The Realm of the Verbal Processor has been on mute for the last week. We got an early morning phone call on Sunday June 29. Julie’s grandmother died. We were able to get reasonable flights to PA the same day (and Julie’s grandfather offered to pay for the flight). Grandma was 85. She and Grampa had been married for 64 years. They had been dating since they were both 14 years old. Needless to say, this had been really rough on him losing his sweetheart of the last 71 years.
In a brief conversation with Grampa this week, he mentioned that they had grown a lot closer after they retired to Florida 25 years ago. What struck me was that after 40 years of marriage (25 years ago), they grew significantly closer in years 41-64 of their marriage. That is really cool…something that Julie and I aspire to. For that matter, we have a great marriage legacy in our families. Thinking about that prompted me to write the post just below this one.
Grandma will be missed. It is only just becoming “real” to Julie. It hit pretty hard yesterday…capped off by a birthday card last night. My birthday is June 30…the day after Grandma died. They had already sent me a birthday card…it was in Grandma’s handwriting. With our traveling to the funeral over the last week, I didn’t open it until last night. Seeing her Grandma’s handwriting on my card tipped things over the edge for Julie last night. It’s very possible that this was the last birthday card she mailed.
That Sunday morning when we told my five year old that Grandma had died, she had this very brief look of shock and horror and then quickly recovered and said, “We won’t get to see Grandma any more til we get to heaven. So when we go to Grandma and Grampa’s house, we’ll only see Grampa? So now Grandma gets to see the fence?”
Julie was a little confused at first until she realized what Marybeth was talking about. “You mean the one with the pearls?” “Yeah…that one.” Then Marybeth started talking about all the things that Grandma gets to do now. She wrapped up with this (in what is a typical stream of consciousness conversation with MB): “It’s very sad for us that we won’t get to see Grandma for a long time til we get to heaven. We’ll get to see her when we go to heaven, but I don’t think God wants me to go to heaven when I’m five…when I’m a grown up. Then some day we’ll all get to go be in heaven, and there won’t be any more earth, and it will be great because no one will have to die any more.”
She just had a perfect balance of appropriate sadness because we will miss Grandma mixed with appropriate joy at recognizing that death is not the end of things. She even got the end of things right. I’m not sure how she knew this because I haven’t been teaching her any lessons from Revelation, but she nailed it.
It has occurred to me a few times that Julie and I come from a tremendous legacy of long marriages.
Both of my sets of grandparents celebrated 55 years of marriage before my grandfathers passed away. Until last week, all four of Julie’s grandparents were still living…and both sets were approaching 65 years of marriage. My parents…nearly 21 years before my dad passed away when I was 12. Julie’s parents…more than 35 years and going strong. Julie and I will hit 13 years in August. We are in really good company…and proof that marriage not only CAN work…it can work well.
Not all of those 300+ years of marriage were easy ones. Just speaking from my own experience, somewhere around years 7-9 were tough for Julie and I…mainly as a result of me working through some anger issues in my life. But during those rough times, Julie and I never considered bailing on the marriage. Our commitment to each other from the beginning was that our marriage is for life. That is the way that God designed it…I’m not going to argue with him about it. I committed that as long as Julie and I were alive, we are together. That commitment was to her, but more importantly, that commitment was made to God at our wedding. He is the one who prepared each of us for the other.
And what we have seen is that our relationship with each other just continues to grow stronger. The rough times have actually helped our relationship to deepen. No doubt that the rough times were not fun…they definitely were not. But without the conflict, our relationship would not be as strong as it is.
Here is part two of my interview with Wally Mead. This section is a bit shorter than the first one…in the flow of the questions this just seemed like the best place to break it up. I plan to post the third and final part of the interview next Tuesday, so be sure to check back for the final ten minutes.
My plan is to do some more of these personal type interviews, so I posed a question yesterday…who would you like to see interviewed? Joey started off a fantastic list of people. (He also emailed me offline saying that he would be impressed if I got his whole list…heck…I’ll be impressed if I get half of his list! Although I do already have one of those lined up!) I’d love to hear from you who you would like to know more about. So…go to the post and leave a comment voting for who you would like. If the person is already mentioned, feel free to throw in another vote for them.
