Danielle's Ice Cream Dream

We're gonna do our first JDRF walk as a family this coming October!  Danielle is totally stoked about it.  The name she picked for her team of walkers...."Danielle's Ice Cream Dream"

Danielle was diagnosed with Type I diabetes when she was just two years old.  That seems like a long time ago now since she's about to turn eight years old.

It's been a constant challenge but it's developed in her a BIG HEART and she loves to give to others.  I know she would love it if they found a cure, but more than that she just wants to help others. 

Please consider giving to the cause.  You can donate to her, or to me (I'm trying to raise $100 also) or to the Ice Cream Dream.  (Team name: Danielle's Ice Cream Dream)

Thanks for being a part!

Donation Page - Just mention the team name or my name....Arron Vickery

http://www2.jdrf.org/site/PageServer?pagename=walk_homepage

Danielle's Dad

Baylor the Dog and social networking

Image via Wikipedia

If we call our social network Facebook, then what would a dog call theirs?  Let me explain...

Tonight my trusty canine companion and I went for a jog/walk around the block in my neighborhood. It was a beautiful evening with puffy clouds backlit by an almost full moon. The sun had been down less than an hour and already the calm of evening had settled in. As we walked down the streets in my neighborhood, Baylor would zig and zag from front yard to front yard. Each pile of leaves and every mailbox he came to he took the time to sniff and mark.  Almost as if he was a scientist collecting specimins and cataloging them for later recall. Now if I had simply been 'walking the dog' I might have just observed and allowed him to go about his business.  But I was actually trying to get some excercise. And this constant stopping and starting didn't fit into my fitness plan. I mean I understand the concept of interval training, but I think you have to sustain enough activity to get your heart rate up for that to work. This was most annoying and I let Baylor feel my annoyance by jerking him out of his three-legged stance many times.  Two thoughts came to my mind as I was trying to establish a decent pace: 
1.Why is it so important for him to pee in the exact same spot as every other dog in the neighborhood? 2.Where does he store all this extra water?

As I rounded the next corner a thought occurred to me.  What if he's just trying to stay up on all his friends... his aquaintances...his "peeps"? (I guess in his case it would be..."pups"? I know, i know...)  Then it hit me. It was an epiphany of sorts. Running around and peeing on everything and sniffing where other dogs have done the same is the canine version of Facebook!

Of course, there are many other questions that now need to be answered.  How do they "poke" one another?  What is the equivalent of a "friend request"?  Is there such a thing as "like" in their little offline community?  The list could go on and on. But the question that made me lose my ability to keep running as I choked on my own laughter was the last one....If we call ours Facebook, and dogs sniff each other's behinds, what would you call their network???.....Think about it!

Stories my kids love to hear... Pt. 1 "The flamming marshmallow"

Recently my kids have been asking me to tell them stories about when I was a kid.  We started this tradition during the evenings when I'm home that I would tell the girls stories during dinner.  Its been a runaway success. More than I ever thought it would.  They think I'm the greatest story teller ever.  Little do they know that I come from a long line of story tellers!  My Dad, my brother, my uncle on my mom's side, my grand-father on my mom's side, my wife's dad, my wife's grandad and I'm sure generations that I never met. Apparently spinning a yarn is embedded deep within the DNA of both the Vickery's and Inzer's.  So, although I realize that I'm probably just an average story teller in light of my ancestors and contemporary family members, my kids love to hear me tell stories.  Now, the stories that my kids really like to hear me tell are not just any stories.  They always want to hear stories about when "I was a kid."

My upbringing was not quite Norman Rockwellian, rather a little bit more like "the Little Rascals". My older brother and I spent our school years living with our mother who was single and worked full time. There was always plenty of time for hi-jinks and mayhem.  During the summers we traveled to the Arizona desert where my Dad was stationed at William's A.F.B. outside of Phoenix.  In both locations we found friends, neighborhood bullies and plenty of adventure to occupy us.  Many of my stories come from these times. Simpler times. Very good times. Here is the first of what I hope will be many of these stories...

