (just a little game I like to play)
I love to get them (and I don’t care if you agree or not) and am always childishly bummed when nobody leaves comments for me (I spend a lot of time being bummed)
5. Do you go back to read the comments on the blogs you’ve commented on?
Well “duh”! I love to read how witty I was!
6. Have you ever left an anonymous comment on another blog?
Sure, often – well, actually always with inserting some "witty" made-up name – I have every faith that you know who I really am! (the stupid wisecrack remarks would give it away anyway so it's not like "anonymous" is anything anonymous)
7. Which blogroll would you most like to be on?
actually, THAT I don’t put much thought into, although I suppose I would be flattered (and could be easily tricked into thinking it means you like me if you added a link to me - but alas, I'm not linked there so I know too well where I despondantly stand)
(:-(
8. Which blog is the first one you check?
HerMajesty of course (Always start with the queen! Who knows, maybe she said something nice about me!)
Then, faithfully every day (work is slow, so usually OCDishly multiple times – how am I supposed to know what time of day somebody might post, and I'd hate you to have you think that you didn't get read until the next day?) Mary, Margo, Paula, Mary’s graveyard blog, my own (just in case somebody left a comment and I didn’t get the email notification – no, I don’t screen them. If you comment, it’ll be there - say whatever you want - good, bad, or scathing). Now Julie, Corey and neice Stephanie have blogs – so my list is growning.
9. Have you met any other bloggers in person?
People I know are the only ones I care to follow. It's a neat way to keep in touch despite everybodies crazy busy schedules and "other-side-of-Boston" geographical obstacles which make it hard to see each other on a regular basis
10. What are you reading?
say what? Books? (You mistake me for somebody who reads anything OTHER than your blogs?)
Well I did just review the USAHockey rule book 2007-2009 edition - time to take my annual referee test.
I pass this quiz on to :
I got no one – they are all taken already

The Island - Oct 2007

Work is slow, so I had the day off. Kids were at school and Suzie was sleeping (after working the over-night shift). I was alone for the day and it was a warm fall day, perfect for taking a little canoe ride out to the island (no - not THAT island, the Green Harbor River family island) to see how things looked. Eric has been out during the summer to mow and clear some, to keep it from getting too over grown.

It's Almost That Time again

I just checked the calendar and counted back to when the last edition came out, and now I can feel the excitement building within. I faithfully (obsessively-compulsively) check every day to see if it's arrived (sometimes twice a day) even though I know I'm being silly - it'll get here when it gets here - but every day that it DOESN'T arrive means it's one day closer to arriving. Of course I (and many other fans I know) am eagerly looking forward to the latest edition of the "PAULA QUARTERLY REPORT" ( http://pflan.blogspot.com/ ). She is clearly the smartest blogger of us all. Instead of constantly satiating our greedy need for daily attention, she cleverly holds us at bay - making us desire her insight and philosophy all the more. Pure genius she is - and we impatiently wait, hoping today will be the day that she blesses us by sharing her genius with us.

Face-Off

Rink Rat

Hockey season 2007-2008 is officially open! 25 years of refereeing youth hockey and still enjoying it (even the clueless coaches and hapless players). It helps that my legs are still twice as long as most of the kids so I can still out-skate them end-to-end. And what's not to love - it's the one place I can go knowing that I have the authority to win every arguement (even if by some longshot I'm actually wrong, the stripes make me right).

Shame I don't get to wear them at home!

Al Oerter - 4-time Olympian Gold Medal Discus winner

Just heard on the radio that former Olympian discus thrower Al Oerter passed away today at 71 years old. Why on earth would this be noteworthy to me?

Well, first off, because I have met him. I would have been somewhere between 3 and 6 years old. Our neighbors across the street had a farm and the oldest boy Al Hall was an Olympic medal winning Hammer thrower and a friend of Al Oerters. Occassionally, the two Al's would practice together in a field on the farm.

(see also http://30phillipsst.blogspot.com/2007/02/playing-in-fields-or-halls-farm.html )

Secondly, as I was looking to see what info I could find about Mr. Oerter, I discovered a fascinating (to me anyway) comparison between him and my daughter Julie. They both started out as runners in high school, at 15 years old they both switched to discus, they both compete(d) for fun as a hobby (OK, a very serious hobby for Al) and competed with the simple goal of just throwing as far as they could (Al claimed to not understand why throwers started having rivalries because in his day they were all friends, during and after competition - and I see Julie having the same philisophical outlook). After retirement, Al took to painting as a professional artist - which is of course Julie's ultimate goal in life.

Who knows, maybe Julie will make the Olympics some day - just to complete the comparison.

(read article about Al Oerter at
http://www.iaaf.org/news/Kind=2/newsId=21022.html )