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Introduction To The House of Carr
Introduction To The House of Carr

Happy Birth-date Kaelyn!

Today was the day that our daughter was supposed to be born. Yeah, she was overly excited about experiencing the world so she came two months early. Despite all the craziness, and a health care system that exploits the masses [for a later post], I'm so grateful for this bonus time. Last night was probably one of the best nights she's slept so far, waking up only once. I fed her a few hours ago, put her back to bed and headed out to a coffee shop to get some work done [no, she's not by herself; Kelly's there].

As I sat there feeding her, with the morning sun illuminating the city around us, I thought about who she'd become. Yesterday we went for a walk in Eden Park and Kelly and I were talking about Kaelyn; how I hope she's smart and that she loves music as much as we do. There's so much I want for her. And so much I want to do with her: teach her, inspire her, start her off on the right path to become a well balanced human being.

So I tell her deep thoughts . . . and she spits up. So I sing to her . . . and she messes her diaper. So I play the guitar for her . . . and she ignore me.

Right now she'd listen to me say or sing anything as long as I'm holding a bottle to her mouth.

She's cool like that.

A few days ago a good friend of mine asked what kind of parenting style we were using. I had no idea I was even supposed to be using a style, so I'm tempted to feel as if I'm screwing up. But looking at her this morning, I thought it doesn't really matter. Right now I'm just loving loving her. I might hold her too much, or not enough, depending on who you ask. Maybe I shouldn't let her fall asleep on me as much as I do, but I don't care.

Everyone and their grandmother keeps telling me that she's only this age/size once so savor every minute of it. People tell me that the only thing that matters at this stage is that we love her. I can so do that.

And I will. Happy birth-date, Kaelyn.

Went To A Boxing Match . . .

Went up to Glendale tonight to watch Dale from church play hockey. You wouldn't imagine Dale to be the hockey type, but he definitely gets into it on the ice. His team won and I think he got an assist. This is the first time I've seen hockey played live in a long time [and I was the only spectator tonight], so let me throw out some observations for you. 1) Hockey has got to be one of the most difficult sports to play. I can't even skate, so the thought of wielding a stick and skating at the same time takes a certain level of coordination that I just don't have.

2) Hockey has to be seen live to fully enjoy it. Even at this amateur level, it's so impressive in person. I think that's why NHL television rating still struggle. That and canceling last season really didn't help. And the rules can be confusing. And it's tough to see the puck on TV. And this is America and not Canada. But beyond that, I can't think of any reasons why hockey ratings are poor.

3) In every pick-up league, regardless what the sport, there's that one guy who's freaking awesome. This guy on Dale's team was all over the place, playing like it was a NHL try-out. With 20 seconds left in the game he took it down the ice, was tripped up by a defender and still managed to get a shot off while lying on the ice. And he scored. And I said, "Holy crap!"

4) Wearing shorts to watch the game was a bad idea. For some reason I didn't think that it might be cold at the rink. I had to go get some coffee to avoid freezing.

4) The goalie in the next game was sporting a jersey with number 69. The whole wearing "69" thing is really played out. Did anyone really wear that number before Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure? That was so last decade.

5) To close out, one confession: the whole time I was sitting there, I desperately wanted to call out, "Flying V!"

That's all about that. Rangers back in the playoffs. Long live Messier!

What's Going On

A few things to note as we're rocking through this weekend: 1) Last night I got back to playing soccer again. I thought a two-year absence from playing wouldn't be such a big deal in a co-ed over 30 league, but I was way wrong. I was grossly out of shape and sorta embarrassed myself. Great motivation for me to get back in shape, though. By the end of this session, I might get back in the swing of things. I hate to suck.

2) I'm now signed up with a website for engaged couples who need a pastor to officiate their wedding. A lot ministers refuse to do weddings of couples if they're not church attenders, but I figure that if the couple is going to get married anyway, better a minister to help them through the process than a justice of the peace. The website www.weddingpastorsusa.com. We'll see if anything comes from it.

3) Happy Birthday to my nephew Kasey. One day I'll explain to you that you share your birthday with Muhammad. Kaelyn's still a little too young to hang around a bunch of germ infested kids, so we just made a brief appearance at Chuck E. Cheese for the party [I wonder if me and Chuck E. have the same middle name. Also, I wonder if the franchise was the inspiration for the Public Enemy rapper]. It was the same Chuck E. Cheese where I had my eighth birthday party. Looked like fun but, I swear, the band was fake.

