Vick

I recently read this article from ESPN.com about Michael Vick and found it to be a good look at the situation that surrounds him from a couple of different angles. The following quote from the article got me thinking:

People's opinions about every new situation are formed by the totality of their experiences. Animal rights activists think it's about cruelty. Soured Falcons fans think it's about tragedy in multiple ways. African-Americans in Atlanta, according to prominent black leaders, think it's about Vick not getting due process because of the color of his skin.

Having heard all the news surrounding the allegations, I have come to the conclusion that Vick is most likely guilty. I stopped to consider what the connections I have with the situation are and how they are affecting my opinion. Here are the different factors that I can recognize:

• As a fellow graduate of Virginia Tech with Michael Vick, I long to see him bring a good name to the university that I love. He is, after all, the most well known attendee of the university (I'd say that his closest competitors would be Frank Beamer, Bimbo Coles, Bruce Smith, and Homer Hickum, so he wins this one by a long shot). When Michael's brother Marcus got in repeated serious trouble with the law that led to his dismissal from Virginia Tech, I was always glad that even though Michael seemed to have a shady air about him (especially when he was around Marcus), he had kept a fairly good public image.
  
• As an NFL fan (and specifically a Bengals fan), I have watched a lot of players get arrested and suspended for things ranging from DUI and drug possession to weapons charges and assault. I can't say that it would shock me to find out that another NFL player was engaged in illegal activity.
  
• As a dog owner, I am sickened by the practice of forcing dogs to engage in this sort of thing and either killing or abandoning the ones who don't perform. We adopted Mabel from one of many shelters in southern New Jersey that is filled with stray/abandoned dogs that people say were results of dog fighting, or at least intentional breeding and training of aggressive dogs. I think it's easy to allow yourself to have a very emotional response to this issue and be quick to assume guilt.
  

So I guess that Michael Vick's guilt or innocence will be determined by a hopefully unbiased court, regardless of what the public opinion of him is. I would still love to see this all end up to be false accusations, but my gut feeling is that Mike will end up in jail for at least a little while and see his NFL career ruined.

Dream Camp Exclusive

For the past 3 weeks I've been working in the city at Girard College where one company brings together 300 kids from all over the greater Philadelphia area to have fun at a summer camp. The first week started out sort of rough with me contracting a kiddy disease, known by the name of strep throat to many, something may I add I've not had since I was 10 but luckily I recovered and have had a blast since then; I teach Project Discovery(science) and World Tours(s. studies) to a bunch of 6-9 year olds who have blown me out of the water with their intelligence. "Most" of my campers encourage me daily with their insights and funny comments and it has certainly been a rewarding experience. Especially when moments like this morning happen where a young, often difficult camper runs up and says "Miss April, my uncle left yesterday for Belize, I told him about all that stuff we learned, even them funny people with cone shaped heads and cross-eyes".
I don't know much about their home lives or how well they do in school but it has been amazing to see the smiles on these kid's faces as a room full of people cheer them on for earning the honor of "Camp Scout" for the day. Just giving these kids a place to have fun and be kids has turned out to not only be a blessing for them but me as well. This afternoon as one of my campers was attempting to teach me the Dream Camp rap she stopped one of her friends en route to the bus and was beaming to tell them she had successfully taught me the rap/dance, " I didn't think I could ever teach anybody anything."It turns out what I thought was the most whitest white girl dance ever could bring a huge smile to one child's face and I'd risk humiliation for that any day.

The Order of the Phoenix

Tuesday night, April and I went to the opening midnight showing of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Both of us had to be at work early the next morning, so we tried to get a couple of hours of sleep before we went to the movie, and we both passed out for a couple of hours after we got home at 3:30 am. That one late night made us both feel tired the rest of the week - we must be getting old. I must say though that it was worth it to act like young people, ignore the voice of responsibility inside our heads that seems so loud these days, and go see a good movie with good friends.

Although we do enjoy Harry Potter, we apparently aren't as passionate as the people at the screening who were sporting their Death Eater costumes or the guy in front of us who refused to move down a seat to accommodate other movie goers (in a sold out theater) because he was "perfectly centered." We started reading the Harry Potter books earlier this year on recommendations from a lot of friends, especially our friends who are English teachers and professors of literature. We were hooked. I'm the kind of reader who can't put down a good book, and April had a job that presented her with a lot of down time that she could spend reading, so we got through all six books just in the right timing for the release of the final one next Friday.

This was my favorite of the five Harry Potter movies so far. Maybe it was because I had time to get excited about it and it was the first one I saw in a theater, but I felt like the movie presented the story in an intriguing and easy to follow way even though there was no way they could keep all the detail from this huge book. I'm still more excited to read the final book, but the movie was entertaining and a good way to build the anticipation.

