Luke’s Notebook

If I haven’t yet convinced you to come to the Softball Classic on Saturday, August 6th, then this shall surely do the trick. This afternoon, we learned that Cardinals second baseman Mark Grudzielanek and backup catcher Einar Diaz are also coming to this summer’s Classic! Wow! Combine that with infielder Abraham Nunez, ESPN/WB11 announcer Bob Carpenter and possibly Tom O’Neal, who is an anchorman for Fox 2/KTVI, the St. Louis-area Fox station. So we’re going to have quite the lineup there! Please, please, please… come on out! I venture to say you’ll be very happy that you did. =)

This afternoon’s wedding in O’Fallon went very well. The wedding ceremony itself was actually on the longer side (right at an hour). From a videographer’s standpoint, we’d always like the weddings to be under 50 or 55 minutes, so we can capture the entire event on our hour-long tape. Unfortunately, Paul and I had to switch to a second tape. It’ll just make editing a little bit more complicated, as we’ll lose the synchronization after the first tape for both video angles. It’s not that hard to re-sync the second tapes, so really it doesn’t add up to that much more work.

This week has flown by, and here we are at the start of another Sunday. I’ll take it!

This evening, Mark and I drove up to Carlyle, Illinois, to meet up with our grandparents as well as a couple of our aunts, uncles and their families. They’re camping at Eldon Hazlet State Park, which is located on Carlyle Lake. Our purpose for going up there was to see Grandpa’s RV “in action” and learn a thing or two about different compartments, hook-ups, meters and the like.

We arrived around 5:00 at the campground and spotted Grandma and Grandpa’s RV site. Mark and I roamed around the area a bit, walking up close to the lake, which is huge. Evidently, it’s Illinois’ largest man-made lake. I have no idea how they dug it, so if you happen to know, then e-mail me please!

After a little while, Grandpa gave us a tour of the interior and exterior of the vehicle, and after a little bit he got his brand-new grill out of storage, and we loaded it with charcoal.

Uncle Joe, Uncle Dan and their families (which add up to nine kids, by the way) arrived in the early evening, as they were going to stay for a couple of days at the campsite.

Grandpa, Mark and I got the grill lit, and it wasn’t long until we tossed some potatos, wrapped in aluminum foil, into the bottom of the grill, near the charcoal. After that, we started grilling T-bone steaks, hot dogs and shish kabobs. The shish kabobs were, well, terrific! Things taste so much better when they’re cooked on a grill.

After spending a good three hours with the family, Mark and I started on our hour-long drive back home. We spent almost the entire drive home talking about our upcoming trip with Grandma and Grandpa. We are very excited. Shoot, I had a great time tonight, and we didn’t even do that much.

Well, now it’s time to get going. I have another wedding to videotape tomorrow! Paul and I are heading out to O’Fallon in the afternoon. It’ll be my fourth wedding this year. I had one in April in Pana, in May in Edwardsville, in June in Belleville, now one in July in O’Fallon! I wonder if we’ll have one in August… I hope so! And as far as September — well, maybe if somebody wants to get married in the Grand Canyon or something, because I’m going to be out west for most of the month, it looks like!! =)

I’m sitting here on the back deck, on a somewhat hazy summer evening. I can hear bugs chirping, and I can look to my right and see the empty kitchen through the deck’s sliding glass door. I keep pausing to swat various bugs off of my legs, which makes me ask myself, “Why am I out here, anyway?”

Well, I had been wanting to take advantage of one of these cooler evenings by doing something outside. Also, it’s been a few days since I’ve been able to update this journal. So, I came up with the absolutely brilliant idea of coming out here to the deck to sit on this green picnic table.

It’s really nice out here. If it wasn’t for the bugs, it would be about the perfect night. So that explains why I’m out here versus in my attic bedroom.

So, what has been going on this week? Good question. Let’s see…

We’ve had a lot of rain on Monday and Tuesday, as the aftermath of Hurricane Dennis has made its way northwest from the Alabama and Florida area. The result was nearly two days of constant rain. Not really a storm; just lots of consistent rain. Our softball games on Monday and Tuesday were called off. Tomorrow night’s game is looking hopeful, I would think, as it hasn’t rained all of Wednesday so far, so I think the fields have had a good chance to dry out.

Yesterday afternoon, I took Wizzy to gymnastics. I was looking forward talking to the two folks that I had met last week during her lessons, but unfortunately I didn’t see them there yesterday! Oh well. Instead, I pulled out In The Eye Of The Storm and started reading. I must say, I like it very much so far! Basically, Max Lucado (the author) kind of goes through just how human Jesus is, how He faced the same struggles, same temptations, same stresses that we have faced. One of Lucado’s biggest points is simply this: Jesus knows how we feel. The Bible makes it clear that He can relate to us, can sympathize with us, understands the pain we feel, the shame, the fear, the hurt, the — whatever the case may be. It’s really awesome to realize that, at any given time, I’m never, ever feeling something that Jesus Himself hasn’t gone through or experienced. In short, I’m loving this book. I must have read a good 80, 90 pages in that hour. I like it!