Camping has been a part of my life since I was a baby. In the countless 35mm slides that document my early years I've seen pictures of me with diapers on (and without) sitting around camp fires and the outdoors. Many of these early scenes were in the northwest part of the country where I was born. Later, many of them took place in the wilderness and mountains of Arizona. You see my brother and I would spend our school year in South Carolina with our mother. But once school was out we got to go out west. The old west!  Arizona.  The place that gave birth to the legends of Tombstone and Wyatt Earp. It was a great way to grow up.
 

Camping was just something we did with my dad in the summers. One summer, when I was around 7 years old, we were on one of our yearly trips to the mountains of Arizona.  We had setup camp close to a lake and were enjoying an evening around the campfire. You can't really have a campfire without roasting marshmallows, at least not if you have kids camping with you. So we were roasting marshmallows.  I use the term roasting lightly. Charring or torching might be more appropriate. You have to get close so that your eyebrows feel singed in order to get the end of the stick to the right location just outside that orange glow at the hottest part of the fire. Well, my older brother Shane had just achieved the perfect positioning of his whittled spear tip full of marshmallows. And as we were all admiring his ability to reach the perfect cooking placement he raised that heavenly harpoon and it burst into flames.  He immediately began to wave it around in the air to try to extinguish the ignited treats. I mean what kid wants chocolate, graham crackers and ash?  Well, as he soon found out, the more he waived them around the brighter the flames burned. With this realization he began to panic and started wildly swinging them back and forth. What all of us failed to see in time was the fact that I was standing directly in his path in my cutoff jean shorts. I was already about five feet off the ground by the time I realized that my leg was ablaze with burning goo. I of course let out a scream that no little girl for three counties could rival. Lucky for me my dad had seen all of this happen and had swooped in, picked me up and was carrying me to the nearby lake shore. What seemed like a forever at the time really only took about 3 or 4 seconds before I was thrown into the dark water and the flames were extinguished. As I realized that I was sitting on the bottom of the lake I rose to my feet where the water was about to my knees. I was in shock. But I doubt my eyes were near as wide as my brothers were as I'm sure he thought his short life was about to come to an end at the hands of my father.  Thinking back, I wish I had a picture of the look of sheer terror on his face more than anything.

Recently at a family gathering over the Christmas holidays we told this story again and all laughed hardily. No one laughed more that I did. Especially as dad summed it all up by telling us how somehow every time we went camping we managed to go through an entire first-aid kit.

The Little Rascals: The Complete Collection

A Tale of Two Cities...2010 in review

Image via Wikipedia

Now that we're a couple of weeks into 2011 I'm finally getting around to putting down some thoughts about what we've been through in the last year.
Really, to frame last year properly I have to go back to the end of 2008.  In October of 2008 my family and I were living in Mesquite, Texas. Things were pretty much the same for us as they had been for the last few years.  I was working for the same company that I had been with since 2003. We were able to have Shelly stay home and homeschool. We felt like that we were blessed. But really I had hit a glass ceiling at my job. There really didn't seem to be growth opportunities. We had a good church and the same few good friends that we had known for the last few years.  Life was by no means bad, it just wasn't very exciting or fulfilling.  But the really sad part was that we didn't even realize it.  We were in maintenance mode, stuck in a self preservation rut!  Life had become about keeping the kids healthy and not going into more debt.  Not bad things to be concerned about, but not quite what we were hoping for when we married.
So there we were with our heads down going through the day to day when two events happened that would put things in motion to cause change in our lives.  First, my company "merged" with a competitor.  Now they called it a merger but in actuality it was a takeover. My company decided to basically sell our division to the other company but they were too chicken to tell us employees what was really going on.
The other thing that happened was that my mother was diagnosed with an aggressive form of Lung Cancer.
I won't go into too much detail on either situation but to say that it made 2009 a very difficult year for me especially.  After a round of Chemotherapy and a summer of remission, Mom succumbed  and passed away on December 22nd of 2009.
Work was no where near as bad as loosing a loved one, but I was having by far the most difficult year of my career. All of the leadership from my old company had been replaced by people from the purchasing company. Managers were let go and everyone who knew me, and the reputation I had spent 5 years building up, were now gone or demoted back to new hire status. When you work in implementations, new hire status means you get the really crummy gigs. The ones with the longest travel. I myself had gone from being a senior consultant to being 'low man on the totem pole'.  So, I was back on the road full time traveling every week for 4 or 5 days a week. And to make it worse, I was working for idiots who knew less about their jobs than I did. On top of all of this in October of 2009 while working in my backyard, I dislocated my right shoulder so bad that it required two surgeries and a lot of physical therapy that lasted half way through 2010. The end of 2009 I spent burring my mother and wondering how things could get worse.
The one bright spot had been that I got a call from a recruiter who found my profile on Linked In and called me about a position with a medical center in Mississippi of all places. It was a supposed to be a step up and a lot more money.  This happened in early December.