Family Vacation to the OBX

April and I, her parents, my parents, my brother and his girlfriend Sam all spent this past week in the town of Duck, NC, which is on the outer banks. We all went in together to rent a big house that's about 100 yards from the beach and lived the lazy life this week - sleeping however much we wanted, sitting on the beach, eating good food, playing Extreme Uno, and singing along to my brother playing Bob Dylan songs on his guitar. Here's a map I made that tries to detail the vacation and the traveling that we all did.

My family came to the outer banks for summer vacations when I was young. I remember flying kites, building sandcastles, body surfing in the ocean, and the time when I fell face-first into a sand dune and had to go to the emergency room to get the sand out of my eyes. It's been so long since I've been there that it wasn't very familiar to me anymore.

April and I realize that we are blessed to have a family that is able to do something like this together. Many of our friends have reacted with surprise that we are brave enough to travel with both sets of parents for an entire week. It makes me proud of my family - I realize just how accepting and loving they have always been to any of the crazy friends that I have brought around throughout my years of growing up. I hope that April and I can have that same kind of warmth as we invite people into our homes and our lives.

This week also made me very thankful that I married into a wonderful, loving family. People are always joking about how painful it is to be around their in-laws - I have the completely opposite experience. I always enjoy the time I spend with April's parents, and I feel very comfortable with them.

Don't get me wrong - our families both definitely have their issues. But I feel like it is the exception rather than the rule today to have families that can overcome differences and overlook and forgive hurts and annoyances to come together and truly enjoy being related and spending time together. I am thankful to have two great examples of healthy, loving families as we grow and try to establish our own.






April, my mom, and Mabel on the beach.












April, her parents, and me on the ferry to Ocracoke.

What's Next

So long time no post. A lot has happened since then, yesterday was my last day at my current job. Nic and I are taking the next week off to go with our families to the Outerbanks of NC and after that I'll be working at a summer day camp here in Philadelphia. I won't go into long details about the camp, but basically in a nutshell it's an incredible place where 300 kids from the city of Philadelphia get to enjoy an excellent, high-quality camp experience (check it out if you're interested, www.esfdreamcamp.org)! Now I am incredibly excited for this opportunity but I've also been having mini 'panic attacks' over what comes next in August after camp. I feel like no one should have to know what they want to do with the rest of their lives at 22 and Nic assures me that I don't have to, but for some reason I'm not sure if it's the pressures of the outside world or my own thinking I keep thinking I have to have a plan, a path, a future. I remember reading once in an Erwin McManus book that rhinos can only see 30 feet ahead of them, so when they start to charge ahead they have no clue what's coming at 31 feet until they start running. I feel like that's what I'm learning, start running and the next foot will be revealed as you do, who cares that you can't see far ahead you don't have to that's God's job.

Congratulations, college graduate

April and I are flying to Ohio for the weekend to see my brother graduate from college. Here are the top ten reasons that I'm excited for this weekend:

1. Cheap airline tickets from Southwest. They turned what is usually a 9-hour drive into a 1.5 hour flight for not much more money than it would take us to drive.
   
2. I haven't had real (as in not from a can or frozen package) Skyline chili in almost 7 months. That drought will be broken this weekend. Three way, cheese coney plain, and a root beer please.
   
3. We get to hear Bill Clinton speak at Ohio State's graduation. I hear that he's a good public speaker. The guy who spoke at my college graduation put the entire college of engineering to sleep, so Old Bill won't have to do much to exceed those expectations in my mind.
   
4. I will get to see lots of my family at Randy's party, including some that I haven't seen since our wedding, and at least one cousin that I haven't seen in years.
   
5. I still get excited about flying. There's something about being able to look down on the world from a completely different perspective that turns me into a little kid, peeking out the tiny window to see as much as I possibly can.
6. I get to see all the places that I grew up in. They're still so familiar to me and always bring back floods of old memories. Just having the chance to spend a couple of nights in the house I grew up in (from 5th grade through high school) is cool for me.
   
7. Because April doesn't like Skyline, I'll include our planned pre-graduation Sunday lunch at Chipotle. It is definitely the greatest burrito place in existence, and for some reason they decided to skip Philadelphia when they started making restaurants. Somebody needs to teach these Philly people how to eat something besides cheese steaks so we can get a Chipotle.
8. Just because weekend road trips are lots of fun, especially when you get to travel with your wife!
9. We've been trading off weekend dog-sitting duty with our friends Sarah and Seth and their dog Snoop, so Mabel gets to hang out with good friends in West Philadelphia for the weekend. I'm so thankful that we make it easy for each other to get away even when we have dogs to worry about.
   
10. I get to see my little brother graduate from college and celebrate with him before he moves on to exciting times in Nashville. I'm very impressed that he had the intelligence and patience to finish college (with an engineering degree, none the less) when what he really wants to do is pursue a career in music. He's definitely prepared for life in the real world - not just with an education and rock-star-like musical skills, but he is also kind, level-headed, and responsible. Those are the kinds of things that make me know that he will be a valuable member of whatever community he is in after college.

Mabel

This is probably the dumbest thing we've ever done, but it gave us a laugh, let us play with Windows Movie Maker, and let us introduce Mabel to the world.