Personal

The forecast is for about 7 inches of snow tonight. If that happens I may be able to work from my office in my house with my slippers on all day.

I love my job and the people I am blessed to work with but I have been running hard for awhile and I would love to not have to get out into traffic and be productive right here at my own desk.

We’ll see what happens.

Sorry I’ve been away,

My web host just updated the software that manages my domain and site. The old one was hard for a non techy like me to understand sometimes. The new software is much easier and last night while poking around I found the web stats and was shocked by how many people actually visit this space.

As a result I have a new found resolve to post here more often. This space has mostly been used to process my own thoughts while believing no one really read it anyway. Not that I will change the way I write, for better of for worse, it’s just very interesting to me that people would be interested in my ramblings.

So if your a regular thank you for checking out my thoughts. Please make use of the RSS feed. It’s a great way to stay connected. I would also love to hear your thoughts. The comments stay on until the spammers get involved however there is a small window of opportunity to post your thoughts. When you get involved it makes it much more fun for me.

Blessings to you. I look forward to more interaction.

A bad combination,

The wind has been keeping me up for the last few nights, I’ve had a mildly stressful week, and all my projects are at a place that I don’t want to start something. I should just go home because I’m not very productive sitting here.

I’m usually here by 7:30, or before, and Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday I worked through lunch so that’s about 5 hours in the bank. I did go to a teacher conference on Thursday. That takes 1 1/2 hours out of the bank so I’m left with 3 1/2 hours. It’s 3:15 I could conceivably go home. The place is a bit like a ghost town anyway so why shouldn’t I go?

As I look into my correspondence folder I’m way behind so I guess I’ll get to work.

Nice try. Seems there’s always something that needs doing.

Proverbs 10:4

I just opened a twitter account. As if anyone cares that I’m eating a bagel or staring off into space.

If your interested in completely irrelevant and occasionally comical posts about what’s going on in my day. you can go to http://twitter.com/gtrobee and subscribe.

Could be fun you never know.

A couple of weeks ago Hayden asked if he could get his lip pierced.

Not wanting him to be restrained by the law but instead freed by the law. I did a bunch of research and told him to read it all and we would talk about it.

He read it and got very encouraged and began to believe that I was going to say yes. Actually I almost did. There was something however that just didn’t sit well with me and I wasn’t sure what it was other than the obvious. I guess what it came down to for me was it starts down a road that I don’t like the end of and he’s only 14.

When I told him what my decision was he argued a little and then left the room very disappointed. About 5 minutes later he came back in and said. “Dad I had made up my mind that whatever you said I would be ok with and I wasn’t. Will you forgive me?”.

I almost cried. What else can you ask for from your kids? No he’s not perfect but in the words of “Alabama” close enough to perfect for me”.

People say to me all the time “you are such a great dad, look at your kids.” I would like to think that Kim and I have done some things right, however I know we have failed in many areas, I see the hand of God all over both of our boys.

Thank you to everyone who has been a Godly example in there lives they are the way they are partially because of you. I am so blessed to have the kids I have and the friends that I have.

What an amazing experience!

Esther Fleece, remember that name because you will see it again. She is one of the most amazing people you will ever meet. A few months ago she was at our home talking about, among other things, her vision for the Mormon Church. My family and I were members of the Mormon Church in Mesa AZ when I was in the 1^st through the 5^th grade and was baptized in the temple in Mesa. I don’t remember specifics of the religion other than they were there for us when we really needed them. So I expressed my heart for the church to her at that time.

A few weeks later she called and invited me to go on this trip and I told her I would pray about it. Later I wondered why I needed to pray this was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up. I told her that if we were going to go to tell them they were wrong and we had the answer I wasn’t interested. She told me her heart was to be the aroma of Christ. Now that is something I can get behind!

