Made a trip to Gamestop this week to grab our newest Wii title - Mario Kart Wii. Been waiting for this one to come out for awhile. I've loved the Mario Kart series for a long time and new the Wii version probably wouldn't disappoint. From the hour or so that I've played so far, I think I'm probably right.

I have to admit. The Wii is not the most powerful game system out there. It certainly isn't the best looking (at least on the screen). Hooking it up to our HDTV actually made a couple of games less fun to play because they didn't look that good at all (Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2007 for one).

A year and a half since we got it, though, I still absolutely love to play it! I like playing it with the boys, I like playing it by myself and, every once in awhile, I like playing it with my wife (she's just doesn't play a lot).

I got my first NES back in 1985. It came complete with R.O.B. (Robotic Operating Buddy) - that's it to the right. I was hooked. I remember going to Toys R Us when we were in OKC visiting family. My cousins and I played it all weekend. When we got home on Sunday evening I ran upstairs, hooked it up to the TV, proceeded to play, and then proceeded to get scolded by my mom and dad for not helping unpack the car first. I played it all I could - including in the middle of the night from time to time, or waking up really early (sorry, Dad).

As I got older, my fascination only continued. I actually got a SNES from my lovely wife for our first Christmas together. Having kids didn't help matters - if, for no other reason, than giving me a good excuse to buy myself a game system to "play with the kids" (wink wink).

Now I find myself strapping on the guitar for a few songs of Guitar Hero III or racing the boys in a little Kart action and loving it as much as ever.

I'm excited! I tell you, I get on writing kicks from time to time. Seems like it ebbs & flows. Right now I feel like I churn out a ton for some reason. Picked up the digital 'pen' last week to try & get back into the regular blogging habit. Since then it seems like a floodgate has been opened.

I think if I were to have a dream job it would probably be to have a home office that I would warm up to lazily in the morning after a good cup of coffee or two (and my daily SportsCenter ritual), and then to spend time writing. That's it. I'd LOVE to be a full-time writer someday. I feel like I have a book or two floating around in my brain if I can ever get past the feeling that I have to wait until I have something truly profound to say before sharing it.

I have yet to jump over that hurdle, so I resign myself to sharing insights into our lives about chocolate-less cookies and watching concerts in HD which seems to provide the writing 'fix' for me the time being. But, watch out - something is lurking behind the scenes that will make its way out into the open one day.

I'm ashamed to admit that it has been awhile since I read a good book. My habit is typically to begin several good books at once and struggle to finish most of them. I'll then get into a kick of reading for awhile, get several good books under my belt, and then fall off the wagon again (on the wagon? never could get those straight).

So, my current read has been refreshing. It's a book called Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality (How Six Essential Qualities Determine Your Success in Business) by Dr. Henry Cloud. It is a book I am reading for work - one of our three core values: Character, Competence, & Integrity. It's very practical - straightforward. I'd also say, from what I've read thus far, although it is geared for business professionals it is something that transcends roles. This is something that is going to help me as a minister, as a parent, as a spouse & as a friend, as well as a business professional.

I'll give my Cliff Notes version highlighting some of what liked best whenever I am finished. Good recommendation if you're looking for that next book to read.

As as side note, my wife is going the Classics route. Having finished To Kill a Mockingbird she is now tackling Gone With the Wind.

So, having had HD for a couple of months now I have definitely passed the point a while ago where I can now hardly stand to watch non-HD programming. At the very least I find myself throwing up the HD filter on the DirecTV program guide when I want to sit down & veg for a little while, trying my hardest to find something in high definition I can enjoy.

One of the jewels that I have found, at least from DirecTV's HD package (which I think is hands down the best HD experience available out there), are the HDNet Concert Series. Every weekend this channel broadcasts concerts in HD. I try and check the schedule before each weekend to see if there are any coming on that I'd like to record & watch. Some are so-so, but many are really good. I'm sitting on my couch as I type this watching "Taylor HIcks - Whomp at the Warfield" - so much fun seeing Taylor again. Good stuff!

Here's a few other concerts I've enjoyed over the last couple of months (in addition to Taylor Hicks)...

