I have been remiss with blogging about building living community in addition to building a building to live in. (whoa, bad sentence, but I'm going to bed soon so I'll let it be) Sorry. Will get back on the wagon soon, after my kids are all healthy again (next week?).

But a friend of mine, Bryan Cullison, does a great job of it. His blog is called Urbanity: Living a Missional Life, and it is well worth a visit. No frills, just food for the soul.

Yes, healthy social networks are literally soulfood; humans wither and sicken without them... but I'll have to pursue that metaphor later, a sniffling sore exhausted Armando just came to tell me to put him to bed.

Grace and strength and health to us all.

Yes, for our 15th anniversary we took advantage of two free passes to Disney's California Adventure! I lugged our books all over the park, so we could read while waiting in line... or eating... or just sitting in a comfy sunny spot together.

We did enjoy the park, of course, going to all the slow grownup things like the Golden California Theater (the only can't-miss thing in the park IMHO). We ran some risks too: I think Kathryn regretted coming with me on the California Screamin' rollercoaster, and later she fell into the harbor and was scooped up by friendly fisherman . . . perhaps a little worse for wear . . .

What a catch, eh?

Being bookaholics, we managed to find every bookstore and book nook in the park, our favorite being the library of Belle's Prince/Beast.

All levity aside, it has been a wonderful day-and-a-half together as a couple. We talked about those who had invested in our marriage, and discussed which persons had influenced and shaped our marriage most strongly, in positive ways. Our parents came up first and repeatedly: "thanks" is a meager beginning to express our gratitude.

A parent's influence is always profound, and friends must go the extra mile to compare to it. Terry and Julie Cornett, you did that, consistently, for years, and our marriage is so much better because of you. You are a treasure. We miss you still. (The Hi-Liters live on! We still have those T-shirts...)

Others whose grace, wisdom and understanding have strengthened our marriage these 15 years particularly include Steve Smith, Mark Crawford, Kerry Broadley, and John & Linda Price (and others too numerous to mention). Thank you all so much. Each of you in your own way, and at just the right times, helped us through the rough patches and made our marriage the durable delight it is today. May Kathryn and I have the grace to pass on some of that insight and perspective to other couples as well.

Finally, a curious thing worth reporting: We took ten steps away from our table to throw out our lunch trash, turned around, and discovered a mysterious note by our chair. The writing is indecipherable, but oddly familiar. The paper looks old and expensive, stiff as if it were handmade, and torn along the bottom edge. It was not there when we stood up, I'm sure. I think it was meant for us. Nathaniel likes mysteries, so I brought it home for him to solve.

You never know what mysteries life might bring your way; Nathaniel ought to get started early. He is 12 now, after all.

Yes, I'm spiriting my wife off for today and tomorrow. Thanks, Tracy, for taking care of our kids! I might post some photos about our adventures, or I might not... it's hard to remember the camera when I'm strolling with my love in a lovely place.

In honor of the occasion I'm changing the site song. This is a classic, don't know who wrote it originally, but performed here by Bobby Zee and Zoe, from their album Standards in the Key of Cool.

I know, I know, we're running off together, not returning from somewhere; but when any voyage is done, this is the woman to whom I say,
You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To

We are making incremental but important progress: no dramatic changes today, but things already in place are being tightened and battened down correctly. Without careful attention to this step, block walls can bulge or topple, and lumber can twist or shatter (or simply not do its job: a painful thought, given what we have paid for all this lumber).

Kevin Piero showed me a few details: see this extra-strong beam butting into the block wall? It's one of the "diaphragm stiffeners" that strengthens the entire structure, attaching the opposing exterior walls to one another and securing the interior wood structure to the outer block one. There are lots of these.

Kevin spent a long time talking about shear stress and structural integrity and force transmission. See all the nails in the photo below? (me neither.) He's not satisfied with that: he'll be adding "some A-23s, you know, teekos."

