Now I want to demolish something, anything

I stood in awe last night in the middle of Interstate 5 in Burlington and watched crews attack and destroy the SR 11/Chuckanut Drive overpass. It was reduced from a functioning road to a pile of rubble in a matter of hours. All that concrete and steel didn’t stand a chance against power of the hydraulic machinery.

(In case you can't tell, I'm the tall one in the middle.)


Crews were using equipment that looked like a giant steel T-rex and a jackhammer on steroids. The machines ripped through the steel and concrete like they were tearing wrapping paper off a present.



There is just something about watching construction equipment tear down stuff that is awesome. It’s too bad that I wasn’t Mike Rowe from the show Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel. I’m sure that if he was on-site last night, the crew would have let him ride in the excavators and a take a whack at the bridge. I imagine the demolition was like taking a swing at a stationary piñata with a bat. Who doesn’t love to hit piñatas? I definitely wanted a turn so I could take a swing.

The demolition was an impressive display of power and might. From start to finish, the whole process took less than six hours.

This was the second time in five years that I’ve had the opportunity to stand in the middle of Interstate 5 and watch bridge demolition. Both times I’ve mentally noted how weird it is to stand in the middle of I-5 without having traffic whizzing by – and how cool it must be to operate one of those giant machines knocking down the bridge. Maybe next time we take a bridge down, they’ll let me have a turn.

I burned the midnight oil to stay up late and capture pictures and the story. I went to bed some time around 4:30 a.m. and then was back at work by 10:30 a.m. I'm definitely going to bed early tonight.

Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive and Dodge

Those are the five Ds of dodgeball. They came in very handy this weekend too.

Most of the 601 (pronounced six-oh-one) crew flocked to Bellingham for the weekend. (A quick refresher for those of you who don't know who the 601 crew are; they're the guys that I lived with in college.) It wasn't quite a spontaneous gathering, but it was pretty close. It's amazing that so many of us were able to get together with only a week's notice. Only two of the seven were MIA.

We started with Boomer's burgers for dinner on Friday and then progressed to the Wii Fit. We found time between dinner and the Wii to dress like dorks for Matt and Chelsea's arrival. This was our first time meeting Chelsea, so we only had one opportunity to do it right. It was 2 a.m. before we finally found our way to bed. My how time flies when you're having fun.

(Peter, Abby and Jessica dressed as the welcoming committee.)


(I know it's hard to believe, but Tim doesn't normally wear a robe to parties.)


Matt caught on pretty quickly and wanted to know why we were all dressed so weirdly. We had a good laugh about it.

(Hanging out in the living room, taking turns playing the Wii.)


(Holly doing a little Hula-Hoop on the Wii.)


On Saturday morning we made Peach-Sausage-Pancake breakfast for those who stayed the night with us. Then after breakfast, 10 of us went for a hike along Lake Whatcom. It was cold, but the sun was shining; we had to get outside and enjoy it.

(Us in front of a small waterfall along the trail.)


(Left to right: Matt, Tim, Corey, me, Peter and Taylor).


(Left to right: Chelsea, Matt, Tim, Jessica, Corey, Abby, Dustin, Peter, Mindy, Taylor)


After lunch we got dressed for basketball and jump roping. Taylor and Mindy are teachers and have access to the school gym. Mindy just happens to be the PE teacher, so we had access to the room with all the toys. The funny thing is, we never really played basketball or jump roped. Things morphed into an all-out five on five dodgeball game. IT WAS AWESOME!!!

(Team TooMuchAwesome - Left to right: Laser, Blade, Blazer... Matt, Chelsea, Abby, me, Peter.)


(Team NotTooMuchAwesome - Left to right: Taylor, Mindy, Jessica, Corey, Tim)


(Here's a video of us playing dodgeball. The dudes got out pretty quickly on team TooMuchAwesome and Abby was left trying to hit the backboard to free all our captives. She hit it, I turned off the camera and we won the game.)


