Burgess Falls State Park

Last Sunday, I took the boys on a hiking adventure to Burgess Falls State Park, near Sparta Tennessee. I was looking to get them out of the house for a little activity so I looked for a close state park. For some reason I'd never heard of this park, and from the pictures on the website, I was not terribly impressed. But what the heck. So we took the hour and 15 minute drive east on I-40 and then turned off into the land of nowhere. There were very few signs for this place and my GPS told me where it was supposed to be, but it wasn't. So we kept driving. Another few miles down the road we found it (we were about to turn around). Immediately after getting out of the car we could hear the sound of rushing water. Yes, just a few yards from the parking lot. The map I had said the trail was about 1.5 miles long. I was thinking, "easy trail, it's probably even paved..." I'm glad I had my hiking boots on. It was fairly steep and very rocky. and in several places, if we took a few wrong steps, we might have fallen off the bluff and into the falls. There were three main falls and the last was the most impressive. We actually could hike down the cliff to the bottom of the third falls and sit where the spray cooled us off. It was very steep and me, being afraid of heights, was terrified in one part where there is a set of metal stairs with a cage around it that scales the cliff wall. Once at the bottom, it was just large boulders that we climbed over to get to the bottom of the falls. It was truly amazing, the power of the water rushing over the top of the cliff and hitting the bottom. The wind was strong simply from the water coming over the 136 foot drop. after climbing back up the freaky stairs, we found another trail that had some nice views over the back side of the park that looked out over the lower river, past the falls. It was beautiful. I'm so glad that I got to spend time with my boys Even though they didn't want to go hiking originally, they were both asking when we could come back.

From Collages

Chicagoland

Tonight we are headed up to the Chicagoland area to see some friends and family for a long weekend. It's so funny, I always tell people I'm going to "Chicago" and they always ask what we're going to do in Chicago. Then I have to explain that I'm actually going to the suburbs some of which are really no where close to Chicago (Woodstock...) Anyway, since I had an extra day off work for observance of the 4th of July, we thought we'd take advantage and make the trip. We are going to be stopping in Louisville, KY to visit our newly married friends, Brad and Rachel so that will split up the drive a little. And it'll be good to hang out with them. Then off to Chicago Suburbs on Friday morning. Although we never go into Chicago, one of the regular highlights is to get some real PIZZA. Although the southern food is great in Nashville, the pizza, for the most part, stinks. I will at some point during this trip, get Giordano's Pizza. The best pizza in all the land. We will also make a trip to Culver's, home of the Butterburger. And last, but not least will be the yearly pilgrimage to the Mars Cheese Castle in Kenosha, Wisconsin for the dairy indulgence of cheddar cheese curds.

Yummmmm.

Anyway, we do look forward to seeing family and friends also. Really, we do. Somehow we have always avoided going downtown with the kids, so this year, I'm changing things up. We are going to visit US Cellular Field, the home of The 2005 World Champion Chicago Whitesox. Since they've been on a little mini- hot streak lately, it should be even better. I love the Whitesox and I am so looking forward to this great opportunity to bring my boys. At the very least we should have a few good pictures and a blog entry out of the whole thing. Hopefully Jermaine Dye can "put one on the board" for us and light up some fireworks during the game.

Maybe the funniest website ever

In a recommendation from a facebook friend (thanks Brian) I have come upon maybe the funniest website ever. Awkwardfamilyphotos.com Please check it out when you get a chance, I'm not sure about it, really it seems to good to be true. My personal favorite is "Doubledelish". Anyway, if you need a really hard laugh, check it out. I was going to put one of the pictures in my blog, but I didn't want to spoil the surprise. Oh, yeah, make sure you read the captions below the pictures.

