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When I was born, Jimmy Carter was our nation’s president.  I’ve always wanted to meet him.

A few weeks ago, I read that he still teaches Sunday School classes at his church in Plains, Georgia and the public is welcome.  That’s just over an hour away so I decided we would be in his next class.

The Davis Family with the Carters

This morning we woke up early and drove down. There were already about 60 people in line.  On Sundays that Carter doesn’t teach, about 20 members show up.  Today there were over 300 from about 30 different states and 20 different countries, including Richard Riley, a former South Carolina governor and Secretary of Education under Clinton;  several international interns from the Carter Center and a Navy submarine commander.  It’s amazing what a former president can do to a sleepy little church!

When we drove up, a military dog sniffed around our car and then we went through secret service screening.  Those agents are pretty cool.  It’s just like the movie Guarding Tess, where Nicolas Cage is assigned to an old widowed first lady.

We had great seats.  After the lesson and the worship service everyone is able to take a photo with the Carters.  Since we were seated near the front of the sanctuary, we ended up near the rear of the photo line.  The lady in charge of the morning, a former teacher of Amy Carter named Ms. Jan decided that Mackenzie was so cute that she literally grabbed her hand and walked us to the front of the line.  Even Jimmy Carter thought my baby girl was cute!

Later, we stopped at the local cafe for lunch and guess who was there?  The Carters and the whole secret service detail.  Pretty cool!

It was amazing how accessible and approachable this world leader is.  I dare you to find another current or former world leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner, or governor who is this accessible.

Bucket List Check!

As you might know, after nearly six years tomorrow is my last day with Mercer University.  It is very bittersweet.  I like the vast majority of my colleagues and Mercer is a great place to work.  In fact, I can only think of 3 people out of the hundreds that I’ve worked with that I will not miss. 

When I came to Mercer, I had a one year old.  Now, my children are 4 and 7 and have literally grown up with Mercer.  In some ways, it feels like my whole family is leaving Mercer instead of just me.  My wife knows the majority of my colleagues by name and we are good friends with many.  I hope we can sustain those relationships even without the daily contact at work.  I look forward to coming back to various events.

However, Mercer has a lot of challenges (mostly financial) to resolve.  For me, it’s exhausting hearing promises year after year with no results and watching resources being diverted to other areas.  I know it will be nice to be an outsider again, because from that perspective Mercer looks like a very positive place.  I’m leaving on good terms and I very much hope that they succeed.

I start my new job on Monday.  Unfortunately, I can’t tell you anything about it in this setting.  I just signed a social networking policy document with my new employer preventing me from discussing where I work or what I do on Facebook, twitter, blogs, etc. 

Doesn’t that make my new job sound secretive?  I can tell you that perception is not accurate.  I’m certainly no CIA or FBI agent.  If you want to hear about my upcoming transition, feel free to email me or ask me in person.  I plan to completely comply with any policy my new employer throws my way!

So far, 2010 has not been a great year . . .

In January:

• Kimberlie’s mother died

In February:

• Mackenzie gets kid-mono.  Between the two of us, we spent almost two weeks away from work, doing nothing but this:

  

In March:

• We went through a tough eating-out hiatus.
• T-ball.  Need I say more?

In April:

• Tristan learns to stick things where they don’t belong.
• Tristan has a major accident during a day trip.
• I went to the doctor (for the first time in 20 years).

In May:

• A house catastrophe.
• No raises at work.

In June:

• I ended up in 2 graduate classes during a 4-week summer semester.  Of course, I ended up with A’s, but it was a tough month.
• Mackenzie ended up sick (and very irritable) for half of our trip to Philadelphia.

And now, July:

• The cat chewed up my Macbook power cord.
• We lost our “free” cable and I my iPhone and digital camera went for a swim . . . in the same week.
• Ants seem to invade a different room of our house everyday.

Of course, there are things that have been happening (or not) all year:

• The stock market has really sucked for the last few months.
• I’m 31 and still not rich enough to retire.
• Publisher’s Clearinghouse still hasn’t knocked on my door.