As my wife would say, "he's lapsed into Linguish"— the mystifying mix of lingo and English that experts use, without realizing it, to talk among themselves about their work. As it turns out, an "A-23" is a certain kind of 90-degree angle brace.

Here's a detail I did understand: the Bob-Sawyer-designed custom steel bay-window supports were installed, and they are too tall. Oops. The steel guys will come back and cut them down to just an inch or so above the level of that window opening in the photo:

Then another steel tray thing will be welded along the top of these supports from one end of the bay to the other. MORE BLOCK will be laid on top of that, all the way to the bedroom windowsills above it. There is a lot of block in this house. The next time I hear someone brag about how cheap "thermal mass" can be if you use a lot of it when the house is first built, I'm going to smack them.

On the other hand, if our calculations are correct, we will never need air conditioning in this home. That should save us some money, in sunbaked SoCal.

As an added bonus, it's pretty much bulletproof...

Tonight, I am proud of my Norwegian heritage. My newest hero is the captain of the Norwegian cross country team, Bjørnar Håkensmoen. (I hope your browser correctly interprets those nynorsk characters... please ask me for help before you pronounce it)

Imagine the scene (you probably haven't seen it on NBC, that's for sure: they are busy making much of Olympic negativity and feuding): cross-country racers pressing hard across the snow. Canadian, Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish skiers are ahead of the pack, jockeying for position. Suddenly one of the athletes of a pair favored to win, a Canadian, snaps a ski pole. She labors on, "limping" with her remaining pole, but is rapidly losing ground and being passed by the others. Canada's hopes are dashed.

Until a stranger steps out from the crowd, hurries up to her and presses a ski pole into her hand. His own ski pole.

It is too long for her of course, the stranger is a tall man, but she is determined to make do with it. She "makes do" so well that she makes up her lost time and then some, and the two-woman Canadian team manages to win the silver medal.

"skiers canadiennes" with silver medals

Without that stranger's interference, the Norwegian team would have been on the podium with a bronze medal. This is the first time since 1976 that Norway has not medalled in this event (and they usually win silver, as a matter of fact; sometimes gold). But because of the man parting with his ski pole, the Norwegians finish fourth.

As it turned out, it was the Norwegian ski chief himself who gave his ski pole to the Canadian, who went on to beat his own beloved team... and in a sport which is more beloved in Norway than football basketball and baseball are in America.

How did Bjørnar's team members react to their leader's largesse? (imagine Chad Hedrick's reaction, if his own coach enabled a competitor to beat him), Did the Norwegian press excoriate him for his noble deed? (Norway lives for the sports embodied in the Winter Olympics) Or is there, indeed, something more important than winning?

Read about it in Aftenposten, a Norwegian newspaper (one that publishes an English-language edition for us expatriates).

Note that, though honor and character are more important than winning (at least to Bjørnar and the vast majority of Norway), the Norwegians do not sit around writing sonnets about honor and character. They train hard, strive to win... and demonstrate their honor and character in concrete ways on the battlefield of sport and life.

"Chocolate carries high levels of chemicals known as phenolics, some of which may help lower the risk of heart disease."

So chocolate heals the heart in more than one way.

Does this mean there may be a recommended daily allowance of chocolate?

From a trivia calendar:

"The melting point of cocoa butter is just below the human body temperature (98.6 degrees), which is why chocolate literally melts in your mouth."

...More evidence that God loves humans.

I noticed this article in the LA Times today, and just had to comment on it. I am attracted to passion and to excellence; when the two overlap, as they do in Bode Miller, it's hard to ignore. Especially when it concerns my own sport of skiing. (I also fenced competitively in college, but never really excelled.)

Coming after long talks about DeShawn (wrecked oikos) and adoption/foster care (building strong oikoses and sense of belonging & identity), I couldn't help but look for clues to the health and strength of his oikos as I read.