4) Masters Weekend is here. The best sporting event ever, as I discussed last year. Plus, I have more than a passing interest in who wins. I check out Lance McAllister's website daily and was able to get a trio of PGA golfers for the chance at a golf gift certificate. One of my three: Chad Campbell, who is currently in the lead. So my interest in this year's Masters is enhanced now that I have something to gain from it.

That'll do for now.

Explaining the Stages

Kaelyn turns two months old on Sunday. Even though she's a little bit away from huge developmental stages, she's gaining weight and size everyday. But besides those changes, she's clockwork- as predictable as death and taxes. ***quick note here: I thought for five minutes for another phrase to finish "as predictable as" and came up zeros. I wished to avoid it seeing as my taxes are never predictable- especially now that I live in the city limits- and there are people in the Bible that didn't die. Just thought I'd let you know.

Anyway, Kaelyn goes through four different stages in three hours time. Here's what it looks like:

1) Going Crazy This is when I claim that Kaelyn takes after her mother. Out of nowhere, the baby emerges from her slumber with flailing arms and legs, as if she's trying to escape her skin. This is the stage that produces the most crying, because she is desperately hungry. It's interesting that Kaelyn goes from serene to loco in thirty seconds in stage one. By far the shortest of the stages, if we're talking on the phone when it happens, you'll want to end the conversation.

2) Feed Me, Seymour At the beginning of this stage, Kaelyn assaults the bottle with fury; she's on a mission, knowing exactly what she wants. Her eyes are huge, rarely blinking. She eats at a consistent pace: suck, suck, squeak. It's during this stage that we'll stop the feeding for a moment to change her diaper because she's come down from stage 1. We try to give her a good burp which sometimes yields a spit up. The worst is when it comes out her nose. Not because she dislikes, but you can't predict it coming. Last week a milk projectile from her nose ended up in my mouth. Not good.

3) Mellow Yellow I'm not suggesting that my daughter will ever experiment with marijuana but, if she does, this is what she'll look like. During this stage I plug in our lava lamp, turn on some Jim Morrison and light some incense. Kaelyn makes some more squeaking sounds while freely moving her appendages as if looking for a pinata. It's pretty crazy; not as crazy as stage one, but still crazy nonetheless.

4) Enter Sandman Usually, within a half hour of eating, she's ready to dose off. She loves sleeping on her stomach [more on that in another post], so we try to let her fall asleep on us, making the transition to the bassinet. She'll babble for a few minutes and, next thing you know, she's gone. And then you breathe, knowing that she'll be back to stage one in a few more hours.

I know she'll grow out of this soon, but at least, for now, we know what to expect.

One Year

You ever wonder why a year's time is so significant? Looking back on my blog, I have a lot of entries commemorating various anniversaries and birthdays- time periods measured in year increments. Why is it that there's no sense in observing three hundred days time, but add another sixty-five days and then you have something?

But a year is an ideal amount of time. It's not too long, but not too short; it takes time to get there, but it happens quickly. It allows you time for reflection, time to move on.

I'm thinking about this because it was a year ago this week that my aunt took her own life. I remember that day vividly. I was supposed to go to Reds Opening Day. Awakened at 5:30 in the morning with a phone call from my dad, hearing the horrible news. Heading across town to be with my parents, and the heading over to see my uncle. Talking to my siblings on the phone, struggling to deal with it, and then having to be to tell my grandmother. It seems like so long ago, but I still feel that sick feeling in my stomach.

Our family still has a rough time dealing with it all. I think we don't talk about it because we're still not sure how to adjust to life without her. We had our family holiday get-togethers like we always do, but it was awkward. There was an elephant in the room that we ignored. Barbara was a huge part of us. Even a year later, we haven't figured out how to deal with it, but I pray that the coming year helps us to open up a little more.

One thing's for sure: I sure do miss her. I really wanted to fit Barb into Kaelyn's name, but it wasn't happening; just couldn't make it work. But I'll have great fun in the years to come telling my daughter about her great-aunt Barbara.

Sometimes a year is a long time. Sometimes it's not quite long enough. I guess it depends on what you're talking about.

Here's a link to the memorial I wrote about Barb last year.

Bloggin' Ain't Easy

After wrapping up this post I noticed that it's a geeky web conversation, so you might not be interested. I've had a rather productive week, so I indulged myself with a side project.

I've enjoyed the past year and a half of blogging so much that I wanted to make sure I could get a printed copy of my blog; I mean, I enjoy that y'all faithfully check this out, but I really do it for me. Someone tipped me off to a service called BlogBinders that makes a book out of your blog. After toying with the idea for a few months, I decided to go for it.