So, there is the setup for 2010. Along about the second week of January I was driving back from South Carolina where I had been gathering my inherited furniture and stuff. (anyone from Texas will understand this next thought)  I remember looking around as I was passing through Mississippi and thinking, "how could I leave Texas for this place?"  I got back to Texas and went back to work.  I ended up having an interview with the medical center and it went well, or so I thought.  I waited and nothing ever happened.  So in my mind I wrote it off as a dead opportunity.  In the mean time, things continued to stay bad at work.  Some of you perhaps have read one of the first posts in this blog..."No Score and 7 years ago today". It was about this time in early March and in this environment that I finally came to a decision that it was time to leave my place of employment and find another job. Even if the economy was bad, I decided that I just couldn't stand it anymore.  Besides, recruiters were still calling pretty regularly. I followed up on one of these calls and I interviewed for a position at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas.  It seemed to be perfect and I let my emotions get wrapped up in that opportunity.  It seemed to be just what I was looking for.  I'd be off the road and at a well respected hospital with room to grow my career.  Well, after going back for several return interviews I got the cold shoulder.  I was upset and couldn't understand why they had strung me along if they weren't interested. It turns out that the recruiter actually screwed up my chances by not following up with them letting them know I wanted the position after telling me to "let him do the negotiating".  Don't ever use Tek Systems in Dallas for an employment recruiter!  So it was back to the drawing board. By this time in May I was beginning to think that perhaps I would never get out of this rut.  The thought occurred to me that perhaps God was trying to teach my something that I just wasn't learning.  I'd certainly heard plenty of well-meaning friends and preachers say something to that effect.  I mean why were things staying so bad for so long.  And why couldn't I get out of the work situation I was in?

In mid-June I got a call from the same recruiter that had called me about the position in Jackson, Mississippi.  Things had changed at that company and they were going a different direction but they still had my resume and were interested in talking to me about helping them implement a new software package.  I gave it some thought and said, "what they heck".  I still didn't want to move to Mississippi but at least it sounded like they appreciated my talents and abilities. So while I was on site with another client I set a noon appointment for a phone interview. That turned out to be one of the best decisions I've ever made. There is another post to this blog about those days so I'll just skip ahead to say that I started with my new job on Aug 16th of 2010.

What a difference!  There were so many things that changed for us when we decided to take a leap of faith and move to Mississippi. 