After gymnastics, I took Wizzy to Best Buy, where I bought a new 160 GB (gigabytye) hard drive. They had a good deal, where it will end up costing only $40 plus tax after $80 of rebates. After Best Buy, we went to Taco Bell for supper. From there, to Wal-Mart to pick up some groceries and footwear — cleats and sandals.

On our way home, we stopped by Sonic, where I treated Wizzy to a banana split. I had brought up the idea to her a few weeks ago, and she had never tried a banana split, so I told her that I would try to take her one of these times after gymnastics.

Well, the bugs are feasting on my limbs at the moment, so I’m going to take four-year-old Peter’s advice (who, by the way, just opened up the sliding door and suggested I come inside so I don’t get bitten by horseflies) and wrap this entry up.

Fun, fun day. After church, the family headed out to Laderman Park in Belleville (which is where August 6th’s Softball Classic is to be held) in order to have a softball practice — well, a home run derby, really. See, the fences on this softball diamond are 253 feet at the longest, which is much shorter than the fences at Citizen’s Park, where we play in our men’s league. At Citizen’s, the fences are something like 303 feet and 298 feet. I’m not sure of the smaller field’s size, since they recently moved the fences back a few feet. It used to be a 292-foot fence.

Anyway, so we had a home run derby there. I actually only hit two out, which is kind of disappointing. I simply wasn’t swing real well. I was popping up quite a bit… swinging at some bad pitches, too! I should have just let them go, but I was hacking away at some inside pitches that were nearly eye level. That’s not a good recipe for me!

We had a good time at Laderman, and it was nice to get reacquainted with the field that we’ll be playing on in, what, 27 days? That’s getting pretty close! This week, we’ll probably design and order the fliers and possibly the 125 or so signs we’ll be pounding into the ground all over the area.

After softball, some of us older guys headed over to Laser Rock to play a game of laser tag! I hadn’t played at Laser Rock in years, and my last time playing laser tag was in June of 2004, when John, Mark and I took a brief tripped to South Carolina. I had a really fun time!

In the evening, Paul, Mark, Jude, James, Philip and I headed over to Cici’s in order to meet up with a friend of ours, Steve, and his fiancée, Nicky. We ate supper, talked a while and watched as the Cardinals played the Giants on ESPN. We didn’t end up disc golfing tonight, since we were all pretty drained from spending a couple of hours playing softball in the hot summer sun and then playing laser tag. We may play disc golf tomorrow, before our 8:30 game. It’s supposed to be much cooler this week.

That pretty much sums it up. Oh, and tonight I played an old Super Nintendo game, NHL ‘95, with Jude and Paul. That game is so much fun! We just have a blast playing it. It’s really a pretty simple game, but it is just so fun! And it’s not totally realistic, too, so there are some hilarious plays throughout the course of a game. Fun stuff, for sure.

Well, I need to head out. It’s been a fun weekend! Thank You, God, for a great week!

Well, it’s been a few days, so here I go again.

On Wednesday, not a whole lot happened. I spent a good part of it editing the Safe At Home Show, which consisted of different interviews we’ve recorded this year from Busch Stadium. Among them was the recent Abraham Nunez interview, Reggie Sanders and WB11/ESPN broadcaster Bob Carpenter.

Thursday, we played a 6:30 game against Kassly’s Stormers. I batted clean-up (fourth) in the lineup, and in my first at-bat, I hit a three-run homer to right-center! And it was on the larger diamond, too. At Citizen’s Park, there are two different softball diamonds, and we alternate between the two. The field we were on yesterday has the 302-foot fences, so it takes a pretty good hit to get one out of there. Anyway, I was pretty happy to hit a homer.

In my second at-bat, I popped out. Third AB, I walked. We ended up winning 12-2 in five innings. Our offense really played well, and or team has won seven straight games! I think our longest winning streak ever was last year, when we took 11 straight. Hopefully we can match that this time! But we’ll just take it one game at a time.

Today, I spent a good deal of time scoping and then taking care of various other duties around the house.

What’s the weekend looking like?

Tomorrow afternoon, I’m going to head on over to an attorney’s home in Belleville and set up a computer network for him. I don’t imagine that that will take more than a couple of hours, but I don’t know exactly what it will all entail. I believe it’s a wireless network, so that could mean it’s a little bit more tricky than a wired one. Either way, though, it should be relatively simple.

