Stuff I Learned Yesterday

Remember episode 23? That’s the episode where I snuck home after school to get some Halloween candy and ended up playing around with a lighter and toilet paper while I was there. In that episode I mentioned that there was a story about a lamp that I would tell you one day. Today is that day.

Now before I get into the story of the lamp, let me preface this story by telling you that my version of this story does not match my brother’s version. After my brother heard the Halloween candy story he and I compared memories. They were mostly the same, but there were a few differences. We also talked about the story I’m telling you today. He remembered some things that I do not. He remembers that we had friends over during the time the lamp event happened. I remember it being just me and my brother.

I don’t think that our differences in the story will matter. I think what matters most is how I remember the events of that day and the way it affected me both as a child and as an adult. So, disclaimer complete, here’s the story of the lamp.

From the time I was 1st grade until I finished 3rd grade we lived in a trailer house on a few acres of land just off of Interstate 35, a few miles south of Guthrie, OK. It’s just about 8 miles from where I live today. My brother and I were pretty rambunctious, but that’s normal of kids of the ages we were. It seemed we were always getting in trouble for something.

One time I remember that I’d heard that dragsters used bleach to do burnouts before races. We couldn’t find bleach, so we used mom’s liquid laundry soap to try and do burnouts with our Hot Wheels cars in the laundry room floor. She wasn’t happy about that for some reason.

Another time we played tag inside the house. That may seem pretty harmless, but we tagged each other by taking the caps off of our markers and throwing them at each other. When my parents came home and saw all the marker spots all over our clothes and the furniture, they got a little upset. Go figure.

Like any kid, both my brother and I tried to lie our way out of things. My dad always told us that if we told the truth, we wouldn’t get in trouble. I remember that I wasn’t ever sure if that was true. It seemed too good to be true. Could telling the truth really be used as a get out of jail free card? It seemed riskier than lying, so I often chose lying. Read More...

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Do you recognize the name Roger Bannister? Roger is a famous track athlete. He was born March 23, 1929 in Harrow, England. His first love was science, specifically, medicine. More specifically, neurology. His family was poor and could not afford to send him to Oxford, so he earned his way to Oxford the best way he knew how. He earned a track scholarship. He started running for Oxford in 1946 and he probably had no idea that his love for running would change the landscape of the sport.

For many years before Roger ever enrolled at Oxford, runners around the world had been obsessed with breaking a barrier: they wanted to run a mile in less than 4 minutes. The 4:30 mile had been broken in 1861. It would take many more years to bring the record down below 4:10. In 1933 an Englishman named Sydney Wooderson ran the mile in just over 4:06. Sydney’s achievement served as a great inspiration to Roger. In 1944 a Swede named Arne Andersson brought the record down to 4:01.06 and a year later another Swede, Gunder Haegg, lowered the record to 4:01.03.

Gunder’s record would remain intact for another 9 years. Despite many runners doing everything they could to lower the record and complete the mile in under 4 minutes, it didn’t happen. It finally got to a point where the achievement was thought to be impossible. Cue Roger Bannister.

Roger was a very strong runner as evidenced by his Oxford track scholarship. He began to evaluate his running style and looking at it scientifically. He made a few modifications to his form, and it helped. He knew that he still needed to do more if he would achieve the impossible. He teamed up with two other Oxford runners, Chris Chataway, and Chris Brasher.

On May 6, 1954, the day arrived for them to run for the record. The gun sounded at 6pm local time and the men raced off the starting line. Chris Brasher took the early lead and was responsible for setting the pace. Roger was feeling good that day and felt like the pace was too slow. He urged Brasher to go faster, but Chris held his pace. At the quarter mile point the pace was 57.5 seconds. The half mile pace was 1:58. Read More...

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Today is the Friday Forum!! In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I share a

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You know what I’ve discovered? Life almost never works out exactly like we plan. I am a planning person. We decided last fall that we were going to Hawaii this September, and I immediately started planning. I shopped airline prices almost every day for 7 or 8 months so that I would know the moment I saw an exceptional deal. As a result, I saved over a thousand dollars on airfare.

I’m not just that way about travel. Before I launch a podcast there are dozens of things that I do to prepare for it. I plan out various bits of music, I think about what the format of the show will be like, when the show will be recorded, what I want the artwork to include, and many other things.

I’m currently going through the process of creating a dedicated portal for my clients that will improve communication, streamline file sharing, and allow me to include assistants and other staff members in the work flow. Before I ever started working on the website, I spent a lot of time thinking about what my needs were and planning how to meet those needs. I looked not only at what my needs are today, but what I think my needs will be a year from now and beyond.

In spite of all my planning, careful thought, attention to detail, and desire for excellence, I know that the web portal will not go as planned. There will be things that I overlook. There will be things my clients will want the portal to include that I didn’t think of. There will likely be a few bugs that will have to be worked out. After all, that’s the way life works. Read More...

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I don’t know how it happened but I now have a middle schooler in my house. My daughter will be making the transition to 6th grade next year and it just doesn’t seem possible. If you have kids, you know exactly how I feel. Our daughter was a really good baby and we were perfectly content with just one child. However, nearly 2 years later, Colby entered our lives. I can not imagine life without him. Now he’s going into 5th grade. In case you’re wondering if my math is off or I have something mixed up, I don’t Colby skipped a grade so he’s just one year behind Addison even though he’s 2 years younger.

My kids are pretty much like most kids. They wake up early on the weekends and sleep late on school days. They love playing Minecraft and having sleepovers with their friends. They hate cleaning their rooms. Bathing is an option.

Part of me wishes that my kids could stay this way forever. They’re fun to be around, they still think I’m pretty cool, and I don’t have to worry about them driving or dating anyone. However, part of me can’t wait for them to grow up. I can’t wait to see what they choose as a career, the person they’ll turn in to, the spouse they’ll choose, or the grandkids they’ll provide.

Naturally, I can’t have both of those things. They can’t both stay young and journey out on their own. Truthfully, they can’t stay young. The aging process begins the moment we are conceived.

We all have moments where we want to step out on our own, cross a threshold, and prove ourselves. We do this as toddlers as we learn new tasks, and countless times after that. As parents, we have to make the decision on whether or not our children are ready for those moments.

One of those moments I had as a kid was when I finally talked my grandpa into letting me mow the grass. I wanted to prove myself as a man and prove I could operate a dangerous machine with as much skill as my older brother. I saw it as a rite of passage. Read More...

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