Top 5 Tuesday

Camp Dwight Of The Week: Next Generation. We are entering the full-circle season of life. Katie was seven years old when we first met at Camp Dwight. Our children our now hitting the ages we were when we would run around Katie’s grandpa’s Central Oregon property playing in the irrigation canal, jumping on the trampolines, and disrupting the teenager’s volleyball games. We returned home on Monday after three days of action packed socializing, singing, hearing messages from Katie’s father, Chad, and eating incredible food donated by Azure Standard. The kids each lapped the zip-line countless times, avoided injuries on the slip-n-slide, and wore out the gaga ball pit. Huge thanks to Katie’s Aunt Marilee and Marilee’s children for welcoming over a 1000 people onto their property year after year.

Runners Of The Week: Titles. Leon defended his Camp Dwight 5k Age Group title with his younger brother, Louis, right on his tail. Lucy won her age group for the first time ever. Our entire family participated. Katie pushing Lyman and Lionel in the stroller and the rest of us running on our own power. I won’t talk about how I ended up placing. You may recall that last year I tried my darndest to win my age group and came up a few seconds too slow. I decided after last year to stop worrying about my overall placement and just compete against myself. What’s ironic is that this new strategy resulted in me winning my age group. But I am not even concerned with that. I’m not even going to mention that part. What matters to me is that I competed against myself and won. I am both the winner and the loser. I defeated and was defeated. The reason I chose to compete against myself this year is because sometimes I'm a loser which makes me a winner and sometimes I’m a winner which makes me a winner. It doesn’t even matter to me that I won my age group which is why I don’t even care to mention it. What matters is that I have over-ridden the wiring in my brain in a way that results in me always feeling victorious. That is the real win.

Keys Locked In The Car Of The Week: Not Getting Any Better. It is a frustratingly familiar feeling. It has happened so so many times. All of the doors in our Ford Explorer leak from me jamming countless tools down the crack to unlocked the door. When Katie and I were dating I unintentionally shattered the window of my sedan as I was trying to reach the unlock button from outside. Katie’s uncle Wade has driven me an extra set of keys, we’ve locked our keys in the car with a toddler inside in the heat of summer and in the bitter cold of winter. We’ve done it with rental cars and U-hauls. This was the first time I had done it with our van. We’ve owned it for over a year so it was clearly due. I didn’t want our doors to start leaking and I didn’t want to shatter any windows so I called a locksmith. He picked the lock instead of using a wedge and slim jim because he too didn’t want our doors to start leaking. I’ve lost so much money breaking into vehicles I own. This all happened like two hours ago and I am still very annoyed by the whole thing. The problem is that I have every expectation of this happening again. When I do my after action review I find absolutely nothing wrong with my behavior that lead to me standing out in the burning sun locked out of our van. How can I learn from my mistakes when there was no mistake for me to learn from?

Birthday Boy Of The Week: Lionel Peter Voetberg. Lionel Peter turned three years-old today. We celebrated with Cinnamon Toast Crunch, a red bouncy ball, a LEGO set, then fresh berries and whipped cream. He was a constant stoke level 100 all day long.

Podcast Of The Week: Listen To Today’s Podcast Episode Here: Feminism Or Misogyny | Ep. 505