I am very much looking forward to Sunday. Sunday evening, to be specific. Why? Well, a few of us (Mark, Jude and I, to be specific) are planning on disc golfing early in the evening and then heading on over to Cici’s Pizza for a late supper, while we watch the Cardinals/Giants game on Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN.

Last Sunday, Jude, Philip and I decided to eat at Cici’s after disc golfing at Jefferson Barracks Park, and we just had a blast! Of course, I was happy because my Braves happened to be on SNB then, so I got to watch them play the Phillies. I also just really enjoyed the quite mood of the restaurant. It was not busy at all, and we just had fun hanging out for a while, eating pizza and drinking soda while we watched the game. Good times.

Speaking of Cici’s…

I recently realized something interesting. It has been over a year since we’ve first visited Cici’s and discovered their $3.99 salad, pizza and dessert buffet. Now, since that time in June of 2004, I have probably eaten a good 40 meals there. Ironically, I weigh less (somewhere in the vicinity of 15 to 20 pounds) now than I did then! It just goes to show you that it’s definitely possible to take advantage of a buffet like that without packing on the pounds. It takes self-discipline and a smart eating approach, but it is most certainly doable. And it’s really satisfying to realize that, too! It’s like once you finally conquer your body and say, “Look here, I’m in charge,” you can still eat most anything, so long as it’s done in moderation.

I have definitely had my share of “glorious hoggings” since a year ago, but I wouldn’t allow myself to get into a habit of eating like that all the time. If I would have (and, really, it would have been pretty easy to), then I bet I would weight 20 pounds more than I did a year back. But I’m realizing that when you have 2,000 or 2,500 calories (or whatever your “maintenance” amount is) to spend each day, that can go a long way if you’re smart about what you eat. It’s a lesson I definitely have learned in 2005!

This afternoon, I took my sister, the wonderful Wizzy, to her gymnastics class in Fairview Heights. Don’t get me wrong — I like taking Wizzy because she really seems to enjoy having her brothers take her. The only downside is it can get to be a bit slow or dull at times, especially when Wizzy is out of sight and I can’t see her doing her gymnastics from where I sit in the parents’ area.

Typically, there isn’t much to do. There’s usually just a few moms engaging in mom-talk or discussing different gymnastics competitions or whatnot. Today was different! As I was sitting there on the folding chair, thumbing through the manual of Grandpa’s RV (he provided Mark and I with the manual so we can get well-acquainted with the vehicle), there were a few ladies in front of me, watching their kids’ lessons. A man who must have been in his mid- to late 30’s entered the room, with his five-year-old daughter. He was carrying a book with him, but I didn’t really pay much attention to it.

Anyway, one of the ladies in front of me caught a glimpse of the book’s title — “Total Forgiveness,” I think it was — and she asked him about the book. Turns out, she is a Christian as well, and they quickly started talking about all sorts of different Christian books they have read and how different ones have impacted them or challenged them in different ways.

They started talking about Max Lucado, an author who I’m somewhat familiar with. I’ve read two of his books — “He Chose The Nails” and “A Love Worth Giving” — and loved them both. I waited for a good spot to interject and join the conversation, and I let them know how I had read a few of his books. This man asked if I have ever read another one of Lucado’s books, “In The Eye Of The Storm.” I told him I haven’t, but we happen to have that book; in fact, somebody recently gave it to us. He strongly recommended it, saying how much it affected him. I plan to start reading the book soon, after hearing how much he liked it.

As gymnastics continued, we kept on talking about different things. Turns out he rehabs homes — buys them, remodels them and then sells them. I told him about our house-building story — how we owned this big cornfield for a dozen years, could never quite afford to build on it, and then finally things fell into place and the doors opened up where we were able to start building.

The 75-minute gymnastic class seemed to just fly by today, compared to most weeks when the clocks seem to take their sweet ol’ time in between ticks. As we were leaving, I talked to this guy for a little bit longer in the parking lot. He shared a little bit of his story, his background and how God has transformed him and what He has been doing in his life.

I just had the absolute best time this afternoon!! It was so awesome how the situation changed from me wondering how I was going to kill 75 minutes to being disappointed when 5:45 rolled around and it was time to get going. Isn’t it awesome when Christians come out of the woodwork? All of a sudden, there were four different people in the room, all openly and frankly talking about Christ. Wow! Thank You, God, for providing me with that opportunity today.

It is so encouraging to have something like this happen. In this world, it is so easy to feel like you’re the only Christian within 1,000 miles. How big of a pick-me-up it is to find out there are people all over who follow God! Fellow Christians: Keep shining your light! Do not be afraid to share your faith or start a conversation with someone. If this lady wouldn’t have noticed the book that this guy was holding, then we probably would have never have started talking, and we wouldn’t have left the building feeling so refreshed and encouraged. All it took was a little spark by her, and off we went!

