You should’ve seen the line for the diving board. About 15 kids, aged 12-20 lined up to take their Greg Louganis, and in the middle of them all was a 3-year-old, beaming a smile from ear to ear. “Daddy, I’m jumping like the BIG BOYS!” Way to go, kiddo. Way to go.

For the full news article, visit The Murray Ledger & Times website.

I mean, I read now: emails, menus, traffic signs, technical manuals. But I used to read. When I was younger I kept up with Steven King, John Grisham, Michael Crichton and many others. I loved to read. In fact, I still do. I burned through Dan Brown’s first few books right after the wife and I got married, but by the time I got to page 50 of Deception Point I was a few months into my current career, my first child was on the way, and the stress of life began. I’m looking at my bookshelf right now, 5 years later, and I can still see the bookmark, still at page 50, sticking out of the top of Deception Point.

I want to read. There are so many new books that have dropped lately that I’m extremely excited about. But the harrowing ordeal of personal and professional life always seems to get in the way, not to mention graduate school. Reading a book doesn’t come as easy as it used to. What I need is a tool; something like a book, but not really a book, that can help get me reading again. I need an easy-to-carry, easy-to-use reader that can keep track of what I’m reading and where in the book I am. And it needs to make getting books simple, too. There aren’t any good bookstores within 30 miles of home, unless you count Wal-Mart, and often the stuff I’m wanting to read isn’t exactly on a shelf with toilet paper and tackleboxes. So I need a gadget. (I do love gadgets.) What I need is a Kindle!

If only I didn’t have a second child on the way for which I’m already purchasing cribs and bedding and clothes and diapers and everything else you have to buy when your first child is a boy and your second is a girl! So what I really need is a free Kindle. Thank goodness for people like Julie Stratford. Julie’s website, juliestratford.com (link) is giving away a free Kindle at random. While I obviously think she should give it away to the most deserving individual rather than at random (I mean after all, who’s more deserving than an expecting father?), I’ll take random chance over no chance at all. So thanks for the chance Julie.

And I’ll make you a deal. If I win the free Kindle, I promise to read Curious George and The Cat in the Hat and countless other tales to my new daughter from my free Kindle. And if I win, I’ll even name my precious newborn daughter after you. (In the interest of full disclosure, my wife very much wants to name our daughter Juliette. I’ve been more in favor of a few other names. But if I win, will give up my struggle and, in effect, name the child after you.) So you get the full joy of knowing you aided a young(-ish) father in his quest to raise literary children in a Nintendo world and were granted a legacy as a result. Wow. I mean wow. I’d call that a good day. Plus, my 30th birthday is next month and I really want a new Kindle.

This past week she underwent a bone marrow aspiration, an extremely painful procedure similar to a bone biopsy useful in diagnosing bone diseases such as leukemia. Lo and behold, her oncologist found no signs of leukemia anywhere! It will be several years before she’s pronounced in remission, but this is the first sign of her victory over cancer. And in this family, cancer victories are extremely rare. So we’ll chalk up another Christmas miracle and thank God for our blessings. They are truly greater than we know.