But…without further rambling by me…heeeeeeeerree’sss Wally!
Based solely on the number of hits that the Wally Mead interview has gotten, I would say that the SMS/SCCM community has a fair amount of interest in getting to know more about some of the people that we see on the forums or presenting at conferences. So…who would you like to see interviewed?
Leave a comment below to let me know who you’d like to hear from. If someone has already mentioned someone that you are interested in, leave a comment anyway…let it be like adding a vote. Don’t know if I will be able to make an interview happen with those that you are interested in hearing from, but I’ll do my best. Just give me ideas of who you are interested in getting to know.
Oh yeah, I will be working on cleaning up the second part of the Wally interview and hopefully posting it later this week. Check back to hear it…or subscribe to my RSS feed to be automatically alerted.
Over the last several months I’ve developed a relationship with Wally Mead. Wally is a Senior Program Manager at Microsoft where he works with the System Center Configuration Manager product team. He handled a bug report that I submitted about SCCM (here and here…bug was fixed in SP1) and we connected offline afterwards. He had seen in the bug submission that I work for Campus Crusade for Christ, and he has had interaction with CCC in the past.
This week Wally has been in Orlando at Tech-Ed, so I invited him to come out and let me take him on a tour of CCC’s headquarters. After the tour we sat down and Wally allowed me to interview him. Below is the first portion of the interview. I will post parts 2 and 3 sometime next week.
I’d like to also offer a public thank you to Wally for taking the time to sit down with me. It was a very enjoyable time, and if Chris ends up coming to UCF, I look forward to seeing you more often!
Another thing…who else would you like to see interviewed? Let me know on that page and I’ll see what I can do.
[Update 6-22-08: It was brought to my attention in the comments below that if you don't have the Adobe Flash Plugin on your computer, you will not see the audio player that is just below the "Enjoy!" line. You can get it here if you don't already have it.]
Today around 12:30PM, Julie came up to me and asked a pretty simple question:
Would you like left over lasagna for lunch or a pork chop sandwich?
Simple question, but also very significant. That question marked the first time in more than two months that Julie had offered to fix a meal for me. It was the first time in more than two months that she felt up to it.
Still not 100%, but my wife is on the way back. It felt good to see her able to do things that she hadn’t been able to do in so long.
Got a text message from Tim first thing this morning asking me if I had heard about Steven Curtis Chapman’s five year old daughter. Yesterday afternoon Maria Sue Chapman died after being hit by an SUV in the driveway of their home. She was Steven and Mary Beth’s youngest daughter and one of their three adopted daughters. The news report that Tim heard said that one of Steven’s sons was driving the vehicle.
I can’t even begin to imagine what their family is going through right now, but I know they need for us to be praying for them today.
What has made this all the more sobering is that Maria was five years old. My youngest daughter is five. Her name is Marybeth. When Julie was pregnant with Marybeth, she had been reading a book by SCC and had come to really appreciate the honesty and transparency of both SCC and Mary Beth Chapman. As we were thinking of names for her, we kept coming back to Marybeth. Not that she is named after Mary Beth Chapman, but her name was influenced by MBC. All the more sobering.
Julie saw a shirt recently that read “When the belly button pops, you’re done!” I was highly amused.
Anyway, last night as we were going to bed, I reached over and had my hand on Julie’s belly…she has a little “bump” which is how I’ve been referring to the baby…”bump”. It just so happened that the way my hand was positioned, the tip of my middle finger was on her belly button. Then she coughed…and I felt the belly button pop out. She coughed again, and it popped out again. I started laughing, but she had no idea why. Once I told her, we both were dying laughing. We laughed so hard that we both ended up going into coughing fits after a few minutes.
It was so nice being able to laugh with her. That is the first time we have laughed together in the last couple of months because of the morning sickness. It was fun seeing her laughing and enjoying something related to this pregnancy!
