Indianapolis has an annual film festival called The Heartland Film Festival. This year’s winner for Best Dramatic Feature was Bella.

A little over a year ago, Karen and I sat in on a pre-screening of the movie at a FamilyLife staff meeting. I blogged about it back then.

If you get a chance, go see it. It is an excellent movie, very well done independent film.

You can find out more about it and get theater info here:
http://www.bellathemovie.com

I went to the BMV at lunch today to finally get my Indiana drivers license. Apparently, when you have an out-of state license, you have to take a written test. Everything was fine until I got to question number 10.

Question 10 made me ashamed to be a Hoosier. The grammar was atrocious and the wording was terrible. I didn’t answer the question and made a note to bring it to the grader’s attention.

The question went like this:

“If a person is under 21 when their license expires and he or she applies for a new license, you must do the following:”

I don’t remember the options but the obvious answer was not listed. The correct answer to the question is “Nothing.” I am required to do nothing if someone under 21 has an expired license and applies for a new one. I may offer advice to someone in that situation but that is optional at best, certainly not required. Why is it any of my business or concern?

I took the test up to the lady to grade it and told her I did not answer question 10 because it did not have the correct answer. She said, “oh yes, the correct answer is there.” I said, “no its not.” I had to explain to her that I was not required to do anything if a person’s license expires and they are under 21. She didn’t quite get. The lady next to her did, I think. She said, “it means you are the person getting the license.” I said, “but that’s not what it says.” She informed me that I didn’t have to answer it and get it marked wrong and then handed me a phone number to call and complain.

I gave in and went ahead and answered it. I had to guess since I failed to brush up on Indiana laws and regulations regarding people under 21 getting licenses since I’m 35 years old.

I passed the test but missed question 10. Had that caused me to fail, I would probably still be there on the phone with some uneducated bureaucrat in downtown Indy.

Thankfully, we close on our Columbus, Indiana house today. Miraculously, we don’t take money, we are actually getting some back….woohoo! I can’t tell you what a relief it will be to sign those papers today. I am looking forward to it. When we established a closing date last week, I began pulling off wallpaper. This weekend I hope to remove the hedges so we can actually see the front of our home. We get to rip out two rooms of carpet that is covering hardwood floors. I can’t wait! There is lots to do, but I love it. I love turning a home into “mine.” I told our realtor friend I am ready to constructive deconstruct!

As some of you know, one of my brother’s (the next oldest to me) has had some trouble with the law. He had some drug addiction problems and stole some prescription drugs from the hospital a few years ago. He continued to battle addiction through his legal battles, did some time in jail and did house arrest last year. He’s been doing well, staying off drugs (I’ve seen him on them enough to know when he’s on and when he’s off.)
He had some fines to pay as well but has not had the income to get them paid off in time.
Last week, a judge sentenced him to 6 more months in prison. He will have to serve 3. Seems strange to me since he has been paying on the fines and has stayed out of trouble but the law is the law.

He is in the local county jail for now. I went to visit him last night. That was the first time I’ve set foot in a jail. It was just like in the movies, he was behind glass and there was a telephone to talk to the “other side.”

There were 6 or 7 visitation stalls. Down at the end, a lady was visiting with a guy that looked somewhat familiar. While my brother was talking to my mom, he wrote on a piece of paper that the guy was Bobby Bassett. He murdered a woman and three kids a few years ago, buried them in a wooded area by a creek.
In the stall next to us, there was a lady talking to an older guy. That guy looked familiar to me as well. I thought I had seen his picture in the paper not long ago for child molestation. When I got to talk to my brother, he whispered in the phone that the guy next to him was in for child molestation. I was right, I did see the guy in the paper.

I stood there, as my mom was talking to my brother, thinking about the terrible crimes these guys standing a few feet from me had committed. Unspeakable crimes. How could these women still care enough about them to take the time to visit them in jail? They didn’t deserve any love at all. What kind of women were they that they could over look what these guys had done and still tell them that they loved them?

