In 1986, a friend accepted an opportunity to get one-year advanced degree in lieu of being a victim of company layoffs. Upon enrolling in an MBA program, he learned that a lap-top was required for the courses he would be taking. Just five years earlier he had been programming Fortran cards for a room-sized computer to process part of his senior engineering project. Technology was moving forward on university campuses.
Today, lap-tops, tablets, smart phones and smart watches are almost givens among school-age kids. Some schools ...read on
Roll call – A consistent happening every first day of school. Even if the teacher mispronounced your name, the proper response was, “Present.” If you responded with a shy, “Here”, or stayed silent due to the humiliating pronunciation of your name, you got moved to the front of the class. Not cool and certainly not a good start to the school year!
Are you present? This is a ‘roll call’ for all dads – Are you ...read on
Well, it is time to put a wrap on summer unless you live in Houston – then you know we have a couple more months to enjoy the heat and humidity. But kids heading back to school is a marker for the end of summer. I hope you have made some memories as a family – maybe a family trip, taking your kids fishing for the first time or a summer camping experience.
Before you get back into the hustle & bustle of school and extra-curricular activities, I encourage you to ...read on
… there, right where He wants you. They were five hours into what was thought to be a four-hour hike off the mountain. The guide was confident they were on the right trail but every step seemed to be taking them further into the wilderness, not out of it. It was raining, it was getting dark and there was not a lot of talking among the men on the trail. Then the trail took a turn ...read on
Success. Pushing for that next step on the ladder. Getting the win at all costs. It is the natural way for man - self-realization. With some success comes the desire to reflect it by way of what vehicle is driven or the part of town a home is in. The temptation is to move from meeting the family needs to chasing after ‘wants’, stuff that reflects success.
Success itself is certainly not bad. But when the motivation for success is to keep up a certain lifestyle, kids may learn some unintended lessons – Instead of learning to relate they may learn to ...read on
A tennis court has service lines, baselines and sidelines for singles and doubles. A football field has yardage markers, sidelines and goal lines. A baseball field has an outfield wall, foul lines, base paths, a pitching rubber and of course home plate. All sports have standard boundaries and rules for play.
Do you know how wide baseball’s home plate is? It is ...read on
“From time to time in the years to come, I hope you will be treated unfairly, so that you will come to know the value of justice. I hope that you will suffer betrayal because that will teach you the importance of loyalty. Sorry to say, but I hope you will be lonely from time to time so that you don’t take friends for granted. I wish you bad luck ...read on
“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” With that final sentence, the Second Continental Congress unanimously declared independence from English rule 241 years ago. The thirteen colonies determined that separation from England was worth fighting for.
There are no lines in the sand, no bombs going off, no gunfire but there is a battle going on. C.S. Lewis depicts the way evil works very effectively in “The Screwtape Letters”. Carl Miller powerfully illustrates demons around drug addiction in his book, “The Relentless Pursuit of a Soul”. And keep an eye out for Laura Gallier’s book, “The Delusion” to be released this fall. Dr. Charles Stanley has said, “It doesn’t matter whether you want to be in a spiritual battle or not – you are in one. The battle is between good and evil, and you are the ...read on
“Most dads accept that part of the job is a willingness to be the unfashionable one; that is, to love enough to speak unpopular truths when the world cheats your children with fifty shades of grey.” Bill McGurn, in his article entitled Dad Meets the Sexual Revolution, pines for the day when dads “might again speak honestly and openly about the profound differences between male and female sexuality, when the heart might be taken as seriously as ...read on