Shane Life

I have this sweatshirt that used to be my favorite article of clothing.

I wore it all the time in college because it defined who I was. On the front, it says: “GRACELAND VOLLEYBALL” in traditional college capital letters. It’s gray with navy writing — an unremarkable sweatshirt, but it was my favorite. It was comfortable and I loved it.

I haven’t worn that sweatshirt in at least 5 years.

It’s not that I lost it. I know exactly where it is.

It’s not that it doesn’t fit me anymore. It does, even though it’s a little more snug than it used to be.

I just doesn’t define me anymore.

Now, don’t get me wrong…I will always treasure the time I spent as a member of the Graceland Men’s volleyball team. It was an important part of my life and the friends that I made are still a big part of my life. They always will be. But as time has put its distance between me and that time of my life, the sweatshirt has been replaced by a 3-button navy pullover sweater from Old Navy. That’s my go-to item for comfort these days.

As I was emptying the dishwasher today, I was looking at our silverware. Next summer we will have been married for 10 years and the silverware we chose is still perfect. It’s practical and sturdy and works both for everyday use and for nicer occasions.

What was it about the silverware that made us realize that we’d still love it 10, 20, 50 years from when we got married? It’s classic and it isn’t fussy or fancy and I guess that’s kind of what Alli and I try to be in our relationship.

All of us have things in our lives that are like the sweatshirt and the silverware. Things like the sweatshirt are meaningful to us at a specific time and they remind us of good times, but their importance wanes. My volleyball sweatshirt shaped me quite a bit more than the silverware did personally. But the silverware will be around longer and probably be more functional to me over time.

A lot of relationships in our lives can fall into one of these two categories. Some are like a comfortable sweatshirt — keeping us warm and giving us identity, but they have an expiration date. Others are unassuming and functional like silverware — constant and sturdy and long-term. Both are important to us for different reasons. An interesting sidebar is that the close friends I’ve made through volleyball…they are examples of the sturdy silverware in my life.

It’s funny what you think about when you unload the dishwasher.

Today was about as typical of a Sunday as it could be. And that’s really one of the main reasons I love Sundays. They are predictable, sure; but there is a comfort to them like an old pair of sweatpants or your favorite chair.

We woke up and went to church early for a priesthood meeting, I ran around trying to fix computer issues I was having, and we had lunch with some good friends and an awesome 8-year-old.

We napped. I mowed. I showered.

It was a good day. Sundays usually are. And now, as I close out the first weekend of my Every Day in May project, I’m happy. I’m going to go hang out with my wife and dog and enjoy the rest of my weekend.

3 years ago, my buddies had an idea. Since most of us were in town during the holidays and since most of us lived in either Gardner or Olathe we should have a football game on Thanksgiving weekend. Thus, the Gardner-Olathe Annual Turkey Bowl was born.

This year was the first year I was able to play. In 2006 I was in Council Bluffs with Alli and in 2007, I had just had that back thing happen to me and I wasn’t really in any state to play.

I had thought that my absence was perhaps the reason that Gardner had won back-to-back games. I learned today (as they went back-to-back-to-back) that Olathe SUCKS at flag football. Two hours later, I’m defeated, demoralized, cold, wet and REALLY tired.

But it was a lot of fun.

I figure, while I’m still young, I probably should take advantage and still play. My sore body would suggest otherwise.

I’ve got a lot to be thankful for and I try to remember that daily and not just because the pilgrims told me to.

On this day of Thanksgiving, I am thankful for:

• My beautiful, loving, talented wife. She’s my best friend and the first person I want to talk to in the morning and the last one I want to talk to at night.
• My awesome family. All of them, immediate and extended. My family is fantastic.
• My great friends. I’m blessed with a large group of great friends who are a lot of fun to be around. I’m looking forward to our Gardner-Olathe football game this Saturday.
• And so much more…

I hope that this day finds you healthy, thankful, and blessed. Thanks especially to those who serve our country overseas and cannot be with their families on this day.

It’s a fitting close to this weekend.