And the rest of the evening…

By the way, we played softball tonight. I went 1-3 with a walk and two runs. At the end of the game — which we won, 8-4, I believe — we noticed there was flat tire in Dad’s Explorer. James, John, Jude and I took it off and put the spare on. That’s the second flat tire in four days. On Saturday en route to Six Flags, the truck had a flat. Weird! Hopefully we don’t have any other tires go out on us.

A few photos from yesterday’s big July 4th party that we held…

Fireworks 1

A photo during last night’s fireworks display.

Fireworks 2

Another beautiful photo of the fireworks in the summer sky.

Lots of bottle rockets

Some 2,300 bottle rockets all grouped together for the grand finale.

The Grand Finale

The huge bottle rocket final display, as seen from across the pond. All the little dots you see on the picture are bottle rockets exploding every which way. Unfortunately, this doesn’t really capture the “awesomeness” of the bottle rocket display, but, trust me — it was pretty neat. I was amazed!

Thanks to Mark for snapping these cool photos of the display. I was one of the five or six people we had lighting fireworks. The show turned out really nice! There was so much smoke, though. Nevertheless, it was fun.

Independence Day was grand, even though we had a storm roll through in the afternoon, making the ground soggy. We still managed to play some softball and then have our fireworks show at night. We had some 75 guests, and I think everyone had a wonderful time! Let’s do it again. July 4th, 2006, at the Arndt’s place. Be there!

Well, there certainly has been a lot going on lately. We found out this past week that John had passed the national RPR (registered professional reporter) test, which requires you to have 95% accuracy when reporting a tape at 225 words per minute. So that is pretty incredible!

Wednesday, I was able to go to Busch Stadium with Mom and Dad. They interviewed Cardinals infielder Abraham Nunez, and he has agreed to join us at the Softball Clasic on Saturay, August 6th, in Belleville. While we’re on the subject of the Classic, I want you to come out there in five weeks! You won’t regret it. If you come, I’ll give you a free Take 5 bar.

Back to the trip to the ballpark. We got to talk to quite a few players — David Eckstein, Reggie Sanders, Ray King, Mark Grudzielanek and, of course, Abraham Nunez. After the interview with Nunez, Mom and Dad stood up on the field and taped a few segments of Safe At Home.

As gametime approached, we went up to the press box and got settled in. They have recently made wireless Internet access available to the media, so I wasted little time in getting the laptop online up there. I then went to grab some food. First was a salad, then some chicken strips, veggies and… stuffed flounder? I was kind of skeptical at first, but it tasted good. Oh, yes, I also had popcorn and ice cream. =) All in all, I had a blast visiting the stadium again, spending some time in the dugout and on the field before the game and then watching the game from the press box while munching on food and browsing the web. It was so much fun!

On Thursday, I moved the website (famteam.com) to a new server, and that knocked out The Journal for a couple of days. I’ve had quite a few problems with the subdomain format of luke.famteam.com, which is why I moved it to www.famteam.com/luke/. So, just remember the new address. There should be no problem with this new location.

Thursday night’s game was won by us by a score of 15-5. I batted 1-3 with a walk, but I could have very easily have had three hits. It was just one of those nights. I’ve been hitting the ball well lately, so there’s nothing to worry about. Aside from me, though, pretty much everybody else on our team was crushing the ball! My brother Mark went 3-4 or 4-4, as we 10-run-ruled the other team in five innings. That was definitely a nice accomplishment!

On Friday, I spent several hours touching up paint on the second floor and the attic walls. I have come to realize that our second floor is just too big. =) Nevertheless, it made quite an improvement! So I suppose it was worth the effort.

Today, I spent most of the day at Six Flags with the family. Paul, Jude, James and I headed over to the water park, Hurricane Harbor. It was pretty much the perfect day, as it was sunny and in the mid-80’s. We rode on the new water ride called the Tornado. I loved it! After that, we went to a tubed water slide, and then on to the Big Kahuna, which is another one of our favorites at Hurricane Harbor.

After lunch, Paul, James and I left Eureka, Missouri, and headed home, stopping first at Molly Brown’s Fireworks in Fenton. Paul bought a few packs of bottle rockets. On Thursday, Paul and John went to Molly Brown’s and bought a huge amount of fireworks for our 4th of July party. We’re planning to put on quite the display! We even went so far as to get a fireworks permit from St. Clair County.

Well, we have our Saturday night webcast starting in about 45 minutes, so I’d better take care of a couple of things before then.

I fixed The Journal, after having some issues as a result of the recent server transfer. That and more, later.