You wouldn't believe how sore we were after two hours of dodgeball. Not as young as we used to be. I think we'll try and make dodgeball happen again. It was SOOOO much fun. I think most of us hadn't played since we were in elementary school.

A day at the beach... in January

The sun was out and the frost had mostly melted away, so Abby and I grabbed our books, blankets, lawn chairs and sunglasses and headed for the beach (on Monday). We ended up at Little Squalicum Beach. I've lived here for almost 10 years and I've never been before. It was nice to go to a new beach in town. We both liked it, and I think we'll go back again.



The view from our chairs.


And sunset from the Boulevard Park boardwalk.


It was a fantastic day to have off from work.

Happy B-day Mom and Dad

This weekend Abby and I drove to Tacoma to celebrate my parents' 55th and 62nd birthdays. It was nice to be able to celebrate with them. My sister, Chandra, and her husband, Garrett, joined in the celebration. We treated them to Mexican food and a delicious chocolate cake that Abby had made. Here are the pictures from the evening.

My return to The INN

For the first time in nearly six years, I returned to The INN. It was like returning home to the birthplace of my relationship with Christ. It was truly special for me and I enjoyed it very much.

It sure doesn’t feel like six years have past since I last visited. And it sure doesn’t feel like it’s been nearly ten years since I first stepped foot in the door there. The INN was one of my favorite parts of college. It was where I got ‘plugged INN’ and connected with other believers and strengthened my newly-found relationship with Christ.

I have so many great memories from that place. All those great memories flooded my mind as we entered The INN. It was just like old times… kind of. Only this time: we were practically the oldest ones there; it was past our bed time; we only knew two other people; and we didn’t have an exam, paper or assignment due the next day.

Even though I’m not the target audience of The INN anymore, I’m still going to say that it is a magical place where Christ is moving and changing the lives of students. It was awesome worshipping God with so many students so late at night.

So why did we go? I recently reconnected with a friend of mine who I hadn’t talked with in several years. He’s on staff at The INN now, and on Tuesday he was speaking (giving a sermon). Abby and I have wanted to visit The INN again for quite some time and this was a perfect opportunity to do so. He rocked! The best part is that he was a part of the men’s bible study group I led my last two years in college. That was special for me.

How did I find The INN? I still remember the summer day after high school when my mother-in-law told me about The INN. She said that she had heard good things about it and that I should check it out when I was at Western. So as a freshman, in a new town, at a new school, with a bunch of people I’ve never met before, I got up enough courage to go to The INN. On my very first night there, I signed up for my first bible study ever, and by the very next week I was in a group with a bunch of guys I didn’t know. The leader of that group was Steve Moore, whom I’m still really good friends with to this day. Steve was an amazing witness for Christ. He was unlike anyone I’d ever known, and still is. God put him in my life on purpose.

By my junior year, Steve encouraged me to lead my own group. Despite being incredibly nervous, I did. During that same year I also went on my first-ever mission trip through The INN.

God used The INN to change my life; just like he is still doing to this day with current students. I did things while a part of The INN that I may never have done otherwise. I’m thankful that college students still have the opportunity to be a part of The INN like I was, and to strengthen their relationship with Christ like I did.

Sterling Automotive - the place to go

This is going to be a shameless plug for a local auto shop (Sterling Automotive), but only because we had such amazing customer service. It was the kind of service you dream of from an auto shop. The customer service started on the phone and lasted through the whole visit. It was unreal.

Lets be honest, how many of us dread going to the auto shop? I know I do. At least I thought I did. Unless you're a mechanic yourself and have an intricate knowledge of engines, you usually feel belittled and cheated with most shops.

I met one of my neighbors a couple months ago and while we were talking I learned that he owned his own auto shop - Sterling Automotive. Guess what his name is? Sterling. It's his first name. I told Abby that next time we had a car problem that we were going to go there. It couldn't hurt to know the owner of an auto shop, right? Right. The best part is the shop is like a half-mile from our house. It's super close.