Then the obvious hit me. We are all criminals in God’s eyes. We have all broken his law and are all undeserving of love from anyone, let alone God’s love. But he gives it to us anyway. He extends grace and mercy.
Just like the ladies visiting the criminals at the local county jail. They were painting a picture of grace for me and they didn’t know it.
I don’t know the circumstances of their relationships but I know that they cared enough about these “undesirables” to visit them.

Those guys deserve to be where they are and I’m glad they are behind bars where they cannot do any more damage to society. But they have also had all hope removed from their lives. Maybe the grace and mercy extended by those that still love them will give them hope and desire to change…

The kids started at a new school here in Indiana on Tuesday. They seem to be adjusting well and are making new friends quickly.

They go to arguably the best public grade school in Columbus and left the best public grade school in Little Rock. Luke had been held back in Kindergarten in Little Rock because he was behind in a few areas. It is all-day there. Here Kindergarten is half-day and it is voluntary. It turns out that the Kindergarten work in Little Rock is equivalent to First Grade work here so we move Luke up into First.

Elizabeth is pretty much on track in Second grade and already knows a few of the kids in her class from before we moved to Little Rock.

We live a block from the school so the kids can ride their bikes or walk which is so much more convenient than taking the bus or driving them. Plus the school has one of the coolest playgrounds I’ve ever seen. It will be a great place to take the kids to play in the Summer. I’ll have to post a picture tomorrow.

Times like now I question my sanity.  The kids and I left Little Rock at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon.  After a 45 minute traffic delay in West Memphis and an hour stop for supper in Jackson, TN we arrived in Columbus at 3:30 a.m. I had been up for 22 hours, handed the kids over to Mike and went straight to bed. I woke up around 9:30 or so. I have been fortunate enough to have naps everyday. 

We looked at houses all morning, yesterday. I found one I really like. Mike found 2 he really likes.  Think they are the same? NO!! I have to admit, one of the 2 Mike likes is really cool.  The problem……It sits on N. Wood Lake, yes, a lake. 4 kids, under 10 and not allowed to have fences up…….MOMS, need I say more?  The back side of the house has 2 decks, up and down, kids leaning over, falling off and going splat.  Anyway, cool house, wrong timing. 

The one I like is in town but on a quiet street. Has a huge front yard and a long driveway.  No associations or anything so we could put a fence up if we wanted.  It has a pool and hot tub in the backyard.  We would have to put up another fence that locks directly around the pool. It is a very traditional 2 story house, functional and we can be there, long term.  It has 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, laundry room, hardwood floors in the living, dining, and a bedroom. (Pretty sure it is throughout and just covered by carpet.) Family room has a fireplace, there is a full unfinished basement.  It is a great house to host a small group and entertain. Ideal for some kind of ministry outreach.  It is one block south of Parkside Elementary and the community soccer fields, park, and People Trails. It is also within reasonable bike riding distance of Grandpa and Grandma’s new house.

Someone please buy our Little Rock house!!! Pray for our home to sell!  

ool news from Cummins. (press release here)
(For those of you that don’t know, in my former life I was an engineer at Cummins, Inc. I worked on the electronic controller (ECM) for the mid-range engines.)

They made a big announcement this week that they were partnering with an unnamed auto manufacturer to put a new, high performance diesel engine in SUVs and small pickup trucks. The press release claims that the diesel engine will get up to 30% better fuel economy than the same vehicle with a gas engine.

The problems with diesels in the past were noise and exhaust. They were loud and the exhaust was soot filled and smelly. The problems are all but gone with developments over the past ten years. I worked on the 2002 and 2003 midrange engines (same size that Dodge puts in their pickups) and on those Cummins introduced “pilot” fueling which makes them run almost as quiet as a gas engine. Plus, the EPA has ever-increasing emissions requirements that have helped the exhaust problems of the past. This approach, introducing diesel engines into the auto market, could end up being a more realistic approach to oil conservation than hybrids. Lower cost and less specialized equipment on the vehicle.