Saturday turned out to be awesome. I woke up at 5 with the rain and lightning and was convinced we wouldn’t be able to golf. However, with some prayers, the weather cleared and by 10:00, the only thing we had to worry about at Royal Meadows was the wind.

Golfing was a lot of fun and then we joined some others for an 18-person poker tournament. But in order to give myself a challenge, I grilled 40+ cheeseburgers so Jake’s Man Day attendants would have something to nosh on.

The rest of Man Day was a blast. I finally had to call it a night at 12:30 shortly after I got everyone to the Brooksider. I hope everyone had fun.

Yesterday was a little more relaxed. We went to church, made lunch and I took a nice long nap. Last night, we spent some time at a friends’ house in their recently redone backyard, which made me insanely jealous to redo our backyard. We lazed around, watched the pilot of Iron Chef America from a few years ago, then turned in early.

It is, after all, Red Meat Day.

We’re going over to my parents’ house today. My dad returned from Dubai on Friday in time to ask me what I wanted to have for lunch today. He went and picked up my requested steak – a ribeye from McGonigals. So I’ll finally get to have what I missed for Jake’s birthday.

My good friends Brenna and Rebecca have both blogged this, but I know there are several people who read here that have not seen their posts. Whether or not you are a spiritual person, this is an important story for me to tell about a friend.

One of the members of our church is currently suffering very badly from the effects of cancer. Kelli is a wonderful mother of two small boys, loving wife, and devoted congregant of the church. She is only 36 and requires a ton of care so she is spending her final days with her family surrounding her at the Hospice House in Kansas City.

Kelli, along her husband Jeff, her kids Elijah and Zack, her parents Sharon and George and her brother John could all use any amount of prayers that you would be willing to send. These are good people who are in this horrible, terrible situation and they need God to bless them indeed.

I’ll leave you this morning with a section from her mom’s e-mail yesterday:

Her vital signs continue to be strong. We’ll take every little bit we can get. Kelli says that she is not afraid to die, she just doesn’t want to. She is a determined young lady. I know that all of your prayers are helping as all of us are able to cope during this scary time. 

Thanks,
Shane 

So I’m not sure about how this will work since there are many people who read this blog that I’ve actually never met IRL, but it’s such an interesting concept that I thought it would be fun. I first saw it on Rachel’s blog and then Alli did it and put her responses to comment on there, so I figured I would return the favor and answer her question, which was:

“on a scale of 1-10, how much do you hate that I am a vegetarian?”

At first, it was an 8. It was a hassle, particularly because it severely encroached on my meat-eating. You’ve always been very good about making stuff for me, but preparing food for one is a pain and I’d much rather eat together than eat separate food. Lately though, as I’m realizing that I’m healthier and my weight is coming off easier, it’s more like a 5. Do I wish you weren’t a vegetarian? Absolutely. But I understand your reasoning and I support you.

Now for the rest of you…here’s how this works.

Comment on this entry, and I will:

1. Tell you why I am friends with you.
2. Associate you with something – fandom, a song, a color, a photo, a word etc.
3. Tell you something I like about you.
4. Tell you a memory I have of you.
5. Ask something I’ve always wanted to know about you.
6. In return, you must post this to your own journal/blog.

For those of you I’ve never met, I’ll do my best.

Chimpotle

1. I read your blog because the title is absolutely genius and you are funny.
2. I associate you with the site Kissing Suzy Kolber because your shared items always appear in my Google Reader feeds.
3. I like that you were the first person to donate to my Heifer project.
4. I’ll say your favorite post of recent Yelp review of In-A-Tub. Made me laugh. Very Hard.
5. I’ve always wanted to know what you actually do all day long.

sirfwalgman

1. You’ve been a feed reader of mine since 2006 and you like poker.
2. I associate you with poker and a weird name.
3. I like that you come from nowhere to comment on my blog and I haven’t a CLUE who you are.
4. A memory I have of you was the first time I found you were reading my site. I was still using Bloglines and you could see the people subscribing to your feed. I saw you on there and I thought…who is THIS guy?
5. I’ve always wanted to know where you found my blog.

