I noticed a trend in the heros of writing that’s different than heros in TV and movies. On screen, heros tends to be more action-oriented. Slashing, punching, and maneuvering their way out of sticky situations and against enemies of great strength and agility.

In print, the hero tends to be much more of a superior intellectual, beating his enemies with a better strategy or wit.

Obviously dramatic action is much easier to portray on screen than in words, whereas the thoughts on the enemies are easier to expound upon in print, so this difference is really linked to the strengths and weaknesses of the medium, rather than just a bias in the industries.

However, it led to an insightful conclusion in a recent discussion I had among writers: the best writing quite often has both. Women favor the intellectual hero, while men tend to favor the action-oriented one. If you choose to only write about one, or gloss over the details of an action sequence in favor of a characters thoughts, you may be missing the opportunity to connect with a significant portion of your audience.

Do you favor one over the other? Does this strike you of true in your own experience? I would love to know your thoughts.

A good example of a writer portraying both in recent writing is JK Rowling and the Harry Potter series. While many love Harry’s impulsiveness, others are drawn most to Hermione Granger’s wit and extensive knowledge. Some wish she’d leave out the brutality of games and scenes like the games of Quiddich, while others cling to the pages in these key moments of action.

Driving home from college for the summer was quite a process. You basically have to move out, and I tend to have a lot of stuff. The nice part about having a pickup with a topper on it, though, is that you can pack it all in the back. At least, that’s what I would do. I loaded up my 1992 (I think that’s the year) extended cab S10 with my stuff, and a girls from Brazil who was catching a ride from Virginia to Kentucky with me, and we set off across the 9 hour drive.

About halfway through the drive, you pass through the mountains of West Virginia through Charleston, and the road goes up and down as it twists and turns, it’s a fun drive. The roads were excellent, having 3-4 lanes on each side of the highway and great pavement, but the inclines and traffic can occasionally make it a challenge.

On this particular day, it started raining quite hard as we came through the mountains, but seeing as I had a lot of weight in the truck, I didn’t think much of it. However, on one of our significant declines, the front wheels of the truck hydroplaned. I started drifting across lanes of traffic without the ability to steer at 65ish miles an hour. I’m not one to panic, but it was unnerving. We drifted from a center lane on our side of the highway toward the large grassy median that separates the highway. Afraid of making matters worse, I did my best to nudge the wheel slightly in the opposite direction in hopes of straightening out. We did change direction, only too far. We headed across all three lanes of the road in the opposite direction. Again, I nudged us back, and we made the trip across the road a third time. To this day, I am astounded that no one was in the path of our drifting, as my adrenaline made those trips feel like they took hours, rather than merely seconds.

Unable to correct our course, we entered the gravely and grassy center median of the road, at a slightly slower speed than we started. Still praying that we would regain our traction, my prayer was answered only too well, the wet soggy ground absorbed the front tire of the truck and sent us rolling across the side of the truck, not once, but twice. I braced the passenger as we watched the world turn upside down and marveled as we miraculously landed upright and intact. For a brief moment, we just stopped and sat together in silence, processing our own panic through the looks on each others faces.

We were interrupted by a sudden face at the window asking if we were alright. It was then that I saw that the passenger window was broken and that LeAnne’s arm was bleeding from the broken glass. I quickly pulled off my button up shirt and wrapped it around her arm, relieved to see only superficial cuts. Aside from that, the cab of the truck was intact, and the engine sat running. I turned off the car, and we both exited out my door.

Surveying the scene in the pouring rain, it was a site to behold. Two college student’s possessions lay strewn in a 50 foot trail between the truck bed topper, which came off on our initial roll, and the truck itself, which was wrinkled on every exterior panel, but looked largely intact and driveable, with all it’s tires still inflated.

Distressed at the site of our many possessions lying in the mud, I immediately turned and began piling them under the truck topper. LeAnne stood standing in the rain, her face still working to process all that had just occurred. Looking back on the memory now, she was in a state of shock. As I worked, an ambulance arrived. Workers rushed to the truck and immediately began tending to LeAnne.

It took me a few more minutes, but I managed to gather most of the contents from the truck under the topper, only to look back and see them loading LeAnne into the ambulance on a stretcher. It was then that I began to panic. LeAnne was from Brazil. Neither of us had cell phones. And I had no idea where we were or where the ambulance was headed. In their haste to tend to her, the ambulance workers hadn’t even realized that I was a participant, rather than a bystander.

I got to the driver just as he opened his door. “I need to go with her!” I shouted. A bit surprised, he looked me up and down momentarily and then pointed to his passenger seat. He was obviously a lot more concerned about the passenger in the back of the truck. I was too out of my element to worry, I had never been in a situation like this before. I had no idea what the paramedics would actually do. All I knew was, it would be easier to find the truck than to find her, so I jumped inside.

Moments later, sirens blaring, we sped off on the highway in the rain once more. All the attention LeAnne was receiving had me worried. Had I missed some injury? I looked back into the ambulance as we sped off, but the first glimpse I caught was of the other paramedic cutting away her clothes. “Leave it to the professional!” I thought to myself, snapping back into my seat. I kept my eyes forward for the rest of the trip.

The rest of the day felt quite slow after that. Arriving at the hospital, LeAnne was quickly cleared of any concerns. Removing her clothes, I was later told, is standard procedure in those circumstances to look for internal bleeding. She rejoined me in the waiting area shortly after our arrival in a pair of hospital scrubs. A bit unhappy at losing her outfit and being the only one with wounds, she swatted me a couple times, telling me I needed a bruise or two. We took up a post in the waiting area and called my parents and her host family to explain the events. My dad and mom immediately set off to pick us up.