1. First was my Job situation.  I had forgotten what it was like to actually enjoy going to work.  The people I was working with were glad I was there and seemed more pleasant to be around. And now six months into this job I've already received a promotion to program manager over a great team of folks. Plus, I am now able to be a Dad that is going to be around. No more missing all those simple but important moments that happen around the dinner table and while you're tucking your kid into bed. 
2. Second had to do with my girls.  The neighborhood we lived in back in Mesquite was fine we thought. But when we moved into our new neighborhood we immediately saw a difference.  We knew every family on our street by the end of the first week here. And on top of that there is a little girl my kids age that lives directly across the street from us. I guess the best way to describe how this has changed our lives is in what my oldest daughter who has Asperger's syndrome told us. She said she prayed for some friends and now she has one. If you know anything about asperger's you understand what a miracle this really was. Now, our kids bounce in and out of her house and she does the same to our house. I'll just sum it up by saying it's really a great neighborhood where we actually know and like our neighbors. 
3. Another great thing is how my wife is so much happier than she was before.  A few weeks after moving here we met a great family that homeschools and sees many things the way we do. My wife and the mother in that family have become fast friends.  Their practically inseparable. All because we listed an extra refrigerator we had on craigslist and they responded.  Talk about a God directing your steps...
4. The last way is definitely not the least in this list. It has to do with how we feel God has brought us to a new church for such a time as this.  Our church back in Rockwall, TX is a wonderful church. And we had been there for almost 15 years. We were married while attending there. Our children were dedicated and baptised there. And we have lifelong friends and mentors from there. Some of whom we are still very close with. But sometimes you just have to get out of the nest if you want to really fly.  That's really what I feel God is doing with us here. We've started attending a great new church called Highland Chapel.  It's a church plant that is less than a year old. But we really feel like its home already and love the vision and excitement of what is going on there.  I think this could actually be the main reason we are here.

I left out a lot of details. Some because I just don't recall them right now. Some because it would really make this blog post into a documentary and very lengthy. (if it's not already) But the main thing that I'm taking away from 2010 is this.  God isn't finished with any of us yet.  And he's not punishing any of us for our past failures or how stupid we've been.  So what if you aren't the fastest learner.  God used some pretty stupid people in the Bible.  He even had a donkey speak when it was needed.  He can use us and he's still looking to do just that.  He can turn things around. Don't think he can't.

Two cities.  Dallas and Jackson.  The book is now closed on one and a new chapter is underway on the other.  I wonder if it's really Dallas and Jackson or is it this earthly city and Heaven?

Letter to Dad

Dear Dad,
I'm writing to you as part of your birthday present. You're getting 70 different gifts. One to represent every year you've been on this earth. This letter will just be one of them.

I'm really glad that we are all spending this Christmas together. If there's one thing that I've re-learned over the last year it is that family is important. You've always been there for me but this last year more than most I've really appreciated knowing that you're there. As an adult with my own family to support and take care of I often think back to when I was growing up. I know you didn't have the easiest of roads. Of course that in itself isn't that unusual. But what you did with what you had is one of the things that has always inspired me. I often wonder if I could have left home and joined the Airforce at 17 years old. Or if I could have made all those cross-country trips with the pregnant wife and the crazy weather. I'm pretty sure I would have had trouble with the snow in Minnesota and having to plug-in my car engine in Alaska. These are all some of my very favorite stories.

When I think of all these things that you did I realize that because you faced them and overcame them, I was given an example to follow. The times in my life that I've come up against challenges that I didn't know how I'd get through, I always had a picture of bravery and strength to look back on would give me a hope that I could make it through. I can think of no better gift that you could have given a little boy who really needed guidance. I know you weren't able to be around as much as you liked. But you always made the effort to be there even when others didn't want to let you.

I've learned that life seldom follows the path that we think it should or hoped it would. So, I'm glad you taught me through example how to make the best of what comes our way. It's a lesson that I hope to pass on to my girls.

You may never know the impact that you've had on my life and by extension the lives of my wife and kids. I suppose none of us ever get to know those sorts of things. But I want you to know that it's significant and I'm so very proud to be your son.

So, you're 70 and I'm about to be 40. I'd say we've got a good 10 to 15 years at least of golf and memories to build. And I can't wait to enjoy it with you. So you better come out and visit us in Jackson.