Alli, my loving beautiful wife

1. I am friends with you because you are my emotional equal. We have different interests and talents, but we communicate well and we work. Our conversations can be stupid or deep and I always love them.
2. I always have and always will associate you with Georgia O’Keeffe. I didn’t know about her before you and now I will never forget the beauty of her art.
3. If I had to pick one thing I like about you it would be how you smile with your soul and also how you encourage me to be the best version of myself.
4. Man, there are too many memories to count. One of my favorites from the past year was sitting in the sunbeam that shone through the oculus of the Pantheon in silence in Rome.
5. I have always wanted to know: “If you ever managed to meet Gwyneth Paltrow, what would you say to her?”

Jen

1. I have known you since childhood. We have gone to the same church for well over 20 years and our friendship has certainly grown in adulthood.
2. I associate you with the clarinet. You’ve played for so many years, but I’ve only recently come to appreciate just how wonderful it is and how much I wish I played an instrument.
3. I love how you parent Katie. She dotes on you and that’s totally obvious.
4. A memory that I have of you was sitting with you before church a month or two ago on that small bench in the foyer and talking. It’s one of the best one-on-one conversations I’ve ever had with you. Let’s do that again.
5. I’ve always wanted to know what it was that drew you to science.

Brother Jake

1. I am friends with you because you are my brother, my business partner, and my buddy. You make me laugh and you interrupt my days with random six degrees challenges.
2. I associate you with poker. You may be better than me, but the last time we were heads up, I won. So I still have scoreboard.
3. I like after 27 (almost 28!) years of living with you, being annoyed by you, fighting with you, ignoring you, that you haven’t held a grudge against me for the way I mistreated you as a little brother and you and I are now best friends.
4. Our 21st birthdays. Even though they occurred 3 years and 3 months apart and I remember them for very different reasons, they were both memorable because of you. Your multi-national rendition of Happy Birthday made me laugh harder than just about anything I’ve ever laughed at in my life.
5. I’ve always wanted to know what your favorite songs of all-time are. Perhaps non-311…

Brian D

1. I am friends with you because your brother told me I should be friends with you. We like the same stuff. We’re both nerds. We both blog. If we lived in the same city, we’d hang out.
2. I associate you with two things: curling and Washington DC
3. I like your commitment to a financially secure future. It seems like a really boring thing to like about someone, but we need more people like you that are vigilant about their finances and don’t rely on Washington politicians to bail them out of the debt they put themselves in.
4. A memory that I have of you is really around the first time that we started reading each other’s blogs. I remember that I just started one day and you started one day and there was no introduction. We just kind of became friends from the start.
5. I’ve always wanted to know who exactly where you work. I for some reason think that you work for the State Department and can’t tell me. But I wanted to ask.

KC Sponge

1. I am internet friends with you because you linked to me before you’d even commented. That was cool.
2. I associate you with blogger meetups, even though I have never been to one.
3. See the reason I’m internet friends with you. I remember reading your post about my blog and thinking…wow…this is pretty cool. You also contributed to my Heifer project, which is pretty cool.
4. My memory of you involves the YouTube video you posted of the kids you teach hip hop to. That was sweet.
5. I’ve always wanted to know what kind of law you plan on practicing. And can you get me out of my ticket I got a couple months ago?

Laura

1. My friendship with you goes back to Graceland, but really took root after we got married and were attending the Olathe congregation (with it’s incredible new website) on a regular basis.
2. I associate you with singing in church. When I was growing up, my dad’s voice was the only voice I could ever distinguish when hymns were being sung. With him being gone so much, I’ve found that I can hear you. And that makes me happy.
3. I like that you and I have matching computers now. Wonder Twin Macbooks UNITE!
4. Provocative. Shane. Need I say more?
5. I’ve always wanted to know what your favorite movie of all-time is.

Mike D

1. I am friends with you because when we were 17 and you were 18, your volleyball team took it easy on us at a tournament and we spent some time together in Iowa playing ball and being nuts.
2. I associate you with Chicago. No matter how long you live here, I will always associate you with the Windy City.
3. I like that you came to my wife’s art show. And I like your volleyball swing. I always have. You have the single best volleyball swing that I’ve had the fortune of playing with.
4. FFB. Thanks for that. You suck.
5. I’ve always wanted to know what it was like being Mr. Mom.