• Alison Krauss & Union Station
• Blue Man Group - How to be a Megastar Tour 2.0
• Bonnaroo Music Festival 2004
• Coldplay: How We Saw the World (Part One)
• The Doobie Brothers Live at Wolf Trap (coming up in a little while - can't wait for this one!)
• Heart: Alive in Seattle
• Vince Gill and Friends Live at the Ryman

Andrea & Emerie whipped up some surprise desserts this past weekend. I don't know what these are technically called, but their are small round cookies made of shortbread with a Hershey's Kiss in the middle. I love them because of the shortbread. My daughter, it seems, takes after her mom's tastes... she had four cookies, all of which she proceeded to lick the chocolate out of the center & leave the shortbread!

Okay, not sure why this hasn't happened before tonight, but I got the search box for the blog added. The truth is that it has been there all along, just not visible. I didn't get everything wired up with the search engine when we moved the blog over to ExpressionEngine (not even sure how long ago that was). I vowed to get it up soon there after & then the project got pushed back to the eternal back burner. I must have spent some time working on it sometime between now & then because everything is wired up correctly now. I just never turned it back on for people to use (bad blogger).

So, search away. We have nearly five years worth of our lives posted here. If you've been away for awhile it may take some time to get caught up, but I'm sure it would be an interesting read. I need to do the same from time to time.

Oh - one last left over from the EE transition is the fact that some of our images for the posts (okay, most of them, to be honest) are still on the old site. Another project that I've got to grab off that back burner someday soon. For now, just excuse the empty image frames you'll find from time to time.

Phew... This weekend has felt like a whirlwind for the most part. I can't say that I had anything major planned other than perhaps getting some yard work done & having fun with the family. Before the weekend got here I told Andrea I needed to spend some time some night performing an upgrade of the online shopping cart system on one of our sites. I didn't expect it to be a major project or take much time (the eternal optimistic showing his face once again). Just to play it safe, though, I decided to take it on Friday night just in case. Good thing.

I won't go into the gory details. I'll just leave it at that it did in fact turn into a major project that took much time (including all night Friday night). No fun. I got to spend a good part of the weekend by myself with my laptop. Not what I wanted to do with my time off.

Josiah came in to see me several times and hung out with me. It was fun having him there, wanting to help (even though he really couldn't) and sincerely being interested in me going into coding details that were way over his head. I like his heart, though, and the fact that he wanted to hang out with his dad - even if it was while his dad was working on the weekend.

We had a good talk discussing how I try really hard to keep my work at the office (something that hasn't always been the case, I'm afraid), but that sometimes the responsibilities of my job make it necessary to spend time doing those things anyhow. It's the 'other' side of responsibility and one that he hasn't been alive long enough to experience yet - but he will. Right now responsibility means privilege in his mind. He loves the fact that he is "double digits" now and is always looking for ways that he can leverage that fact to push the limits a little farther than his younger brother and sister. It's all good - especially since we're teaching him that with privilege comes responsibility and that is a lesson God has for him as He makes him into the young man, and then the man that He desires for him to be.

So, I spent very little time today tying up loose ends and got to hang out with the family enjoying some movies & time together before I go back to the office tomorrow. Not the way I had wanted to spend the better half of the weekend, but that's what comes with responsibility sometimes (or so I tell my eldest). :-)

For the second Friday in a row we're sitting down as a family to watch a Don Knotts movie. Andrea recorded a collection of these a while back. They're all good, clean, and Knotts is a classic riot in my opinion. Last week it was The Ghost & Mr. Chicken (1966). This week's pick? The Reluctant Astronaut (1967). Good stuff.

While getting our latest Vimeo videos ready to post, I found this guy's animation videos. Josiah & I sat there for a good half hour watching a good part of his 70 videos he has posted on his Vimeo channel. Don't know why, but I find these incredible & mesmerizing.

Check out his Vimeo channel for others


Weird Fishes: Arpeggi from flight404 on Vimeo.


Solar from flight404 on Vimeo.


Solar, with lyrics. from flight404 on Vimeo.


Advanced Beauty Preview, Rework from flight404 on Vimeo.