For all those who have prayed for Julie’s morning-sickness, thank you. It appears to have broken on Saturday. We were talking that morning, and Julie mentioned that she really wasn’t sure if the anti-nausea medication that she was on was really doing any good. Matter of fact, there were times that she felt more sick after taking it, so she stopped taking it on Saturday. That evening she ate a full meal, and asked for dessert, and did NOT feel sick afterwards. First time in two months that has happened.
Sunday was an okay day. Then came Monday. I walked in the house after work and immediately went “Wow”. Did we hire a maid that I didn’t know about? Julie had a phenomenal day and had cleaned the entire house. This from the woman who just the week before was getting sick moving from the bed to the couch and back. She has been feeling really good all week. It has been so nice seeing some life in her eyes and hearing some spark in her voice.
No…the hangover does not refer to alcohol…didn’t have even one alcoholic beverage at MMS. It refers to a whole combination of things that adds up to my body simply being spent from last week.
Some of it is the really busy schedule. Some of it is my lack of discipline in actually going to bed at a reasonable time. Some of it is the jet lag of going from Florida time to Nevada time and back. Some of it is from getting dehydrated in the desert. Some of it is the significant jump in my caffeine intake last week…coffee and Diet Coke were nearly essential to keeping me alert for some sessions. But now my body is going through caffeine withdrawal.
What it all adds up to is that I’m just all over shot today. The tank is empty. I’m done. And I think my body has worn down enough that I’m going to get sick…I think I have a sinus infection coming on. I would appreciate your prayers for my health.
Julie had an OB visit today. While there we got to hear our baby’s heartbeat for the first time…right around 160 beats a minute. I took my MP3 player in and recorded it. I was going to link to it in this post, but my hosting provider doesn’t allow uploads of audio/video files unless you pay $20 for an upgrade. The only reason I would need the upgrade would be to add that file. I’m cheap enough that it’s not going to happen. :-)
One cool thing that happened today is that Julie and I both started to feel more of a connection with the baby. This has been much slower in coming with this baby than our two daughters. I think it is mainly because this one was such a surprise to both of us. It was cool seeing that connection take place with Julie today. With as sick as she has been lately, it was nice to see her getting some enjoyment from the pregnancy.
[Update: I figured out how to get the heartbeat on the blog. I used MovieMaker in Vista to combine the soundfile I had from the MP3 player with a picture of Julie and my daughters to create a movie file. Uploaded it to YouTube. Pretty simple. Should have thought of it sooner.]
Most of my friends know that I’m a country music fan. Currently one of my favorite artists is Brad Paisley who has a song titled “Letter To Me” (lyrics and video). The first couple of lines tells what the song is about:
If I could write a letter to me
And send it back in time to myself at 17
The song explores a lot of the anxiety that many of us went through in high school. Every little thing was huge. Every setback seemed like the end of the world.
Later in the song, towards the end of the “letter” comes this line:
And I’d end by saying have no fear
These are nowhere near the best years of your life
My wife made the observation that those are words that high school students (and so many more of us) need to hear. More than that, if there was some way to convince us of it. Whatever you are going through, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Don’t settle for second best. Don’t give up. Don’t do things you will regret simply because you think everyone else is doing it.
When Julie was pregnant with our first child, the food that she most often requested was egg sandwiches. Laurel “gestated” on egg sandwiches.
With Marybeth, the gestational fuel of choice was Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers from Wendy’s. I couldn’t even begin to tell you the number of times that I jumped in the car at odd hours to run to Wendy’s to come back with the golden food of that pregnancy.
This time around we are back to gestating on egg sandwiches. I’ve gotten pretty good at whipping one up in just a couple of minutes.
Last Friday we posted asking for prayer because of Julie’s extreme morning sickness. First of all…DON’T stop praying! Second…thank you. We should have asked for prayer sooner…one of these days I will get it through my head that prayer should be my first response instead of my last.
People started praying on Friday, and on Saturday morning Julie was able to eat a full breakfast…heck that was the first full meal she had eaten all week. She was able to leave the house for the first time in four days that afternoon. She was even able to go to church on Sunday (where we got to tell our LIFE Group that I teach). She is doing a lot better, but everything is still very tentative. We don’t think she is out of the woods, but we are hopeful.