BlogBinders works with many different varieties of blogs, but Blogger is a horse of a different color. I had to mess with the html in my template and change almost all of the settings on my blog. The result was supposed to put all my 400+ posts on the front page of my blog which I could save in an html file and send to the BlogBinders people who would make it into a book I could save.

Long story short: I tried multiple times but the BlogBinders site would not accept my blogs. Not only that, but it seriously screwed with my blog, so all my previous posts were barely readable and all the comments were eliminated. And the Blogger system saw how I was messing with my blog and decided I was some sort of p0rn/spam website. Now I have to put in a verification code just to make a post.

To remedy my situation, I had to save my html code, briefly switch over to a generic Blogger template, and then reinstall my old code. I know this is a bunch of geek talk, but after hours of working with this I ended up with no book, a screwy blog, and a bad attitude.

But I'm not giving up. After some more research, I discovered that BlogBinders uses a service called Cafepress- a publish-it-yourself book site. So I'm going to save all my posts [including images, which BlogBinders wouldn't let you do] in a PDF and try doing it this way. I'll keep you updated on the process.

So if you're looking to publish your blog, you might want to try BlogBinders. But if you have Blogger, steer clear; it's definitely not worth it.

The Ever-Expanding Blogosphere

Disasters come in 3's. Apparently, so do new bloggers. First there was Aaron Burgess. Larry Budde started a My Space blog that I would link to but can't [because My Space sucks] so his RSS feed is here. And now Emily Hill is joining the web log world. All these people are friends involved in Echo, but are also articulate people with interesting things to say.

Just keep writing, friends. Nothing is as depressing as a stagnant blog.

p.s. A must read is Emily's post about the benefits of living here in the city, more specifically, Walnut Hills.

Meet The Neighbors

Skipped out on our prayer meeting tonight [terribly pagan of me, huh?], and headed over to the monthly East Walnut Hills Community Association meeting; I had planned on attending before Kelly was in the hospital, but never got around to it. First, I should note that I don't think we live in East Walnut Hills. My uncertainty was reinforced as I asked around tonight where the border of East Walnut Hills is. I received differing answers. But I do know for certain that the Walnut Hills Church that we rent IS in East Walnut Hills, so we should be involved in what goes on in our community.

The meeting was well worth attending. I got the opportunity to meet some local business people as well as expose Echo to some residents in the community. And it was exciting to hear about some of the things happening in the area. I'm hoping to attend the meeting every month, get our church involved in the neighborhood, and plant some roots.

It was interesting to learn about the new businesses moving in every month. After the meeting, I even stopped by a new coffee place [Cafe Moca] that opened at Woodburn and Madison. They have free wi-fi and good coffee, so I might have a new hang out.

The toughest part of starting this church has been getting into the community. I think the next few months will be huge for us making connections in the community.

I'm really excited about the future.

If You've Got Soul . . .

And now, a personal subject. I decided to change my picture on the blog for one taken on my thirtieth birthday. If you know me well, you'll notice it's a little different than my regular appearance:

A smaller soul patch.

"What is a soul patch?" you ask. I respond, "it's the little tuft of hair below my lip." I shaved it off on Christmas Eve, determined to turn a new page, but I just couldn't do it. I felt naked without it; I just had to grow it back. Honestly, I would've given it up long ago, but Kelly encouraged me on the journey. Thanks, Kelly, for believing in me . . . and my flavor-saver.

To the best of my knowledge, I started growing it about five years ago. I was by no means on the cutting edge of this facial hair trend, but jumped on the bandwagon quickly. The soul patch was the follow up of the goatee, which I was never able to sport because of personal hair growth limitations. So the soul patch has done me well.

But now, I'm constantly living in fear that I'll miss the last stop of this trend. Who wants to be the guy hanging onto the soul patch years after it's out of style. I know there are some of you who will claim that I needed to abandon this ship long ago, but I think I can still make it work. It's not like this is a p0rnstache.

WHAT DID HE SAY?

I said, at least it's not a p0rnstache.

"What's a p0rnstache?" you ask.

I respond, "it's the 1970's era mustache made popular by p0rn stars."

Here's a great visual example: I was unfamiliar with the terminology until I heard it years ago on the Jim Rome show. Admit it, you never knew just quite how to classify it, but the description is apropos. Despite this facial hair fad being deader than Eddie Murphy's career, you know you've spotted some of these in the past few years. It's usually the guy who thought he was cool for growing it out back during the Carter Administration, loved to drive his TransAm with the t-tops off while quoting lines from Smokey and The Bandit. The poor sap has never quite been able to bring himself to put a Bick to his upper lip.