Obviously his professional oikos is in disarray, but there are hints that his family oikos is very strong... yet there seem to be a few strong friendships in the world of pro skiing, and his parents' divorce is left unexplored (it's beyond the scope of the article)... Bode has a very strong inner world that seems able to trump any outside influences and disruptions (his ability to "click it on", his iconoclastic bent), but he also seems to be easily swayed by outside things (what wrong messages his Olympic performance might accidentally communicate to the youth of America, whether he might be "used" for commercial or political ends).

Full of contradictions, difficult to pigeonhole.

Aren't we all, to some extent?

Click on "threads to discuss" to read the article.

(My favorite quote is in bold, about 2/3 to the end of the article.)

Okay, let me backtrack a bit. Here are some photos that weren't filed properly by date, that will fill in some gaps in the construction process, and show off some of the craftsmanship too-- since some of the men building this house are also checking my blog to see if I'm doing them justice, I thought I'd give them something technical to point to and brag about!

Back on January 10th, this is what it looked like from the front window:

Note the handsome gentlemen hard at work.

On January 16th it looked like this:

All that crossbracing was necessary to hold the framed walls against the block until they could be attached to the walls. Those roof beams aren't firmly socked into place yet either.

And, also on January 16th, like this:

Nearly all those 2x4s you see piled on the slab there were transformed into walls by the end of that day. These guys don't waste time.

But they are careful. Here's a detail of two Parallam PSL 2.0e crossbeams which will support the study and master bedroom someday. Cool bit of trivia: these beams, made from wood chips and some sort of super-resin, have a modulus of elasticity of 1.2 million psi! It can be milled in any length, size or shape. Bob says "It is literally stronger than some steel sections, and is designed for use as a replacement to steel where steel may not be practical."

But unfortunately, engineered wood products can't replace the key steel support structures. Particularly when they are as beefy as ours. Bob says "our plan check engineer required us to upgrade this and other connections to F.E.M.A. Level II. This standard typically applies to commercial buildings where the occupancy is greater." I take that as an unwitting compliment: the hope is that this home will often have a higher occupancy than our little family.

Bob continues, "In my humble opinion the F.E.M.A. Level II requirement is a knee-jerk reaction to the concrete block wall construction" ...not surprising when the plan-check guy also noted the PEX-in-concrete radiant floors and the green roof, which add considerable extra weight to the structure. Since then we eliminated the concrete part of the radiant floor in favor of Warmboard, saving ourselves a lot of money and shedding a good amount of interior mass. So this house is a bit, well, overengineered.

Note that the beams are ductile steel and both bolted and welded together (you can see where a Parallam butts into them too; this is not its finished joint):

Wow, things are moving fast now that we're in the rough framing stage. Here are three of the framers: Kevin Piero the lead carpenter, Josh Piero his son, and Matthew Berry. I guess there is one more fellow, George, but I haven't met him yet.

Look at all those interior walls! Most of them are roughed in, or at least sketched onto the concrete and thoroughly measured, and the steel inner shear walls will soon be attached and integrated too.

Joy seems fascinated by these guys, as she was with Lugo and his concrete/masonry crew. They are big and strange and strong, and have so many strange toys to play with, which she is not allowed to touch. They pick them up and swing those big heavy things around with ease, as if they were... well, toys. But as she was saying here (on the right), "They are very noisy! TOO NOISY DADDY!"

After five minutes or so, Joy had had enough of the noise-- nail guns and circular saws and ZZ Top, all in a confined space, plus the yelling to be heard over that-- so I don't have many photos from today. I did get one of Joy sitting in the dining room window expressing her opinion of having to wait nine more months to move in. (can you see her tongue in this little photo?)

Here and in the next photo you can see the dining room open to the sky: the framers even have the second-floor joists and sheathing mostly done. They are doing a quality job, too: check out the detail photo below.

By the way, I'm not a paranoid parent forcing Joy to wear a hardhat. That's her bike helmet. We often ride our errands instead of drive (gas prices being what they are... and besides, it's 60 degrees on a "cold" day in January in Southern California, seems weird not to enjoy the outdoors, and a good bike always helps one enjoy good weather). Even with a ton of lumber in the driveway, there's still room to park: