I don’t think I’ve put my skates on in 3 or 4 years. Today I cleaned them up a bit, strapped them on, and went off towards the skate park 9 blocks away.

This is part of my long term goals for getting in shape prior to having kids. Goal one was to loose 36lbs. Did that two weeks ago, but have since hovered around that weight because of Easter candy, and some parties that have made the diet tough (too much food left laying around the house). Goal 2, is to lose 25 more lbs. Goal 3 and 4 have something to do with weight loss and how much I can work out in a stretch, but I haven’t figured those out yet (I’m guessing 4 will be about finding a way to work out in the winter that doesn’t involve freezing).

Anyway, 9 blocks from my house I collapsed on a bench and stared longingly at the quarter pipes and rails. All my high school life, and most of my college life I would have killed to live this close to a skate-park. 3 years in this house and I haven’t gone near it on skates.

After my wheezing fits stopped, I went in and drug my skates across a couple rails, and realized that there was no way I should be trying this today. So I skated home.

When home I collapsed on the couch, downed an entire nalgene bottle of water, and my wife made fun of me.


I have never been in such terrible shape. Neither have my skates. I can’t spin the wheels on them and have them go a more than a couple rotations without making a grinding sound and coming to a halt. A couple wheels won’t even spin a full rotation.

So this weekend I’m going to a running shoe store to get my feet looked at and see what kind of shoes will work for some jogging. I also just want new shoes for trekking around on my cruise (as well as maybe doing some jogging on the ship track).

But my other decision is: To get new skates or not? In MN you can jog more than skate (in-climate weather isn’t terrible on shoes but it is on bearings in wheels). And, if I get new skates do I get another set of aggressive skates to replace my now 10 year old ones, or do I get fitness skates?


In completely unrelated news we got our income tax refund (which was substantial this year! I was very surprised), and using that we sent in the pay-off check for the car, meaning we are now saving money for a new-to-us car for when we have kids.

We are debating between a sedan (thinking maybe a prius or a 2010 honda insight if new), a ‘sport’ wagon (which is the new imaginary name for a station-wagon), a wagon-sedan / hatchback thing (like the toyota matrix), or a mini-van (honda odyssey or mazada 5’s both look interesting). Also, I’m taking suggestions on years and makes of cars that are used that you like. I like my saturn pretty well, but it is kinda small for having kids on a longerish trip. Our rule-of-thumb is ‘can we take a kid and all our stuff on a week-long trip to St. Louis?’


Finally, we are flying down to the national Vineyard conference in Galveston, TX on May 3rd. I’m super-pumped. Then we leave on our Caribbean cruise May 10th from Galveston. Everything but the first hotel, my birthday party, and the on-shore activities are planned. And even those are budgeted for, so we are feeling really excited.


We planned a lunch and organized some of the clean-up for a breakfast for the end of our churches 40-days of faith campaign. It was a ton of work, and I learned a lot, but it was also super-fun. I never thought I would get that much done in one shot as a leader. Ironically that is more delegated accomplishment than I seem capable of in my professional life. It sucks paying a vendor to do work for you, that you feel like you scoped really well, only to end up with crap. That has happened to me several times now at my job.

But, it was AWESOME to have it work right at church. THANK YOU! to everyone who helped out, you were awesome.

Anyway, enough narcissistic adventures in Ben-land. Hope your having a great day.