Josiah just finished a history project with his class that he spent the last month or so working on. He studied Benjamin Franklin and as part of the project had to prepare a presentation for class. His class put on a history 'wax museum' with each student pretending to be his/her character. This is his presentation filmed in our dining room. The second video is a fun one that he & Micah did last week.


Josiah - Benjamin Franklin from Chris Ediger on Vimeo.


Josiah & Micah - The Bee from Chris Ediger on Vimeo.

This past weekend we decided to spend a day exploring some of our new surroundings, beginning with Amicalola Falls State Park. The park is about an hour away from our house and includes the tallest cascading waterfall east of the Mississippi.

The weather was beautiful and we had a great time hiking around. I've uploaded a new Flickr photoset of pictures from the weekend:

• Amicalola Falls

Catching up with some of the blogs/sites that I follow, I realized that I hadn't posted anything here in the last week except for the launch of the Catalyst site. I know there are several people who follow along here trying to keep up with what is going on in the lives of our family, so I thought I would take a minute for a quick family update.

Emerie is just about finished with preschool. She has loved every minute of it & has done a great job. She took her Kindergarten readiness assessment a week or so ago & passed with flying colors (actually, if I can be the proud papa, she has already surpassed a lot of what she is supposed to learn next year in K - oh well, she'd go to school for the socialization alone if she had to - man, are raising girls different than boys! :-) ).

Micah has loved his new school and his second grade class. He had a big science presentation and musical performance in the last few weeks (you can check it out on our Vimeo page if you haven't seen it already). He's met several friends - Blair being the best one, in his opinion. He and Josiah both have been spending quite a bit of time lately playing out in the small woods behind our house with their neighbor friend, Preston, and playing their newest Wii game - Super Smash Bros. Brawl (which they got to play over the Internet against their cousins in Oklahoma who also have the game).

Josiah is enjoying school as well, although he has had to adjust to have homework when he gets home from school - something he hasn't had with home schooling the last couple of years. He is adjusting well and learning lots. This week are the annual GA CRCT competency tests for Josiah's class (next week will be Micah's), so lots of focus in getting ready up until now. He still enjoys reading (as do all the Edigers) and recently finished The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. His latest interest: learning to play poker via The Dangerous Book for Boys (great book).

Andrea is still staying busy with the kids as Emerie is only gone for a few hours Tuesday-Thursday (this will change next year as all three kids will be at Riverside). She has spent the last three months getting us moved in, the housed fixed up, and selecting where she wants to hang pictures (and then waiting on me to do most of the hanging :-) ). I am enjoying work and staying busy, as always. Launched three new sites so far (John Maxwell, GiANT Impact, & Catalyst Conference - which I had little to do with, but still love it nonetheless) with more to come in the next couple of months. Enjoying HDTV. Missing friends (as are all of us).

We're all getting acclimated to Georgia faster than we probably thought. Finding friends is the long part, as is finding a church, but these will come in time.

Drop us a comment, an email or post something on our Facebook wall. We'd love to hear how you are doing!

I'd have to say that the best part of my job is getting to work with the Catalyst team & being a part of an incredible event movement! The team just launched the 2008 Catalyst Conference website. You can check it out here: Catalyst 2008: "Together"

Here's the promo video for this year's event. You can check out other videos on the site or on the Catalyst Vimeo Channel.


Join us for Catalyst 2008! from the Catalyst Channel on Vimeo.

I had an unbelievable opportunity to attend one of the practice rounds of the Masters again this year thanks to my father-in-law. He, his friend Clyde, my mother-in-law and my two brothers-in-law (Greg from Kentucky & Jeff from New York) came in last weekend to spend a few days with us. The guys got up early on Tuesday morning (after getting very little sleep after Kansas' win on Monday night), and drove the three hours over to Augusta for the Masters. You can see some pics from our trip to the Masters in this Flickr photoset: The 2008 Masters - Practice Round

I have to say that getting to walk the course & see Augusta National first hand the last two years has changed the way I watch the Masters. For one I am much more interested in the early rounds than I have been in the past. Secondly, it is simply surreal to watch the players walk holes and see on the TV the very places I have walked as well.

