Stuff My Son Says - #1

My six-year old son Cameron is hilarious.  He is a one-liner machine; probably because he watches too much TV.  If he was old enough to have his own Twitter account, he'd have more followers than Ashton Kutcher.  Anyway, since he's funnier than me, I thought I'd use his material in this blog.  And yes, I know I'm blatantly ripping off the title of a popular - and somewhat inappropriate - blog ($#@% My Dad Says), but I promise the content of this new series of posts will contain fewer cusswords.  OK, here's the first ever attempt at "Stuff My Son Says."

Last night, Cam and Liam (age 10) were sitting at the kitchen counter.  Cam was kicking the cupboard and Liam asked him to stop.  He stopped for five seconds, then started kicking again.  Liam got mad.

Liam:  "Cameron!  I just told you to stop!"

Cam: "Sorry.  I have short-term memory loss."

Why I Love My Job

Technically, my title with CruPress (the publishing division of Campus Crusade for Christ) is "Senior Editor."  So I spend a lot of time writing and editing resources for ministry - videos, books, articles, website blog entries, etc.  But, as a member of the Research & Development department, I end up performing a variety of different tasks.  Here's what my morning looked like (in no particular order):

*  Finished up first draft of new evangelistic booklet.
*  Attended Skype meeting (with people from New York, Texas and Scotland) about a new instructional video.

*  Processed orders for ministry tools for upcoming Summer Missions Projects.
*  Met with R&D team in Orlando (via Skype) to discuss results of student training interviews.
*  Viewed a trailer for an Anime version of an evangelistic video, brainstorming how to use it on campus.
*  Drank a Diet Mountain Dew.

Working on projects that will have an impact on thousands of lives is a huge privilege.  And I never get bored because I'm pretty convinced that no two days look alike for me.  Except for the Mountain Dew part.

What about you?  What motivates you to go to work every day?

If you want to take a good picture, take lots of pictures

On a warm day in late October, we rounded up our rugrats and attempted to take our annual Christmas photo.  On a good day, our kids are (how can I say this nicely?) quite active, so getting them to all stand still, look at the camera and smile (without blinking) is always a chore.  Fortunately, our photographer that day was my friend Andy Dykstra, who not only has a lot of talent, but also has a great camera.  He took about 55 shots of us in a span of five minutes.  Only two of them were "normal" shots, portraying us as a nice, calm family with well-behaved children.  But, upon further inspection, our favorite photos were the ones that were "screw-ups."  These shots of kids goofing off, not following instructions and making faces actually were a more realistic view of how the Downeys operate.  Here's our Christmas card to show you what I'm talking about.

So, what about you?  Do you have any photos that you originally thought were "bad" but turned out to be among your favorites?

Zippers

Zippers are kind of like football place-kickers: you only really think about them when they don't do their job.  Don't you hate it when the zipper on your coat starts splitting apart halfway up?  Or when that pull-tab thingy breaks off? (What's that thing called anyway?)

But today was an oddity: nothing was wrong with the zipper on my new jeans (aka my "fly") but I noticed that the pull-tab was much larger than on my other jeans - like it should have been on a military-grade tent.  I looked down and noticed that it said "YKK."  This made me wonder - who is this YKK fella?

And, after hours of mind-numbing research (okay, a two-second search on Wikipedia), I discovered that YKK is a huge corporation that makes most of the world's zippers, as well as other fasteners.  And architectural products.  (I know - weird combo, huh?)  In fact, they have zipper factories all over the planet, including the largest zipper plant in the galaxy (employing 900 people in Georgia).

So, while I'm assuming they're not popular with the Amish, I gained a new appreciation for YKK.  Because let's face it: where would we be without zippers?  (I have one pair of trendy button fly pants from A & F, any they're horrible at keeping the South Dakota wind out of the old britches.)

Anyway, this discovery made me curious.  Who are other people (or entities) do incredible things without being noticed by most people?

OK, here's my question for you:  do you know any individual, company, church or other organization who does a lot of good without a lot of publicity?