Love,
Your third born son
Arron

A Hero of the Faith

On Thursday of this week my wife called me in tears. Grammy had been taken to the hospital and was unconscious. It didn't look good. Now Grammy is an old woman of 80 something years and very frail. She has been in a declining mental state for a number of years even if her physical health has been pretty good. Nonetheless, I knew that this would probably mean the beginning of the end of her time with us here on earth.


I had recently been through something very similar with my own mother when she was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer in Oct of 2008. It was very hard on me at the time so even though I didn't have the same immediate tears that my wife was experiencing I remember the flood of emotion that comes when facing the potential loss of someone that you've known your entire life. Someone that you've come to take for granted as just part of your life…part of your paradigm…part of who you are. My wife has no exposure to her maternal grandparents so this is the first time she's experienced this. Its gut wrenching at best. I liken it to being punched in the stomach emotionally and you suddenly can't breathe. It's a terrible feeling and I wish very much I could take it from her so she wouldn't have to experience it. But alas, it is as much a part of life as losing baby teeth, first loves, or having children. We are ultimately made up of the sum of our experiences and this is one she has to experience to become.
As I was reflecting upon all of this from 1500 miles away in Madison, WI. I began to think of the person that Grammy was. And I was left with these thoughts...she was amazing and she is a Hero of mine.


Elva Hand Inzer experienced so much in this life. You won't find her in the Guinness book of records. There is probably not an article on her in Wikipedia. And CNN won't ever have her on their list of unsung heroes. But her story should be told. She was a wonderful combination of the American dream and God's plan for us. She married young to Lavern Inzer after his time serving our nation in the U.S. Navy during WWII in the pacific theater. They went to seminary together and then moved to northern Nevada to be Baptist missionaries and church planters. Together they preached and planted most of the Baptist churches in the region and were active there for almost 50 years. Our family all loves the stories of Lavern driving to 3+ different churches that were sometimes 100 miles apart on a single Sunday to preach. I especially like the stories of him riding on the trail with the cowboys and preaching to them as they drove the cattle. These are all great and inspiring. But what doesn't often get told is of the support system that it took to make that possible. That support system was Elva. She raised four children and took care of Lavern as well as the other duties that a preacher's wife had. If you know Baptist churches you can just imagine…Sunday school teaching, pot luck organizing, prayer group leading, choir singing, VBS planning, and the list goes on and on. Hers was a role that was behind the scenes and away from the accolades that many of us crave. She was constant and steady. What is that ole' saying? "Behind every good man there's a great woman". In this case it certainly was true.


I only really got to know Grammy over the last decade since her and Gramps (Lavern) finally retired and moved to Dallas. I fondly remember her smile and laugh and getting hugs from her every time we'd all be together. She liked spicy foods and ice cream. She loved life and her children and her grand children and her great grandchildren. And I love the fact that my two girls got to know their great grandmother. That is rare in this day and age. I just hope that they will someday appreciate the legacy of faith and faithfulness that she passed on to them. I certainly have come to understand it appreciate it.

Today on the way home from church we got the news that she had passed and gone on to be with the Lord. I was reminded of that scripture in psalms that talks about how God is touched by our passing from this life. "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." Psalm 116:15
She will be missed but we know she is now at peace and is starting to be introduced to her reward for all that she did during this life. I imagine that there are few in heaven that will be rewarded as much as her. She is certainly rich. Congratulations Grammy…you finished the race…you won the fight. I know that you'll be cheering the rest of us on.