Christy

1. I was initially friends with you because we lived in the same neighborhood and thus went to the same schools, etc. I think we became better friends through theater and I reconnected with you thanks to Heidi’s blog
2. I associate you with…duh…YOGA. I am determined to come to one of your classes once you start teaching again, but I am completely terrified.
3. I like that I have known you for over 20 years, but my first memory of you is similar to my last one. You’ve always had a strong sense of self and I think that’s really cool.
4. The last time I saw you was when you came to Alli’s art show. That meant so much to her and so it meant a lot to me. Your appreciation of my wife’s art is something I will absolutely always remember.
5. I’ve always wanted to know what your favorite theater role you played was.

So, Emaw tagged me with this silly little Twilight Zone meme.

Recall and relate a time when you experienced a “paranormal event”
Explain it rationally if you can
Inflict this meme on 5 other people

Here’s the deal. Paranormal stuff doesn’t happen to me. I live a relatively simple life. It’s a great life, but a simple one. Wake up. Have breakfast. Pray with Alli. Go to work. Do marketing stuff. Sit in traffic. Eat. Watch TV. Sleep. Repeat. I love my life. I’m in a great marriage with a great woman. I have a good, stable job. I have an awesome family and a strong church.

Normal stuff happens to me, so instead of a “paranormal” event, I present to you a pair of normal events. I’ll try and make them interesting and hopefully, they’ll give you some insight into this Shane character that you are so enamored by on the Internets.

The Laugh Track

I was fortunate enough to enter college with my best friends in tow. I didn’t relate very well to my high school classmates. All my closest friends all came from different high schools. They were the clowns I had gone to church with since I was 6 years old and who I had played volleyball with since 7th grade. Most of those fools even read and comment on this blog. It doesn’t suck to have lifelong friends like that.

I loved college. Mike and I had a blast living together my freshman year. Every night we would know exactly when to go to sleep by the giant fart that Mike would blast right before bed. Our schedule looked a lot like this:

Occasionally, there would be a small change in the schedule, but for the most part, that was how I spent the first 2 years of college while living in the dorms. It was a blast.

One weeknight, a bunch of us on our floor had procrastinated on several projects that we had due and so all of us committed to staying up all night and getting our work done. I laughed harder that night than I ever have in my life. I don’t remember the project. I doubt I did well on it. Likely because of the Laugh Track we created that night.

For 2 hours that night, probably around 3 in the morning, we recorded several different laughs into our friend Dan’s computer. And we played them back. Over. And over. And over. I’m certain that part of the reason it was so funny was the hour, and you really had to be there to see why it was so funny, but it was trust me.

(See, I told you my stories were pretty boring.)

“I have a 10″

Very rarely, either Alli or myself has to go out of town for one reason or another. Every summer since she’s been coaching dance, she goes to camp at Emporia State with all her girls for a few days. At least once during those times, I’ll go hang out with my boys and play poker all night long. Low stakes cash games are a lot of fun with a small amount of people around the table set out Jason’s deck with 105.1 Jack FM playing on the outside speakers.

One night last summer, Jason, Jeff, Darin and I started playing around 9 p.m. It started slowly as we mostly just talked and played casually. As the night went on, we began to see a trend. Tens were hitting the board like crazy. I’m not exaggerating when I say that at least one ten was a part of the community cards 60% of the night. I don’t remember who started it, but we got more and more vocal during each time around the table. We began sharing the types of hands that we had. Then, we started completely telling the truth, particularly if we had a ten in our hand.

We were being so honest with our cards that we were even showing our tens after the hand was over. Over time, we stopped showing hands, but were still telling the types of cards we had. “Honest poker” we called it. It turns out that when you get good cards and are dealt tens all night long, you can win at honest poker without bluffing or anything. I managed to walk away the winner that night and I was more honest than the others.

I suppose it pays to be honest at cards sometimes.

So my penance has been paid. The Twilight Zone meme dies with me.