Diving Catch

On Saturday evening, our whole family went to have dinner at a friend's house in Spring Hill Tennessee. Their house has a huge yard and we got all the kids playing a little baseball (really wiffle ball). Bryce was in the outfield and i was pitching. My friend was batting. He hit a fly ball well over Bryce's head and Bryce was digging hard for it. at the last moment, I yelled out "dive for it!" When I was a kid that's what we always yelled to each other to at least make a good effort and have a little fun, knowing if we ever made the catch it would go down as legend. Bryce however, did not make the catch. But what an effort. He did stay on the ground for a little longer and I knew he had hurt himself in the process. As I walked over to check on him, he had some tears in his eyes. I felt sad and guilty. Had I caused his pain? He had hurt his hip landing on the ground awkwardly. I first made sure that he was physically OK, but the tears really weren't about the hip pain. He was angry and ashamed about not making the catch and that I told him to dive for it. Wow. I am so glad he could be honest with me about that. He is so much braver for telling me that then even for diving for a ball that he couldn't reach. What a great moment , I am so proud of my boy. He may not have physically caught the ball, but he still made a diving catch in my heart.

Bing!

I am trying to make it a habit to not blog about technical stuff because I'm sure that most of the folks who read this really don't care much, but I can't help myself with this one. As you probably all know I am a big Microsoft person. I really think they have a lot of good products. Anyway, they recently rebuilt their search engine (formerly Live Search) and the new one, Bing, is excellent. I, like 90% of the world was used to using Google, have even use the word Google as a verb, but will now switch to Bing. I have used it this week several times and have not missed a beat with searches. It has some features that google does not, and overall, it is just more appealing to the eye. Yes, that last point is not too important, but it helps a little. I think things are more organized and items are in more helpful places. So if you think about it, give Bing a try. I really think you'll like what you get. besides, I'll probably be using "Bing" as a verb now, so you should know what it is.

Jumper

A week or two back, Directv (by the way, I love Directv, so if you want to sign up we both get a killer referral bonus) was running a free preview weekend of HBO and Cinemax. When this happens I set my DVR to record a bunch of movies. One of those movies was "Jumper". I had wanted to see Jumper for a while. It's a Sci-fi about a guy who can teleport himself anywhere in the world. Liesl was very resistant to watching this movie, as she doesn't normally like science fiction. Anyway, Overall I thought the movie was very entertaining. I don't think there was anything inspirational or ground-breaking in this movie, but it kept my interest through the whole movie. Hayden Christiansen (older Anakin Skywalker) played the main character. Samuel L. Jackson was the bad guy. His character was kind of not well thought through, but overall the movie was fairly original. It was also kind of cool to get the scenery of several different cities around the world, as they jump from one place to the next. By the end of the movie, Liesl was sitting next to me on the couch, I think it caught her interest too. Hayden Christiansen being in the movie probably didn't hurt either.

St Elmo's Fire

So I'm out driving today listening to this cool Jack FM station that plays some 80's music. I hear this song St. Elmo's Fire (by I can't remember who, and I've actually never even seen the movie) and I had this great memory come up about that song. My freshman year of college I roomed with this guy named Keith. I don't even remember his last name. Keith was one of the strangest guys you'll ever meet. He had this room to himself and I transferred in mid-year to the room (not to college). When I get there, he says, "I'm not the most organized guy, hope you don't mind." He had all his stuff in one gigantic pile all on his half of the room. Except some clothes that were in the closet. He'd come in sometimes in the middle of the night and dig through the pile looking for something loud enough to wake me up. He'd always ask me about these crazy schemes he'd have. He once rented a truck trailer and had a haunted house in the trailer and charged admission for people to come through this truck. He had a bunch of people on our floor as actors in the haunted house. He also kept asking me about his scheme for pickup dry-cleaning. Where he thought college kids would pay to have someone pick up things that needed dry cleaning and pay a little extra for the service. This coming from the same guy that had the ball of his possessions on his side of the room. His dad was rich and ended up financing a lot of these ventures for him. Anyway, back to the song. I'd walk in the room, many-a-day and find him sitting in his little desk chair listening to the stereo. He'd listen to this song, St Elmo's Fire. And when I say he'd listen to it, that was the only song he'd ever listen to. He'd ask me every single time, "This is a great song, isn't it?" I got so tired of that song. But it really made me laugh when I heard it today. I guess it's more funny to me than to everyone else.