kylegilbert

Two years ago, a couple of my bro-in-laws and I took a hike to the top of Long’s Peak in Colorado.  It was the sort of hike where, while you’re hiking, you keep expecting to see dead bodies down below.  Without a doubt, it’s the most challenging hike I’ve ever been on, and I took a few photos on the trail.

I posted this up a couple of years ago, but today a friend of mine reminded me about the trip.  Definitely worth five minutes to look through the pics (there, you can click the photos to advance them).

You may not realize this, but Home Depot puts on an awesome free kid’s clinic each month nationwide.  This month was our first time to go, and the experience was great.  They provide a kit, let you use their tools, and give the kids a Home-Depot-style apron.  When you complete the project, the kids get a pin and a snack.

Whoever thought this up is brilliant!  Not only does it foster incredible good will from me to Home Depot, but it also builds that into my kids as well.

I’ve heard that Lowe’s does it too, but I haven’t been yet.

PS – Thanks, Marti, for the tip.

I know I’m a dork, but I was really looking forward to this OS update yesterday.  Apple added some really nice additional features to the operating system of the iPhone.

Today has been a day of breaking things.  To start things off, I broke my new bike this morning.  I was trying to haul both my kids in their bike trailer up a steep hill, and I bent a bunch of teeth on first gear.

Then this afternoon, I came a little too close to the back porch steps with my riding mower, and I tore them apart.

A few minutes later, just before I finished mowing, the belt broke on my mower.

And here’s a photo of the repaired steps, just in case my land lord happens to be reading this. 

If you’re on Facebook, and you haven’t yet picked out your custom url/username, now is the time to do it. I just got mine, and below are the screen shots.

I was hoping to get a url for the Faith Promise FB Group and new Faith Promise FB Page as well, but you have to have 1,000 members, and we’re still a bit short of that. Fortunately, they’ll open that up in a couple of weeks, so I’ll grab that then.

Spurred on by a Craig’s List listing for a mountain bike and kid trailer, my daughter and I made a trip out to Cosby, TN, today.  She got to ride in the front seat for the first time, and we got an outstanding deal on the purchase ($100 total – Thanks, Kathy, for telling us about this!).

In addition to traveling on the newly-opened I-40, the trip into the mountains was gorgeous.  Hard to capture on a iPhone camera while driving, but here’s a snapshot of our trip.

By the way, the bike and trailer work great, and I’m whipped!

Things on the Internet Campus have been going great, and I’m very super-happy to report that starting this weekend we’re adding an additional service. That means that you can now connect up with Faith Promise Church each Sunday at 10 am or 11:45 am (Eastern Time).

In addition to that, there’s some fantastic top secret stuff going on for the iCampus that I really hope will come together in the next few weeks.

It’s true.  My shoes stink, but not in the way you might think.

I bought some black dress shoes about a year ago.  I didn’t pay very much for them, but I thought they looked cool.  I supposed that the gasoline-like* smell from the soles would eventually wear off, and Keri made me keep them in the garage at night for a couple of weeks when I first bought them.  Well, they still stink.

Good thing I hardly ever have to wear the things – only for weddings and funerals, but that also means I’ll probably have them for a long time too.

* It’s not exactly the smell of gasoline, but that’s the easiest way to describe it.  The most accurate way I can describe it is to say that they smell like the inside of the discount tool store, Harbor Freight.

For several years now, I’ve really regretted that I’ve never taken computer classes since I was a Junior in High School.* I really don’t care about getting another degree – I just want to learn how to write programs. HTML & CSS are great, but for me, to really understand the science behind programming Java, PHP, C++, or ColdFusion would be truly fascinating.

So a couple of weeks ago, I went back to school. OK, not really. If you haven’t seen this already, a bunch of courses are offered free online at Academic Earth, so I’ve started watching the lectures for Stanford’s Introduction to Computer Science online, and I love it.

* Most people think my degrees involved technology, but that’s not the case. My undergrad and Master’s degrees were both related to pastoral ministry, not computers.

This past weekend, some of Keri’s family came to visit us in Knoxville (Dave, Nancy, Erin, & Mattie), and we had a great time hanging out together.  That is, until they drove off to start their trip home.  My three-year-old daughter was heart broken.  I’ve never seen her look so sad.

Now, I want my kids to learn to cope with disappointments in life without my intervention, but still, I wanted to do something that would be fun.  I suggested that we create a tunnel in the living room floor from some big boxes in the garage.  The diversion did the trick, and both kids were thrilled with our construction project.

They had a great time playing inside the thing, but my favorite part was the graffiti decorations that my daughter added over the next couple of days.  I’ve included a few close ups here so you can see a few of her illustrations.

Maybe it’s just because I’m her dad, but I think she’s brilliant.  We may start writing and illustrating books from our home, just for fun.