Thank you again for talking with God on our behalf.
When we started letting people know that Julie is pregnant I knew that it is news that could be received with difficulty by a few of our friends who have struggled with infertility. I have since talked personally with both of these guys…both are truly happy for us. At church this morning I was talking with one of them…a guy who has been told by his doctor that he and his wife will never be able to have children.
During our conversation he mentioned being on an airplane last year in which there were a couple of small children who were making normal baby noises. One of the men sitting close to him grumbled something about crying children on airplanes. My friend turned to the guy and said something that gave him a little perspective…it went something like this:
When the doctor tells you that you will never hear those sounds in your house…those sounds become the most precious in the world.
My friend’s words gave the guy a little perspective, and he stopped grumbling. I am generally very sympathetic towards parents with children on airplanes. I’ve been in that spot. As much as you want to do your best to keep your child from disturbing other people…you only have just so much control…the child has a mind and a will of their own.
I will also add that as a traveler, I always go prepared. I travel with my noise canceling headphones and a set of foam earplugs in my computer bag. Normally I use the headphones because it cancels out the engine roar and makes for a more pleasant flight. However…I always have the earplugs as a backup…just in case I am right next to a child whose ears are hurting due to air pressure changes.
A little more than a month ago I came home from work and was talking with my wife about what had gone on that day. In the midst of the conversation she said that she felt like something was poking her through her clothes and asked me to look to see if I could find what it was. When I started looking I saw this:
That picture may not mean much to some of you. It’s a pair of “precious feet“…a lapel pin the same size and shape of a baby’s feet at 10 weeks after conception. Julie had used this same pin to tell me that we were pregnant with our youngest daughter. To quote my friend Jason, “Holy Schnikey!”
Now I know what some of you are thinking…I thought Jarvis said they weren’t going to have any more children. Well…what I actually said was that since our first two children didn’t sleep through the night til they were almost two years old (and sleep deprivation is a very effective form of torture…even if inflicted by a small child), God would have to speak very clearly for us to have another child…birth control would have to fail. Uh…well…God spoke.
Julie is currently 8 weeks pregnant, and we are still a bit shellshocked. This little one is definitely a surprise. We are adjusting to the fact that our family size is going to increase around the beginning of November or so. It still hardly seems real except that Julie is experiencing the worst “morning sickness” that she has ever had. BTW…has there ever been a bigger misnomer? “Morning” sickness? Please. I beg you…give us sickness that is just in the morning. This stuff is “24-hour-a-day-sickness.” And it is killing us.
We were originally planning to keep the pregnancy a secret for a bit longer, but at this point we really need your prayers. This sickness is brutal…on Julie and the rest of the family. Because the sickness has been so strong, Julie has barely been able to get off the couch most days which means that she hasn’t been able to do the things that she normally does around the house…so those things fall to me after I come home from work. We are both simply exhausted. I don’t know that I can remember a time when I have felt more fatigued.
So, please pray for us. Specifically you can pray for:
Safety/health for our baby. While we have been too sick/tired to be joyful yet, we are looking forward to meeting this little person and want the best for whoever he/she may be.
For the sickness to let up soon. Like I said…this is killing us.
For strength for me as I try to be both Dad and Mom to our two daughters (who are eight and five years old). I am desperately trying to not let my tiredness bleed over into being impatient/snappy with them. Some days I do well…some days I don’t.
We have some friends whose teenage sons are swimmers. They have only started swimming in the last year, but they are apparently really really good. The oldest placed third in his first swim meet…before he learned how to do a flip turn. He literally had to swim to the wall, stop, turn around and start swimming again. And he placed third.
Anyway, he was in a fairly big swim meet today. He doesn’t normally do the whole body shave thing, but this was a big enough meet that he did. One of the events that he was entered in was the 100 Meter Butterfly. Before the event, he didn’t make sure that his speedo was adequately tied/fastened/whatever…having never worn a speedo, I don’t know what he didn’t do right. But I know you can see where this is headed…
He dove in. The water ripped the speedo off. And he proceeded to finish the event naked…and mooned the spectators with every stroke.