Tired and hungry, we managed to find the hospital cafeteria and spent the next several hours there. My parents arrived later that day, and with a bit of rest, we got up the next day, loaded my truck and our possessions onto a trailer from the wrecker yard, and finished our trip.

Looking back, the fact that we were as fortunate as we were: we didn’t hit any other cars, or flip on the hard surface of the highway in the path of traffic, and we didn’t sustain any major injuries, is quite miraculous to me. We were also sent a savior: someone who appeared to check on us and call an ambulance. And even the safety of our possessions: I still read some of the books and my computer still worked after all that rain…it’s a reminder to me of what our college president, Jerry Falwell Sr. used to say, “You are untouchable, indestructible until you’ve finished the work God has for you to do on this earth.” That is just one of the more obvious times that I know, God protected me and saved me for a purpose!

This year, I’ve really learned a lot. It was challenging to say the least. Being in a team leadership role all year for our location. Having a five year old who is reading, climbing, and pushing limits. Learning how to care for daughters (I didn’t grow up with any sisters). Building and finding margin for Stacy and I in the midst of our crazy life. Here are a few of my top thoughts and experiences:

• The parent life is slower with each child that joins our family, and you can fight it, but it’s better to accept it!
  
  I live to get things done! I’m type A, Choleric, all the way. But I’ve learned that family requires patience and the ability to enjoy the process in everything. Otherwise, I do everything with a poor attitude and I pass that attitude on to my kids. My kids should not be slaves to my agenda, rather we should enjoy each others company and accomplish things together!
  
  …and seriously, everything is WAY slower. Colds go through the whole family before we get over them. Every stop that requires getting the kids out of the car is a tremendous effort. Bedtime in a process. And most toys involve quite a bit of fighting before they are old enough to loose their appeal enough to be shareable.
  
• Kids crave learning and adventure. They can be incredibly responsible. We need to give them more opportunities grow those abilities.
  
• Managing and developing people is hard. It doesn’t come naturally to me, and the constant temptation for me is to focus on completing tasks instead of encouraging my team. This year, I’ve built a lot of systems and routines to help me manage better, but it still doesn’t come naturally or easily.
  
• Classic cars have a HUGE fan base of people who’s desire to see something live on past it’s normal life inspires me, but who’s love of display only vehicles depresses me. This fall I found that there were 3-6 car shows in the Tulsa area every weekend, with hundreds of cars, owned by awesome people. There’s a club that cruises every Tuesday in town. I love the social connections I found among car guys, especially Corvette owners (which I joined this year with my 1985 Vette purchase). But I’ll have to apologize, because I’m committed to driving any vehicle I own weekly. Driving is the first and best way to appreciate a vehicle, for me.
  
• Smoked brisket is wonderful…and worth the effort! A huge thanks to Myron for loaning me his electric smoker this year so I could experiment.

My kids: 5, 4 and 22 months old, watch a descent amount of TV.

Every morning, they are promised a 20 minute morning show, after they are all dressed and have had breakfast. We typically pick from Wallykazam, Tumble Leaf, Sid the Science Kid, or Superbook. I found these shows to be somewhat educational and wholesome, so they are the choices I present, whenever possible.

I often let them watch a movie on longer car rides too…which sounds easy enough, until you’re trying to sync a movie onto screens that everyone can watch, with rear and front facing car seats, wires, and the need to retain some control in the front seat. I’m an IT guy and it’s proven quite difficult at times. (At present, I run movies from a USB drive in an old Syvania DVD player with analog video out from the front seat, to screens in the back headrest, and audio through the car stereo system Aux input.)

And some evenings or afternoons, my kids enjoy a movie. Their current favorites are:

• Home
• Milo and Otis
• The Grinch (2018 version)
• The Grinch (1970’s version)
• Ice Age
• Treasure Buddies
• The Bear Whisperer
• Planet Earth

But my kids don’t ever get time with my phone or tablet. And aside from having Alexa play songs at their request, their content selections are always filtered by me and Stacy.

I definitely wonder how each year, and Eli’s ability to read, will continue to create new complexity and challenge the balance we currently have as a family toward these things. I just feel that I spent too much time when I was a kid on the Nintendo and watching movies on TV. I hope that by giving my kids other choices, they will grow up with a greater love of time with people and with books.

So if you are reading this and want to share your thoughts and current parenting practices, I would love to hear!

I love creating, revamping, and reconditioning things. Projects are my jam, and I love to strategize the next big concept that needs to come to life.

Unfortunately, my project execution has taught me that to be perfect, every project has to be done twice! There are too many unforseen factors in the way I work through a project for it to come together perfect the first time (or without substantial adjustments before I’m done).

Take my recent projects:

• Repairing my Prius headlight’s involved going in and changing a bad sensor, only to figure out I needed a bracket as well, and requiring me to revisit the project later with the proper parts.
• Changing out the dash lights in the Corvette led to the realization that the lights I’d been recommended on Corvette forums wouldn’t work right, and I ended up ordering the proper bulbs and revisiting the dash again a week later.

Needless to say, I obsess over larger projects a lot more than the small ones, and I’ve blessed by the grace of God to be doing everything I can the first time in marriage and parenting. But the truth remains, the second time is always where I really hit my stride on many things.

So if you are the kind of person who stresses to get it right the first time, take some comfort in the fact it’s not always necessary to get it perfect the first time. As my professor used to say, “Anything worth doing, is worth doing poorly until you can do it well.”