As a bonus this year, DirecTV has partnered with ESPN & CBS Sports to provide unprecedented coverage of the tournament. The photo above was snapped this afternoon of the Masters Mix Channel (Channel 706 for those of you with DirecTV HD). It allows you to see a live leaderboard, the main ESPN/CBS Sports feed, a highlights channel, and dedicated coverage of Amen Corner and the 15th and 16th holes. You can highlight the channel you want to focus on and the audio feed switches to that channel. You can select any of the channels to go to that feed in HD. On any of the Masters channels you can access via menu the top 5 leaders currently, as well as a full, interactive leaderboard. You can not only see the score of any given player, you can access his complete scorecard from all the rounds.

This just further solidifies DirecTV's standing at the top of the HD list for me. Over 80 channels in HD - I rarely have to watch something in standard definition.

"Christianity is a religion for losers" ~ Ted Turner

Apparently Ted has changed his tune, or he's at the very least softened a bit as he has gotten older. Last week the media mogul and founder of CNN announced a $200 million partnership with Lutherans & Methodists to fight Malaria in Africa.

Turner, 69, said he had only made a few disparaging comments a long time ago and that he is "always developing" his thinking as he grows older.

"I regret anything I said about religion that was negative," he told The Associated Press ahead of a news conference announcing the anti-malaria program.

"Ted Turner, Churches Fight Malaria", Yahoo! News, April 1, 2008

I'll leave the typical base-level question Christians typically ask aside ("Does he really care or is this some kind of ploy?"). I don't really care what his motives are. The fact that he is doing what he is doing is incredible in my opinion. I also applaud the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and the United Methodist Church for being willing to partner with Turner, regardless of his past or present comments or beliefs, in order to make a real difference in the world.

Maybe it is my Southern Baptist upbringing, but I can't say that I have typically seen churches stepping out to make a Kingdom of God impact & influence in this way in the world around them. My church experience growing up was pretty limited to seeing the Body of Christ (locally, at least) caring about the hereafter &, unfortunately, most humanitarian efforts were simply viewed as ends to a means (passing Bibles out alongside water bottles, etc.). I find it hard, as I've gotten older, to ignore the mandate we have as Christians to bring the Kingdom of God to those around us - and this is something that has an expressed 'present' influence that is at least as strong (if not more so) than having the typical 'future' influence we tend to focus all our attention on as the Church. Whether it is the constant calling out by God for us to reach out to our fellow man and help those who are in positions where they have difficulty helping themselves (the widows, orphans, poor, etc.), or it is Jesus praying that "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven" - Christ is building the Kingdom in the lives of the living, ultimately to have its fulfillment in the hereafter - but we cannot ignore the 'here.'

On a side note, how great would it be to have a Bible reading campaign headlined by the fact that Ted Turner has read it cover to cover twice :-)

LifeChurch.tv, the worldwide multi-campus church based out of Edmond, OK, planted & led by Craig Groeschel, is doing it again. I've admired LifeChurch in the past because they are innovative & always looking for ways to utilize technology to advance the Church (big C).

Beginning June 7 & 8, they will be beginning a series called "One Prayer" and they are inviting churches all over the world to join in. Here's a little about what they are doing, a video intro from Craig & a link to get more information...

LifeChurch.tv is partnering with hundreds of churches globally to do a series simultaneously called One Prayer. The series will begin on the weekend of June 7-8 and run for a total of four weeks. The premise of the series is, "If God would answer 'one prayer' for the church at large, what would you pray?"

This series serves several purposes. Specifically, we believe it will...

• Promote unity in the body of Christ.
• Expose churches to other great teachers and ministries.
• Empower churches to experiment with video teaching.
• Infuse spiritual passion into a typically challenging month.
• Give the senior pastor a three-week break from teaching.
• Raise money for a mission project.
• Teach our people to fast, pray, and seek God in concert with thousands of other believers.
• Participate in the larger work of God in His church.

Learn more at OnePrayer.com...

Flickr just added the ability to upload videos. I like that you can now have photos & videos side-by-side that go together. Here's my first sting at it...

Before I spell out how we did with March Madness this year, let me go ahead & tell you my secret: pick your favorite team every year until they win it all. That's money. Go ahead, enjoy.

The above strategy is one that I have always used. I get my empty brackets, write KU in the winners circle & then begin filling in everybody else. Most year's, because the Jayhawks invariably have a good season, I wind up somewhere in the middle of the brackets. When they lose in the first year to a "B" team (ie Bucknell, Bradley, etc.) - not so good. I have finished toward the bottom more times than not recently. This year, however, was a little different.

Here is how our family finished this year...

• Friends & Family Pool (46 participants)
  Andrea (4th), Chris (5th), Josiah (8th), Micah (10th)
• GiANT Impact - Fun Pool (36 participants)
  Andrea (1st), Chris (2nd)
• GiANT Impact - Money Pool (49 participants)
  Andrea (1st), Chris (2nd)
• Catalyst Pool (261 participants)
  Chris (16th)
• LifeWay DMP/PS Pool (35 participants)
  Chris (2nd)
• LifeWay Threads Pool (43 participants)
  Chris (2nd)
• CBS/Facebook - Friends (19 friends)
  Chris (2nd)
• ESPN Nationwide Pool (3.1 million participants)
  Chris (205,395th)

Still playing catch-up. Here's the latest round...

• Easter 2008
• Suwanee Egg Drop 08
• Dad & Emerie at the Pond
• Emerie with Liberty Bear
• Emerie - Young Chef's Academy
• First Day of School - Feb 08
• Josiah's 10th Birthday
• Atlanta Snow
• Micah's 8th Birthday

That's the headline from the Lawrence Journal-World newspaper after my Kansas Jayhawks pulled out will go down in history as one of the greatest championship games of all time!

I'm a day late in commenting as we traveled to the Masters yesterday in Augusta to take in a practice round (more on that later, including pictures).

I've gotten comments, text messages, Facebook wall posts & more over the last 36 hours since we won. It was incredible! When Mario Chalmers hit the 3 to send it into OT our family went crazy! Andrea's entire family was in town - from Texas, Oklahoma, Kentucky & New York - and all were pulling for the Jayhawks. When that shot hit it was an amazing experience!

We spent much of the travel time yesterday listening in to sports talk radio talk about the game. After the trip there & back I honestly got tired of hearing the coverage, mostly because all of it surround how Memphis 'blew it' - forget about the incredible play of the Jayhawks down the stretch. Which leads me to my own commentary...

The Jayhawks won the game for two simple reasons...

1. Kansas outcoached Memphis
The fact is that Calipari made the wrong choices down the line. No question. The fact also, though, is that Bill Self incredibly kept his team in it. I still don't know how he was able to keep those guys believing that they had a chance. I didn't think they had a chance when they were down by 9 with 2:12 left. He did it, though.

2. Kansas outplayed Memphis
Memphis missed free throws. They had second chance opportunities with rebounds, but didn't take advantage of them. Granted. Let's not forget, though, that Kansas made free throws; that they made incredible plays (even beyond Mario's 3) down the stretch.

So - Memphis is going to have to live with 'blowing it' - but let's not take the spotlight away from the incredible finish that Kansas was able to put together to take advantage of every opportunity they had (and to create opportunities when they weren't even there).

Rock, Chalk, Jayhawk!

We had a chance to go to Josiah & Micah's school on Friday to watch Micah's second grade class perform a musical they had been working on. It was entitled "Best Friends." Here are a couple of videos from the performance. Photos upcoming on our Flickr account... RSS Readers: You can check out the videos at TheEdigers.com


Micah - Best Friends from Chris Ediger on Vimeo.


Micah - That's What Friends Are For from Chris Ediger on Vimeo.

Doing my daily morning ritual of coffee & SportsCenter. The boys have begun wanting to watch the Top 10 Plays countdown with me as they usually wake up right about the time I've hit the end of the show.

This morning we skipped through all the baseball, soccer, pro basketball & hockey (which makes watching SC go by really fast these days) to just watch the Championship game coverage. Emerie kept asking "Which one is the Jayhawks, Daddy?" with her brothers echoing "Rock, Chalk, Jayhawks!" right behind her.