Don’t get me wrong.  I still love my life.  But even number years just never work out for us.  2008 was equally as bad.  2007 and 2009 were fabulous.  Let’s hope I can make it through the next five months alive!

I just want to add a few thought on the oil spill:

• First of all, it is NOT a spill.   Nothing was spilled. It is a natural substance bubbling up from under the ocean floor.  God made oil, not man.
• Nobody intentionally caused the disaster.  It was an accident.
• Due to the complex distribution network of petroleum projects, it is NOT POSSIBLE TO BOYCOTT BP.  Oil is used in plastics, jellies, paints, detergents, film, ink, etc.  The gas stations are owned by small businessmen who are simply marketing the BP brand.
• We all share responsiblity.  BP would not be drilling at such depths if we weren’t so addicted to oil.
• Did they ignore proper procedures? Does it matter? We ALL ignore proper procedures at work.  That’s life.
• Do we owe the gulf coast anything? No. Their economies have been stimulated by oil companies for years.  That’s our money already going to support them.

If you look at company stocks in the years after disasters, you’ll see why I will be buying BP stock while the price is low.  Just look at how Exxon stock performed in the early 90′s after the Valdez spill.  Other disasters produced similar results.

Earth Day is right around the bend, and everyone seems to be on the green bandwagon lately.  It seems respectable to want to save the planet.  I’m all for it when the price is right.  I’m just not going to buy a “green cleaner” when the regular cleaner is half of the price, especially when the regular cleaner has been used for generations without the earth imploding.  I did make a choice to buy a vehicle with better gas mileage, although that was more for financial and political reasons, so the environmental reasons are just icing on the cake.

Businesses are jumping on the bandwagon as well.  Hotels don’t want to wash your towels and sheets every night, but again, that’s probably more for financial reasons than for environmental reasons.  Other business decisions, such as recycling are practical and noble. There is, however, one place where businesses should not “go green”: the restroom.

My biggest pet-peeve about the whole thing is when paper towels are eliminated in favor of the air dryers in restrooms. The paper towels that most public restrooms have are the brown ones anyway, made from previously-recycled materials.  So by providing them, you aren’t completely anti-Earth.

First of all, they are loud and they scare the crap out of small kids.  Trust me, I know.  If the kids were to dry their hands before using the restroom, it would make them wet their pants.  It’s a good thing they wash their hands afterward.

Yesterday, we visited Stone Mountain and Tristan had an accident.  I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say that the accident was so bad that I lost my lunch during the clean-up process.  That is not an exaggeration.  Some messes can not be cleaned up with cheap toilet paper.  When we left, that restroom stall was thoroughly violated.  I honestly would have cleaned up the mess had paper towels been around.  Unfortunately, some minimum-wage employee had to do it.

I was once, in my grocery store days, the guy who had to clean up comparable messes.  I always wondered how someone could “violate” a restroom like that.  Now I know.  In this case, it’s because someone tried to go green.

On Friday, it snowed. And snowed. And snowed.  In fact, it was more snow than I have ever seen in Georgia.

When I was about 6, we had a little snowfall and had to use cardboard to slide down the hills in our neighborhood.  My grandmother was determined that I would not be sliding on cardboard anymore!  So for Christmas that year, my sister and I were given these awesome sleds from the JCPenney catalog.  Then they sat in storage for 25 years, waiting on the next great snowfall . . .

This is one time that being a pack-rat paid off!  Those sleds were worth the wait!

It was a fabulous weekend!  Sledding was finally conquered and multiple snowmen were built (pieces of some still remain). I’m probably the only person in central Georgia who owns real sleds!

(BTW, I totally stole the title of this post from Kristi F)

Why is everyone so surprised that Tiger has been cheating on his wife?

Tiger Woods is a human being — a member of the animal kingdom. He has the same non-manogamous desires as a dog or a rabbit or a . . . tiger?

While some humans, in fact, have the ability to demonstrate self-control, the vast majority do not. Let’s take food and exercise for example — 64% of adults in our country are obese. No self-control there. Then there is alcohol, drug, and prescription medication addictions . . . no self-control there. Oh yeah, credit card problems and other money issues . . . no self-control there either. I could go on and on.