Our Jetta check-engine light came on when we were on the freeway on Thursday. The car was running fine, so we didn't make calls right away. Abby got up this morning and made two calls. I won't name the first shop because they were going to charge us $50-$100 to read the on-board computer and they couldn't get us in until Tuesday. The next call was to Sterling Automotive. Guess who answered the phone? Sterling. Abby asked him if they specialized in any specific cars, and he said, "No, we like them all." Then she asked, "Our check engine light came on, how much would it cost to get it looked at?" Sterling said, "Nothing. It's free. Bring it on down." Abby asked, "Today?" He said, "Yeah, we have time."

We arrived at Sterling Automotive within 15 minutes. Sterling greeted us, had us pull our car into the garage and introduced us to Jeff, who was going to check our car. Sterling offered me coffee or tea in specialized Sterling Automotive mugs. I took some tea. While I was sipping my tea and watching Jeff go to work, I noticed that they were playing Praise 106.5 over the radio. That's weird. When have you ever heard an auto shop play Christian music? Normally it's AC/DC or some sort of rock.

According to the computer and Jeff, our Catalytic Converter is going out. Jeff said that if our car was still running well, that we didn't need to replace the CC right away. We asked what the consequences would be if we didn't. He said that our fuel mileage would probably go down a bit, there might be added wear on the spark plugs, and eventually the car would start to run a little more rough. We would need to replace it eventually, but not right now if the car was running fine. I then asked, "What it would it cost to replace the CC?" He said, "Expensive!" I asked, "Expensive like $200 expensive, or expensive like $800 expensive?" He said, "Probably somewhere in between." He then looked it up and asked, "Remember how I said it would be expensive?" Turns out that it's almost $1,000 expensive. Ouch.

I still have to double check these CC details with my father-in-law, but they seemed pretty reputable.

We're going to wait to replace the CC until we notice the slightest bit of roughness when we drive it. Guess where we're going to take it when we get it replaced? Sterling Automotive.

We were in and out in less than 15 minutes. I didn't even have enough time to finish my tea. It barely had enough time to steep. Oh, and the kicker was this. I asked where the dirty mugs went. Jeff said that we got to keep it. What?! Keep it? No way! Now we have a Sterling Automotive mug (with an extra big handle) and we didn't even pay them.

Now, technically we haven't had them do any actual work on the car. So we don't really know how good their repair skills are. But if they're half as good as their customer service skills, then they'll be really good.

Year in review

2008 was a pretty amazing year for Abby and I. I truly feel blessed when I reflect back on all the things that we accomplished, things we did, and places we went. Here are a few pictures of us from 2008.


January in the PNW. Drove up to a lookout in Bellingham for an amazing view of the San Juan Islands.


February - our first time snowshoeing ever. It was fun!


March - Mariners season opener. It snowed while we were at the game. Brrr!


April - Abby had a conference in Vegas. I flew down after the conference and we enjoyed the warm weather for a few days.


May - A trip to the island of Saint John in the U.S. Virgin Islands. WOW! Best vacation we've ever been on.


June - Strawberry season. Hard to beat summers in the PNW.


July - Zuanich Park in Squalicum Harbor, Bellingham. Watched the fireworks.


August - Work trip to Nashville, Tennessee. At one stop we got to visit the Titans locker room.


August - Little Big Town country concert in Lynden, Washington. Abby's favorite country band.


September - Our annual trip to eastern Washington for the Champoux Grape Stomp. In this picture we're inside the drying room at the Champoux hop farm. One Champoux brother owns a vineyard, the other owns a hop farm. They need another brother to own a distillery and they will have the alcohol market covered.


September - Celebrating our five-year anniversary two months late in Maui. We had a great time.


October - Hard to beat fall in the PNW. A hike through the woods on Sehome Hill to enjoy the vibrant fall colors.


November - Touring vineyards in Willamette Valley - Salem, Oregon.


December - Seahawks game.


December - 17-foot Christmas tree.

What a year. We already have plans to go to Miami and Michigan. We'll see where else 2009 takes us!