I thought a Year in Review might be fun, since a lot has happened this year that’s worth mentioning. I did something similar last year…thought it might be a good way to start the year off right.

Got the year started by watching the Chiefs lay another playoff egg in Indianapolis. I don’t care that Manning and the Colts went on to win the Super Bowl…the Chiefs plain sucked in that game. I considered going Martha Stewart on my home office, but decided against it, having the gift my parents gave me for Christmas 2006 (a custom California Closets desk) installed. Alli spent a lot of time in January in Ohio with her mom and her ailing grandma. We spent 11 days apart, the longest since we’ve been married.

February was Oscar month. Scorsese finally won his Oscar, which was awesome. I also spent some time in the ER because of chest pains that fortunately turned out only to be Costochondritis. Phew. Alli and I both visited the hospital that month. I struggled to read much of anything early in the year because Kyle Smith’s awful Love Monkey kept me down.

March had both sad and happy moments. Alli’s grandma passed away and we visited Ohio for the funeral. Jake and Kelly got engaged early in the month. I considered getting braces. I professed my newfound coffee love.

April contained a lot of posting on the blog because a lot went on. Alli and I took the church Senior High group to Branson for Young Christians’ Weekend, the Jayhawks lost in the tournament again, the Chiefs made a great first-round draft pick (who I met in December), Alli and I finalized our Italy plans, and the producers of American Idol raised over $70 million for the ONE Campaign. We also made another hospital trip in perhaps one of the scarier days of my life.

May happened.

June did too. Alli had an art show at Starbucks. I went to Atlanta for the HOW Design Conference and saw a 7-foot, 9-inch tall man. We left for our 3-week trip to Paris and Italy, which also took up over half of July. It was the best trip I’ve ever taken. For a review, read this post.

I spent much of August reviewing our trip on the blog. Alli turned the big 30. She dealt with it much better than me. I predicted a Larry-Johnson-less Chiefs to go 5-11. Not a bad prediction. They showed how awful they were going to be by going 0-4 in the pre-season and gave us a glimpse of how dysfunctional they were through Hard Knocks. I finally got around to reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I loved every moment of it. Alli and I also got totally addicted to Big Love on HBO.

September marked the arrival of my first niece, Ireland. The Fall TV season started up with some good new shows that will ultimately be cancelled. I worked a shift at the Cowboy Boot Carnival. Apple, as they do, released another wave of ipods. This post was my favorite of the year.

October is usually a great month, but it was marred by awful Chiefs play. Helping to raise my spirits was Alli’s second art show of the year, this time at Terrace on the Green. I went pink for October on the blog and saw a couple of excellent movies. The Sprint Center opened and we got to check it out for the So You Think You Can Dance show. I also helped Luke announce the launch of his KCDiningSpecials.com website.

I returned to Atlanta for about 36 hours in November for a brief industry conference. I also discovered an absolutely brilliant comic website, The Superest. I railed on the Chiefs quite a bit in November. Who would have known that they wouldn’t win again during the whole season? I visited Allen Field House for the first time in my life. The Slap Countdown timer expired. KU lost a close one to Missouri at Arrowhead. I initiated the first annual ‘Complete this Sentence‘ project. I was thankful.

December is my favorite month of the year. Especially when it snows. The Chiefs continued the longest losing streak in team history. We launched some awesome new technology at work. I turned 31 and got 15 comments on my birthday post (a new personal best!) and saw some movies. I tried to fix my back problems. We rang in the New Year with Jake and Kelly.

As for my favorites of the year, I’ll try to be brief:

• Favorite Movie: Across the Universe (not even a contest)
• Favorite Book: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
• Favorite New TV Show: The Big Bang Theory
• Favorite Reality TV Show: Top Chef
• Favorite Existing TV Show: Either Lost or The Office
• Favorite Album: Either the Across the Universe Soundtrack, Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black, or OneRepublic’s Dreamin’ Out Loud
• Favorite Event: The birth of my niece
• Favorite Trip: No contest here…it was obviously France/Italy 2007
• Favorite Restaurant: Caffe Leonardo in Rome

Overall, it was perhaps my best year yet. Hope yours was great as well. Here’s to an even better 2008.