This, friends, is what I fear.

I know the soul patch will not work forever. At some point I have to give up the ghost. But I just can't bring myself to do it. There's entirely too much skin between my chin and bottom lip. I might have to admit that someday, I'll be no better than those p0rnstache sporting fellows.

Me and Apolo Anton Ohno- soul patches united in gold medal quality glory.

Preach It, Preacher

Preachers are interesting people. Give a guy a pulpit and a microphone and absolutely nothing will stop him from getting through his message. I guess the line of thinking is, "I worked all week on this sermon and I'll be damned if anything will stop me from getting through it." I remember when I was a kid going to church in Price Hill, there was a shoot-out going on across the street. The police came over and told us we had to move to a less exposed part of the building to ensure our safety. So about forty of us moved into a back hallway while the minister continued on with his sermon as if nothing happened.

We shall overcome . . . any distraction.

With that in mind, I present to you video of a preacher determined to finish his message . . . despite the fact the a loud fire alarm [including strobe light warning] blares behind him. Do you think anyone was actually listening to his point or were they wanting to get away from this annoying sound. By the way, it's so bad that, as I was downstairs listening to this clip on my Mac, Kelly came downstairs to ask me where the alarm was coming from. If listening to it on the internet is that horrible, can you imagine if you had been there?

Sometimes you just have to admit defeat and move on. Dude should've cut it off.

HT: Bob

One Down, a Lifetime to Go

Just in case you were wondering, I had a good day today. Funny how the time change doesn't affect you as much when you don't have to wake up for church [ah, the benefits of church at night!]. Kaelyn's been up with increasing frequency during the night, which means sleep is a commodity. So when we get the opportunity to sleep in, we take advantage of it.

I had everything ready for church tonight, so all I had to do today was hold my daughter. Tough life. As Kelly and I talked about things, we decided that this would be the week that we would finally take Kaelyn to church. That made me happy for two reasons:

1) Kelly would finally be able to come to church after a four week hiatus. 2) Kaelyn would finally get to hear her daddy preach.

I feel a little bad for the girl. She has 18 more years of having to listen to me speak on Sundays, in addition to what she'll get throughout the rest of the week. She'd have to get used to it sometime, so we started her off tonight. The text I preached from was Genesis 29 & 30, concerning Jacob's dysfunctional family. I promise to Kaelyn that I will always put the "fun" in our dysfunctional family. She did a great job, staying pretty silent throughout the message, mumbling an occasional "amen" in her sleep.

I asked her afterward how I did. She spit up. Don't know how to take that. I'll ask her again in a couple of years.

Like I said, it was a good day.

Say A Little Prayer For You?

A new "scientific study" has given print/internet media the opportunity for a fun headline day. Here were some of the headlines published after a report from the American Heart Journal concerning prayer for heart surgery patients: "No benefit of prayer found after surgery" "Prayer for the ill may do more harm than good" "Prayer does not heal the sick"

Way to piss off a bunch of religious folk there, guys.

This study, along with all other studies concerning prayer and health, are a royal waste of time and money. They is no possible objectivity in these studies because the funding behind them is given to produce a certain response. It's all for propaganda- for Christians to say prayer is scientifically proven to be powerful or for scientists to say claim that it's proved to be useless. With both sides out to prove their own preconceived notions, who gives a rip what their research shows?

As a pastor, I have yet to meet someone hospitalized who, when asked if they wanted prayer, refuse it. Does it work? It depends what you're looking for. Sometimes they recover physically and sometimes they don't. But if you believe that there is a God who answers prayer, then is the most important result a healing in this life? Maybe the prayer accomplishes something more, something immeasurable in scientific terms. This entire subject is way beyond the realm of science to be able to answer in a single study. But keep trying there, scientist man. It's not like there's cancer to cure or AIDS to eradicate.

Allow me to propose just one hiccup in such a study. This study claims that people who didn't receive prayer did as well or even better than those that did. But what if, somewhere in the world, there's an extremely faithful, extremely spiritual little girl who prays every night before she goes to bed. And in her prayers, she prays for all the sick people in the world who aren't being prayed for. What if God chose to answer her prayers and that's why those un-prayed-for people did so well-- all because that little girl. How does that affect the research?

I need sleep. Pray for me.

Cult-Like Status

Every once in awhile I check out my hits on Sitemeter to see how people found my blog. Many readers of Beit Carr are friends and acquaintances who come back frequently, but some find it by random search. The most popular recurring web search is for a post I did a year ago about a sewage problem we were having at our house. So, on certain search engines, when someone enters "Where Does Poop Go," they get this article.