The last year or so I was at Cummins, we started hearing rumors of a new engine that had been kept top secret for several years (a big feat at Cummins, they don’t keep secrets very well.) The rumor was it was going to be a V6 engine designed to go in SUVs and the rumor at the time was they were trying to get Dodge to put it in the Durango. And, once they got a customer they would build the engine at the main Cummins plant in Columbus which has sat virtually empty for the past 6 years. The press release from Cummins said they can’t announce the auto manufacturer and they have not decided on a manufacturing location. But, I would not be surprised if they announce Chrysler as the customer and Columbus as the manufacturing location, they already own an empty, 2 billion square foot manufacturing facility there (well not that big but it does take up about 10 city blocks.)

The only reason I can think of for the customer not being Chrysler is that they have their own similar engine they developed a few years ago in Germany. I can’t wait to hear more about this. It can be huge news for my home town, all my friends that still work there and for my mutual fund

One other thing about our home town. The Commons Mall is a pretty cool place in downtown Columbus. Its one of the many “architectural wonders” there, the building itself and the sculpture inside called Chaos I

The Commons is a strange place. It is a mall (although the shopping portion seems to be dying),  a playground, food court, live theater and movie theater all in one. As a kid I saw all kinds of cool stuff there. Chinese Circus, talent shows, a puppet version of The Griffin and the Minor Canon (the coolest puppet show I’ve ever seen. People dressed all in black manning these life-sized, totally wicked looking puppets). Junior and Senior proms were there. Oh, and the first date I had with Karen was to see Heywood Banks there.

The playground there is an indoor city playground.

 It used to be an awesome playground, back in the day. That 4 foot mound used to have this giant circular monkey bar thing that was about 8 feet high. We could climb and sit on top of it… 12 feet off the ground.
You can’t see it all in the picture but the thing the slide on the right is in is one of two, 2 story cylinders made of bars. They both have platforms (enclosed by bars) on top and they exit out into the upstairs of the mall (right by the movie theater entrance.) The second cylinder had stairs that now just go to the top of the slide but they used to go all the way up to the platform on top. And the cylinder with the slide used to have two fire poles, one that went from the top platform to a second platform that was where the top of the slide is now, and a second pole that went from there to the ground.
It was all very dangerous but to an 8 year old kid it was like heaven.

They are supposed to be tearing it all down and building some new playground. I’m sure they will make it all “safe” and remove all possibility of “broken limbs” and “severe head trauma” but there is no way it will be as fun as it was when I was a kid.

We went back to Indiana last week for the 4th. Did some fishing, took in a movie and set off fireworks. By the way, everything is legal in Indiana now. We had it all, bottle rockets, fire crackers, roman candles, mortars. If it went in the sky and blew up, we had it. As my dad would say, “Its Fireworks Display 2006.”

Dad testing a bottle rocket. Checking the atmospheric conditions, wind velocity, etc.

We got to have homemade ice cream:

And we went to see Jon, best friend since 2nd grade:

(we were not supposed to smile, we were recreating a photo from 16 years ago)

We left the kids with Grandma and Grandpa last Thursday and they won’t be back until this coming Thursday! Woo hoo!
Its weird getting used to a quiet house and free time to do whatever we want.

The other day at work, we had a discussion about the generic term for soft drinks. Do you call it soda, pop, the generic “coke” or something else. One co-worker pointed us to this map that gives a county-by-county breakdown:

Man, I’m glad people have that kind of time on their hands to waste because this stuff is fascinating to me.

The Arkansans seem to favor “coke.”
One guy is from Michigan and was a strong “pop” proponent.
I’m from central Indiana (Bartholomew Co) where it seems to be an even split between “coke” and “pop.” I’ve said both but I don’t think I’ve ever used the term “soda.”

On a related note, I am a connoisseur of fine root beers. Something I’ve encountered more than once in restaurant when asking if they have root beer. “No, but we have Dr. Pepper.” What?!?! Since when is Dr. Pepper anything like root beer? I guess they are both brown but beyond that, I got nothin’.

Oh, and by the way, Barq’s is not root beer.