kylegilbert

As I mentioned the other day, I’ve been building a Boba Fett costume for Halloween. It began with my wife’s innocent comment that it would be fun to dress up as Star Wars characters as a family, and when the costume I bought online didn’t live up to my expectations, I began to research how I might build my own costume. Fortunately, there’s a ton of great tips online, and I quickly found myself totally hooked. I love a good project, and without a doubt, this has been the best project I’ve ever attempted.

Before I jump into the pics of my costume build, here’s my completed drawing from last week.

Below are photos of my costume through the process. I’ll continue to update this post as I add new components.

Rather than just serving as an example of my compulsiveness, I hope that others attempting to build a Boba Fett costume might find some ideas here and avoid some problems I encountered.

Pics of completed costume here.

Every once in a while, my two oldest kids and I will sit down and have a “drawing party” together. Sometimes it’s coloring, and other times it’s freehand. Today was a freehand day, and since the sketch turned out nice enough, I decided to go ahead and ink it in. Maybe I’ll add some color digitally, like I did with the Wild Thing last year.

By the way, if you haven’t heard yet, my wife and kids are dressing up in Star Wars costumes for Halloween. I’m building my own Boba Fett costume, and I’ve become completely obsessed with the project. Maybe I’ll share a few pics sometime soon. :)

Yesterday, I took my two oldest kids to River Sports for their first climb. Without a doubt, it was one of the most fun experiences I’ve had as a parent.

This was shown at church a few weekends ago.

This was filmed right around the time of my surgery, and I could barely speak because of a cold. So if I look a little uncomfortable, that might explain things.

Over the past three years we’ve refined the look of our signage and branding at Faith Promise Church, but with the launch of our first portable campus with a children’s ministry, we’ve had to find a way to carry the same feel into a portable location. We ended up using clear ceiling grid clips, 1/8″ steel rope, and vinyl applied to polyurethane signs. We started with clear polyurethane, but because of finger prints and heavy shadows, we had the back coated with frosted vinyl.

In addition to that, we used black pvc for our large hanging restroom sign and the keyboard covers for our touch screen check in computers and several sign and poster holders that we ordered online.

We’ve ended up with a solution that sets up quickly (we leave the clips on the ceiling grid during the week) and has a small storage footprint while still providing a strong impact.

I’m guessing this is just a concept video, but it’s attached to a Google product that is currently in development. Very nice.

The surgery seems to have been completely successful in removing the sciatica pain that I felt going through my leg, which is wonderful news. I can happily sit in a chair again. I didn’t realize how much I missed this.

In place of the sciatica, I now have pain in my spine, but I expect that to get better every week.

My back in supposed to stay straight at all times, so no bending. Even still, I’m managing to put on my socks by myself now. I’m trying to walk a couple of miles each day, and each day some of the old-man shuffle seems to go away.

The worst thing I’m dealing with now is making transitions: laying down, rolling over in bed, and getting up from bed. These things are slow and painful, and they make me feel like my arms and legs are a mile long – getting tangled and making it very hard to keep my back straight through the process.

Oh, and sneezes. And the evil back cramps I had last night (yes, there apparently is such a thing). Shudder.

Today, I arrived at the hospital at 7:15 am, and after a visit from my friends Josh and Aaron, I went back for surgery at 9:30. Surgery lasted for an hour and a half. While I was in recovery, the surgeon came by to let me know that the herniation had been very large. (I’m not exactly sure why I find this particular information so encouraging, but it makes me feel tougher for some reason.)

By about 4:30, I left the hospital and arrived home. Then, I rested for about two-and-half hours in my bed.

Currently, I feel like someone hit me with a baseball bat multiple times in my back, crushing my spine. But for whatever reason, I haven’t taken any pain medication yet.

They told me that walking would help, so I’m interspersing my delicious vegetable soup dinner from friends Jeremy and Francis, with forcing myself to walk laps around our staircase in between bites. There’s a chance this might be the most pain I’ve ever felt in my entire life, so, I’m shuffling around in circles, feeling progressively less like passing out, Good times.

To all my friends who’ve lifted me up in prayer and encouraged me through this week and this day, I’m especially grateful. Thank you for loving me.

Today is a day that I’ve been waiting for for a while now. I’m scheduled to have a discectomy on L5/S1 later on this morning. Honestly, after dealing with this pain for so many months, it’s a little bit hard to imagine what it will be like to possibly live without it again. Equally difficult to imagine is a new sort of pain that could result.

The thing I am most certain of is that my heart is at peace with whichever outcome takes place today, and I feel a certain bit of enjoyment in being in a place with several relatively clear possibilities for my future. It’s something that seems to be rare in this life.

Father, thank you for the great gifts you’ve placed into my life: My wife is my dearest friend, full of kindness and love; my children are a joy to me, and that joy continues to expand with each passing day; my extended family is fun to be around, and abnormally fantastic; my friends are world-class – I’m fortunate to have an abundance of meaningful relationships that add untold encouragement and enjoyment; the job of my dreams that stretches me to grow and learn every day while working with an amazing group of people. I am blessed and grateful. This is a life I never imagined I would get to live.

My life is not perfect, and it has its share of challenges, but I am grateful for it.