And today, over 50% of marriages end in divorce. The vast majority of those divorces are the result of infidelity. On top of that 50%, not all instances of discovered infidelity end in divorce and on top of that, I would bet that a good number of affairs are never discovered. So take the facts above — humans do not possess self-control and infidelity is rampant.

Now add in the temptation factor. Look at rock stars, politicians, and athletes and their groupies/fans/advisors swarming around them constantly. Lots of temptation there. And being on the road constantly away from his family probably didn’t help the situation.

If the math equation isn’t enough so far, add in the clubbing.  There are three reasons to go to clubs — to people watch, to be seen, and to hook up with people.  Enough said.

I’m not condoning his affairs, but seriously people . . . you’re surprised?

Now watch, the media that made him is the same media that will dismantle him. Let’s just hope he can still hit a golf ball after this.

Bibb County residents voted this morning on a continuation of the ESPLOST. I know that the ESPLOST will pass and in reality I could care less, but here is why I voted no:

• New facilities do not translate into better performing students.  This is a fact.
• In all of the propaganda, Heard Elementary was supposedly at the top of the list.  On the actual text of the ballot, Heard could not be found. Other schools were mentioned by name, but not my child’s.
• My local school board member visited Heard PTA last week to pitch the vote.  It was warm in the auditorium, and she mislead the audience by telling them that a new building would provide comfort.  The rednecks in the room may have bought that, but I know that classroom temperatures are strictly regulated by central office, regardless of the newness of the building.
• A significant portion of the money is going for technology upgrades. I believe that technology purchases should be included in a regular budgetary process. As a technology professional, I can’t imagine only getting new equipment when people feel like voting for it.
• For the past few weeks, proponents of the ESPLOST have continuously stated that 71% of sales tax in Bibb County is paid by non-residents.  I worked for several months as a statistical analyst and I can tell you that 95% of statistics are fabricated (including this one!).  Bibb County is no tourist mecca.  If you told me that 71% of sales tax revenue in Vegas or Orlando was paid by non-residents, I might believe you, but not Bibb County.

Sunday morning, I woke up at 6:00 am and prepared for my morning run.  My training plan prescribed a five miler.  Each morning, I run past two gray cats.  They never get scared or run away (although sometimes they scare me because I don’t expect to see them).  One of the cats is missing a back leg.  As I rounded the corner onto the street that they sit on, a car comes by and hits one of them.  The driver killed the three-legged cat right in front of me!

Although he was dead, I did attempt to locate the owner after my run.  I must say that it is strange ringing someone’s doorbell at 7:00 on a Sunday morning.  I didn’t find the owner, but I did find the neighbors who had been caring for the cat.

After that, I went home and told Kimberlie that Sunday wasn’t going to be a good day.

Tristan has been being a great kid lately behavior wise.  He earned most of his magnets on his responsibility chart, so we decided to take him bowling as a reward.

We headed south on 41 towards the much-nicer-than-Macon bowling alley in Warner Robins.  As I was stopped at a red light, some idiot rear-ended me and knocked me into the car in front of me.  Once again, my CR-V (which is not even two years old) is All Boomed Up.  The at-fault driver didn’t even have a driver’s license.  Let’s hope he has insurance.

I may post damage pictures later.

This weekend was certainly a busy and interesting one.

Saturday, we had two birthday parties — one at a skating rink and one at a farm.

Below are pictures from from Jameson’s party.  Jameson is a little girl in Tristan’s kindergarten class.  We didn’t know her or anyone else at the party, but we always try to go when he gets an invitation from a friend because 1: it helps meet people and 2: we usually return the favor.  Sometimes these parties are fun and sometimes not so much.  The one yesterday was great.  Before I start critiquing the party like its a new restaurant, I’ll just say that it was an enjoyable time for all of us.

This was Tristan and Mackenzie’s first time roller skating.  It was also the first time I have been in almost 20 years!

Stay tuned for Saturday Part Two and Sunday.  Desperate Housewives is coming on so they will have to wait!