Every once in awhile there's an interesting/unusual search that leads people here, but I found one tonight that made me laugh out loud. The search that someone made was this:

"Is Christ's Church at Mason a cult?"

OK, first, the answer is no. After working there three years of employment there, I can honestly say that. No blood drinking. No secret handshake. No "we love the leader" chants.

Second, I never wrote that CCM is a cult. The Google search grabbed a month were I typed the words "Christ's Church at Mason" and "cult" in different posts. So the phrase was never typed out by me.

Finally, I find this rather humorous because I can't imagine that someone wondering if a certain church was a cult they would go to Google for the answer; like they're expecting an objective news article to pop up as a result.

So just to make a point, and to send future obscure searches my way, here are some Google searches I made so you can see what it came up with. Is Willow Creek a cult? Is Lakewood Church a cult? Is Amway a cult? Is Blogging a cult? Is Culture Club a cult? Is Steve Carr a cult?

"Then you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free."

A Walk In The Park

I think Spring has sprung. A 70 degree afternoon seemed like the perfect opportunity to introduce our daughter to nature. We packed her up, grabbed her stroller, and headed to Eden Park.

We discovered that sidewalks in the city of Cincinnati aren't the best maintained traveling paths, but we made it nonetheless. So here's what it looked like:

I think Kaelyn actually enjoyed being outside. Who wouldn't today?
Yes, I am one of those over-protective, first-time parents who is constantly checking on the baby to make sure she didn't swallow her face.
And here is my baby . . . holding my baby, glad to be outside.

Real March Madness

Back in 2004, I wrote about the steroid revelations that were swarming around Major League Baseball. Here we are, in 2006, and MLB is now [finally] ready to begin a special investigation about player steroid use. This, my friends, is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. The investigation has been spawned by some new books which claim that Barry Bonds used illegally used steroids to improve his ability to play the game. The books cite evidence from grand jury testimony against the San Francisco-based BALCO company that allegedly supplied many athletes with banned athletic-enhancing substances. These new books have been getting a lot of press lately, apparently too much for MLB commissioner Bud Selig too ignore.

But this begs the question, Bud: you ignored the steroid issue for years. Why start caring now?

It's because, as I wrote in that earlier post, that the integrity of the game is taking a hit. Bud Selig needs to at least pretend that he's doing all he can to bring these allegations to light. But the problem is that baseball owners, management, and league officials allowed steroid use to run rampant in the game for years but turned a blind eye to it. Everyone knew it was going on, but people knew that steroids made the game more profitable.

I was one of those people who, after the 1994 baseball strike, wanted nothing to do with the game. But the Mark McGwire verses Sammy Sosa home run chase in 1998 brought me back, as it did many fans. Most likely, both these guys were shooting up, but it put butts in the seats. It was an acceptable trade off for baseball officials who sold their souls to the devil.

And now, after whoring themselves out, they want their souls back.

I remember back in high school when I read the Sports Illustrated that covered Oakland Raider Lyle Alzado admitting his steroid use. It was a sad story. Alzado was dead in a year's time. The NFL responded quickly, revising a steroid testing policy implemented a few years earlier.

Major League Baseball had plenty of time to react but did not enact testing until last year.

This new investigation is an excuse for MLB to make the players the scapegoats. And, not to defend the guy, but Barry Bonds is going to experience the worst of it when people just as guilty [Mark McGwire, who could possibly be elected to the Hall of Fame this year] will get by without any penalties. Baseball doesn't want to know the Pandora's Box they're getting ready to open. To put a twist on the famous Colonel Jessup quote, "They can't handle the truth."

If there's really a need for an investigation, I hope there's an honest evaluation of the neglect that baseball officials have shown with the steroid issue.

Maybe it's time for Bud Selig to resign.

Why We're Here

About six months into this endeavor, Kelly and I have enjoyed living here in the city. We're getting used to the neighborhood and urban living, looking forward to raising our family and ministering in the Walnut Hills community. Yet the news of another fatal shooting in the community wears on me. Especially considering that I was at the gas station just twenty yards from this parking lot twenty minutes before the shooting took place. The good news is that most violence in the area is drug related so, when it comes to our safety, I'm not concerned. But still, it's difficult to teach about the freeing power of Christ in a community where people feel captive to the dangers of daily living.

I'm not sure how long it will take, but I honestly believe that God will be able to use Echo will be able to make a difference. If things continue like this, the next few weeks and months will bring about community meetings and forums to try to solve this problem. We're hoping [praying] that people will realize that Jesus is the solution.