His mom told us that there was professional level cheering going on. She also later told her son that it could have been worse…he could have been swimming the backstroke. He said he would have stopped if that had been the case! He also made sure everything was properly fastened before every other event.
For a while I’ve been hearing the Toby Keith song “Love Me If You Can” on the radio. It has struck me often that the chorus very much describes me. It goes:
I’m a man of my convictions. Call me wrong, call me right. … You may not like where I’m going, but you sure know where I stand. Hate me if you want to, love me if you can.
In the important things in life, I am very “black and white”. I have my convictions, and I can tell you why I believe what I believe. You may not agree with me. For that matter, I’m positive that some people despise me because of some of my beliefs. Regardless of how you feel about my beliefs…if you know me…you will know where I stand on core issues in life.
Today I saw an AP article written about a researcher at UVA who was looking at why humans typically have a fear of snakes. The question she asked herself was, “Where did that fear come from?” They did an experiment with 24 adults and 24 preschoolers that gives a logical conclusion that people do have an innate snake phobia. Her conclusion was “We have an evolutionary bias against snakes…”
I’d like to offer another possibility. I know that many of the people reading this won’t necessarily agree with my world view…that’s okay…just hear me out. (Side note: perhaps I need to put up a post about my world view…that could be a good discussion starter.)
Part of my world view involves taking a look at the part of the Bible called Genesis. Specifically at chapter 3 of Genesis. If you aren’t aware, Genesis chapters 1 and 2 talk about how God created everything. Chapter 3 then talks about how sin (think of it as wrongdoing) first entered creation…and the effect that sin had on creation. Part of that narrative is that Satan takes the form of a snake to deceive the first two humans. Jumping ahead to the middle of chapter 3, we read where God says to the snake, “You and this woman will hate each other; your descendants and hers will always be enemies…”
So…it’s no surprise to me that humans typically have a snake phobia. God said we would.
Yeah, the researcher can postulate that it is based on “an evolutionary bias”. The writer of the AP article states that the researcher “believes it is because snakes would have posed a significant threat to our ancestors…”
Personally, I’m gonna believe that what Genesis has to say about it has more validity.
Headed back to the doctor on Saturday. Since starting the azithromycin, my throat got significantly worse, and both ears were killing me. Saw a different doctor yesterday. Definitely sinusitis, and add an ear infection in on top of it.
She took me off of the medication I was on, and put me on Avelox and Rhinocort. I really hope those two get the job done…I discovered as I was checking out at the pharmacy that neither of them are on the “preferred drugs” list for our health insurance. $50 co-pay EACH. I went in expecting to pay $10…I was a bit surprised to see the extra zero.
She also recommended Benadryl for some of the symptoms, so I picked some up. Boy did I ever figure out that I hate that stuff. It made me loopy. I was barely functional…I didn’t exactly lose the ability to sit upright, but it wasn’t far from it. After that one dose wore off, I went back to the Mucinex-D that I had been using before. It handled the symptoms and leaves me able to walk around and carry on a conversation.
It has really struck me how much this sickness has taken out of me. I am just all over weak. In the middle of the night I woke up hungry (because I haven’t felt like eating much in four days), so I grabbed a banana. I got out of breath standing in the kitchen eating a banana. Everything I do just wears me down. I simply have no energy at all.
The Realm of the Verbal Processor has been on mute for the last week. We got an early morning phone call on Sunday June 29. Julie’s grandmother died. We were able to get reasonable flights to PA the same day (and Julie’s grandfather offered to pay for the flight). Grandma was 85. She and Grampa had been married for 64 years. They had been dating since they were both 14 years old. Needless to say, this had been really rough on him losing his sweetheart of the last 71 years.
Over the last several months I’ve developed a relationship with Wally Mead. Wally is a Senior Program Manager at Microsoft where he works with the System Center Configuration Manager product team. He handled a bug report that I submitted about SCCM (