The trip was so far and above what I expected it honestly humbled and amazed me time after time. On Thursday we spent the day volunteering at the Salt Lake City Dream Center. Pastor Alfred has such a passion to serve the poor and needy, specifically refugees that have come to Salt Lake from the most horrible conditions including slavery and polygamous families. We were blessed to take about 100 of these children to the zoo. In spite of the weather, 50 degrees and raining, we were so blessed. Over 90 languages are represented with roughly half of them Muslim and many do not speak English. In the afternoon we sorted donated clothes and household items. Every week they supply fresh food, clothing, and other necessities to hundreds of people in desperate need. Pastor Alfred said “feed them fresh food and they will come. Anyone can give away canned stuff we only give the best”. He was talking about physical needs but he had that twinkle in his eye that said there was a spiritual parallel. What an amazing privilege.

I was so amazed at the unity in the body of Christ in that city. Everyone was working together to further the Kingdom. To meet physical and spiritual needs. God has the right people there leading these ministries.

On Thursday night we were on our way to a high place above the city to pray when Esther received a phone call telling her that our meeting with the LDS leaders was cancelled. She was not convinced. We had prepared ourselves and God had given us such a unity in the team and a passion to be His aroma that we knew God had other plans. So we prayed until very late believing that He would bring things together. We got up in the morning and prepared for the meeting, you know the one that was cancelled and on our way to the tour of temple square the phone rang again this time saying the meeting was on!

We were met at temple square by Cody, who is in Public Affairs/Relations for the LDS church. I was blessed to really connect with him. He is a very good man. After the tour we were welcomed into the parlor of the Lion House to meet with Dr. Bob Millet (Dean, Professor at BYU), Elder Todd Christofferson, who is in the First Presidency of the 70, three other members of the Public Affairs/Relations team, as well as Rev. Gregory C.V. Johnson, director and two of his team from Standing Together who’s vision is to unite Christians for greater spiritual impact.

It was such an amazing meeting I felt as if we were with old friends. We laughed and talked about where there is common ground without ignoring the major differences in theology. I have never been in such a meeting in my life. What a great God we serve.

On Friday night and Saturday we were privileged to attend The Truth Project, an initiative of Focus on the Family led by Dr. Del Tackett. Dr. Millet attended the conference with us and I was stunned by his desire to sit with our team. I expected him to come Friday out of courtesy and then not come back on Saturday. However he was in his seat waiting for us before every session. I have such a deep love and respect for him.

On Saturday we attended K2 the church and heard a great message entitled “What does God do all day?” and then helped feed the homeless in the park before heading home.

I know that I will be back to Salt Lake City. God has birthed something in me. I’m still working it out but I am confident that God is at work and I don’t want to miss a thing!

Here are some related links:

http://www.k2thechurch.com

http://standingtogether.org

http://www.thetruthproject.org/

http://queenes.wordpress.com/

http://personal.atl.bellsouth.net/w/o/wol3/chrisdt1.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_L._Millet

There are some pictures here.

Not homesick but home sick.

I think I got a bad chicken sandwich on the way home Sunday and I paid for it all day yesterday. I can finally eat something today. I should be back to abnormal tomorrow.

Iv’e been sitting around watching TV Land. I never realized how much we have regressed. (is that a word?) Gunsmoke and Bonanza are great shows with very good acting and great writing. Then I watched the “A” team. Wow that was awful. Terrible writing and bad acting.

Then I think about tv today. I don’t watch much of it I admit however what I have seen is very shallow. Looks like another sure sign of evolution.

Seams like we are watching a lot of movies.

last night we watched “World Trade Center” on DVD. If you haven’t seen it I highly recommend it. I went back and forth from wanting to burst into tears and wanting to fight

The movie really focuses on the heroism and selflessnes of the first responders. However it really pointed up to me the complete evil that attacked us on September 11th. And I mean us.

Kim and I have been there and stayed at the Marriott World Trade Center and had been to Windows on the World. I know many people who worked in those towers. Fortunately everyone got out except Steven Mulderry. I spoke of him in an earlier post.

I don’t know what I am trying to say other than we must take this threat seriously and believe that these people want us dead. I don’t care what there reasons are. There premise makes it impossible to approach them with any other purpose than to defeat them.

American Thinker has an interesting series of articles called Pacifism and the Sword. It presents a pretty good argument.
part one

part two

part three

part four

part five

part six

part seven

I did not plan to go here and I don’t intend this space to be a political BLOG there are plenty of people much better at that than I am. I guess I just needed to vent.

Thank you for indulging me.