Visiting with some of Andrea's family who are visiting for a few days (the guys head to the 2nd practice round of the Masters tomorrow in Augusta!), and I was showing some highlights of the last five years of this blog (since Emerie was born). Found a picture from our friend Davy's visit to meet Emerie - still holds true today... "A Picture's Worth a 1000 Words"

Taking some time to upload some videos as well. I'll post several over the next few days.

This one is from December after our friend Alec visited bearing gifts. Emerie got a small Karaoke machine/stereo and a High School Musical Karaoke CD. Here is her performance of "What I've Been Looking For"... RSS Readers: You can check out the video at TheEdigers.com


Emerie - High School Musical from Chris Ediger on Vimeo.

Had a chance yesterday to begin to catch-up on getting our photos uploaded to our Flickr account. I think it had been Thanksgiving when we had last uploaded any photos. I still have more to go, but for now here's what's new:

• Christmas 2007
• Grand Ole Golf
• Emerie - Guitar Hero
• The Boys Birthday Party
• Moving Day

It's 10am Sunday morning and I'm sitting on the couch in the living room drinking my coffee and relishing in the news coverage of the Jayhawks pummeling of North Carolina last night.

I spent the day yesterday honestly trying my best to keep my mind off the game. Kansas vs North Carolina - a juggernaut of Final Four match-ups and one I knew was going to be the greatest test the Jayhawks have had to face thus far in the tournament. I told Andrea that as good as North Carolina was I wasn't worried as much about them beating us - I was worried about us beating ourselves, which has been the pattern as of late in our NCAA tournament runs. Turns out my worries were unfounded as we rolled out of the gate, 'hit them between the eyes' (as former coach Roy Williams put it after the game), and continue to not give up throughout the game. We took the best of what North Carolina had to shell out & didn't survive - we pulled away and won by 18 against what all but one of the SportsCenter pundits (thanks Jay Bilas) seemed to think was a lock for the national championship game.

So, again, I sit here enjoying the euphoria of waking up knowing that Kansas won - instead of the annual March/April dread that has come over me the last five years.

One game left to go until a 20th anniversary celebration of our last national championship in 1988. Memphis is going to be a formidable opponent, but one that I believe we match up with well. Should be a hard fought game. If we play anything close to as well as how we played during most of the semi-final, we may just find a new trophy in the trophy case and one more legendary KU team to be remembered for the ages.

Rock Chalk Chant:


Download It Here (1.08mb MP3)

So, the dream match-up between KU & North Carolina that many a KU fan have been hoping for has finally arrived as of this Saturday's Final Four game. Of course, ESPN & the media are all over the Roy Williams storyline. In many ways it seems to be overshadowing the game itself, or the players.

Part of me really doesn't mind the talk. I would have liked to think that I was over Roy's departure from Lawrence, but with each montage (in particular seeing pictures of & reading all over again about the drama that unfolded nearly five years ago) I feel the hurt welling up.

Do I blame Roy for running back to his roots? Not a bit. I understand why it all happened - it still doesn't make things any better. I appreciate him & what he brought to KU, and I still think he is one of the best coaches in the country. But the circumstances surrounding how he handled the first UNC courting in 2000 & how he handled the bolt in 2003 just sting still.

So, I'll wish him the best and not hold much resentment against the great program that North Carolina is... but I still hope we beat the living daylights out of them :-)

From a great blog I read frequently called Get Rich Slowly...

Back in our young and foolish days, Kris and I bought an encyclopedia set from a door-to-door salesman. This was in 1995, at the very cusp of the digital age. We had been on the internet for about a year, but we had no way to know that one day very soon the World Wide Web might make printed encyclopedias obsolete.

So we bought an encyclopedia set. Naturally I charged the $500 to my credit card.

We used the encyclopedia for several years. Then in 1999 we discovered Google. The leather-bound volumes began to gather dust.

Even so, when we moved to a new house in 2004, we took the books with us. We installed them prominently in the living room. But we never used them. Eventually we moved them to storage. For two years, we tried to sell them at our neighborhood garage sale. The first year, we priced them at $50. Last year we priced them at $20. Nobody wanted them.

Read the entire blog post...