Mentors

This post is about mentors. We've all had them. At least I hope that everyone can say that they've had one.  I've actually been blessed enough to have had several in my 39 years on this earth.  Some I sought out.  Others seemed to just appear even if I didn't know I needed them. One such individual was a early and extremely formative mentor in my life.  In fact, I doubt I'd have any of the blessings that I sometimes take for granted without his undeniable influence on me. This man recently turned 80 years old and I wasn't able to be there to celebrate with him or tell him how much I appreciate him.  Now I hear that he has fallen ill and is in the hospital back in my hometown of Anderson, SC.  So let me take this opportunity to reflect on what he meant in my life.
Allen "Bud" Putman.  It's probably not a name you've heard before.  He's not famous outside of a few thousand or so junior high and high school band students who went to school in upstate South Carolina. If you "google" his name the only mention you can find is his time in the mile at "The Michelin Midnight Flight" mile run back in 2002. (He was 71 years old and ran it in 8 minutes and 23 seconds.  That's pretty darn good!)
For many he was a teacher.  For some of us he was a light.  For me he was an example.  Sure he taught me how to play the trumpet which opened up a world of opportunity to acheivement, recognition and the realization that I was talented and special. But more than being my Jr high and High school band director, Mr Putman or "Bud" as most called him had the conviction and compasion to take me to church knowing that I was lost without Christ in my life.
Mr Putman had been my older brothers band director so we knew him well by the time my older brother started high school and I started jr high.  My mom was a single mom raising two boys so Mr Putman took a special interest in the two of us and saw that we were ships without a rudder.  Now my older brother was always responsible and did the right thing most of the time. But I was a different story. You might say I was  in danger of "drifting".  It's not that I was a bad kid, I just craved attention a little too much and knew that acting a certain way was a good way to get attention.  And to be honest, I was pretty good at crossing the line without getting caught.
Mr. Putman saw an opportunity to use music as a way to get us to be a part of the "youth orchestra" at New Prospect Baptist church.  My brother and some of the "cool" older kids were going to do it so I wanted to go along.  Man was that the right decision! Mr Putman had been asked to be the interim music minister at the church and so he was able to bring in a bunch of us kids. It eventually led to me meeting some of my best friends throughout Jr High and High school as well as me getting involved in youth choir which in turn led to me getting saved. I also learned that I could sing pretty well. Have I mentioned before that I went to college on scholarships for singing and playing the trumpet?  I met my wife while in college.  The chain of events that have basically made up my adult life were all set in place because of the actions of this man. 
I know that none of this is coincidence.  God had a plan for my life.  But Mr Putman was the instrument that God used to bring that plan into action.  And not just for me, there are hundreds of boys and girls just like me with similar stories.  I could tell story after story of him taking the time with me to instill little nuggets of wisdom or provide guidance and sometimes correction when it was needed. Believe me, I needed it a lot.  My memory is flooded with images of almost Rockwellian type scenes like when he would pile more kids that are now legally allowed in one vehicle into the infamous "Bondo Buggy".  A 70's era maverick that was only supposed to hold 4 people but we somehow were able to cram 7-8 kids along with our musical intrument cases and usually a few music stands to boot.  Most of us were what you might call "underpriviledged" so we had no ride to anywhere.  He would just scoop us all up and take us to whatever event the band was playing at.  And when it was over, if our parents weren't there he'd pile us back in the bondo buggy and take us home one by one.  It wasn't just after school either.  I remember many a Sunday morning piling in the back of that car to head to church and then home again after sunday school and the 11 o'clock service was over.  And since he didn't know a stranger, it usually meant that you had to sit around and hear several stories told the way that only Bud Putman could tell 'em.  I didn't realize it back then, but I watched and I learned how to be a man of character and compasion in those times.  He would live it out right in front of us.  It wasn't in lectures and lesson plans, it was in a life lived with conviction and principle.

I don't know why we wait until its almost too late to tell people how much they mean to us.  It's not on purpose.  Perhaps its because we take them for granted.  Maybe its just that we get busy living our own lives.  But I know that I would be remiss if I didn't take the time to say how much I revere and love that man, Allen Bud Putman.  You sir, are a "Mensch" as they say and I am eternally grateful for you.  May your reward be great in heaven.  And may you know that you are loved by many here on earth.