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Merry Christmas everyone.

A couple fun news items in StumpTown today.

First, my Dad has his new medication. Praise God. No really, I’m not just saying that to indicate that I am praising God or that it is something praiseworthy but because I am hoping that you will actually praise God. I know many of you have been praying for this, so please take a minute and say thank you. The new medication will allow him to avoid having to travel out of state to a drug trial. In a truly amazing turn of events, when his insurance company would not pay for this drug, the drug company (Bayer…my new favorite) agreed to give him the drug for free. How often do you hear about that happening? It is true though. Now the important part. This drug needs to work. The others have not or have stopped and the tumors are growing rapidly. Please keep us in your prayers.

Second, we had 4 snow days this week and it was awesome. I worked from home and mixed in a little sledding and snowball fighting with the boys. Lots of people around here are sick of the snow and the way it interferes with life, but for me, who has a hard time allowing life to interfere with my plans, the snow has been a welcome interruption. The work is still getting done, but now it is getting done along with great memories of sliding down our long steep driveway with my 8 year old screaming “yeah baby” as he grips ahold of me on the sled. Good times.

Speaking of my 8 year old and the snow. G1 took a snowball to the face earlier this week. It probably stung and was really, really cold. In times past this would have led to a 5 minute crying timeout at least as he vented both his pain and anger in tears. This remains one of my least favorite aspects of parenting young children (yes, I know…I lack compassion). This time however, he just looked around at his stunned and braced for bawling parents and smiled a big toothy grin through his icy white mask of snow. No crying. No complaining. Just laughing and firing back. My little boy is growing up.

Third, I am very pleased and excited to announce that our Praise Team has finished its latest CD. For those of you not familiar with this project, the Westside Church of Christ Praise Team leads worship at Westside every week generally led by yours truly. Before I came back to Westside, the previous praise teams have recorded albums and some who were here during that era had often requested that we do it again.

This time, however, there was a new and fun (I hope) twist to the process. As some of you may know I have been writing praise and worship songs for the last three or four years and 9 of the 11 tracks on this cd are original songs I wrote with the help of my lovely wife, my “house band” (my wife, and our friends Tony and Jennifer), the Praise Team and some uber-talented musician types: Ike Graul, Kris Strobeck and Clarissa Cox. I am still writing and it has become one of the greatest blessings in my life.

Anyway, Jennifer Davis who sings alto with us wrote one of the other tracks and then we also do the old hymn Holy Holy Holy just because we like it. Jennifer has written more and she and I are already at work creating music for next year’s cd.

A couple months ago the PT got together with wunderkind Kris Strobeck who is a local musician and producer and personal friend. We recorded 11 tracks for this cd in a single day and evening. It was an immense amount of work. But thanks to the talented folks that sing on our PT and Kris’s excellent guidance, we made it happen. Then Kris and I have worked over the past few weeks (mostly Kris) to “clean up” and “produce” the songs to prepare them for the CD. That process is finally complete and thanks again to Kris and his amazing talent, I think they came out really good.

Anyway, someday very soon, this CD will be available for purchase. At this point, it should be for sale at Amazon and iTunes in mid to late January, but possibly sooner. The cd artwork was done by a very talented young artist at Westside who is the son of one of our longtime PT singers and the collaboration of talent with some of my closest friends has really made this one of the most fun things I have ever worked on.

So, I will announce and send a link to where you can buy it when it goes on sale if you would like one. If you attend Westside (or just want to come visit), you can purchase the CD at a discount once it is available. If you live in the Portland area and want to be invited to our CD release party (you thought with Jennifer and my wife involved there would not be a party? Come on!!), please let me know and we’ll get you on the list.

I know I speak for the whole PT when I say that our only hope is that this CD and the music on it will glorify God. The process of worshiping God to create the CD has already blessed me more than I can say.

May the God of peace and the peace of God be with you all.

Dad update

A bit of light in the storm today. My Dad has been trying to get in a drug study to get his hands on a Kidney cancer drug called Serafanib. Since my Dad doesn't have kidney cancer, it is very unlikely that his insurance will approve the hefty sum of money to purchase this drug. So, getting it through a drug trial has been the only option.

If he can get in he would have to travel to Denver or maybe Chicago to get the drug and the expense and inconvenience factor, even if he could get in would be very high. Still, it has been the only options.

Today came news though that it appears the drug company has approved my Dad to receive the drug free of charge if his insurance company declines to cover the cost.

So, while it hasn't happened yet, it appears that my Dad may be able to get access to this drug without participating in a study. That would be very good news.

Praise God.

Where are you from?

You may know where you are, but do you know where you are from?

Our good friend Connie inspired my wife to answer that question in the mold of a poem following the pattern of the more famous poem also called "Where I'm From" which I believe was written by George Ella Lyon.

Ordinarily my lovely wife is more likely to spend her creative energy on the visual arts, but she has a gift for the written word as well and so I was thrilled that she decided to write her own "Where I'm From." It is a beautiful insight into my Wife and her beginnings and she was gracious enough to allow me to share it here. Though you likely won't enjoy it quite as much as I did (since I doubt that is possible), I hope it inspires some of you to give some thought to your own history. Anyway, enjoy

Where I’m From

I am from 172nd court
From sawdust and custom designed Barbie clothes
I am from a triangle tree house with a green corrugated roof
Sheltering my sleeping bag and books during a flood
until Daddy put on waders
Rescuing my precious things

I am from Little House on the Prairie
Laura and Ma and Manly
Long braids and nightgowns at 8:00
Dancing to the opening credits
I am from Mrs. Smith’s awesome 5th grade
A brick in Pioneer Square to remember us, always together

I am from Paradise Island
Wonder Woman on a bike
Racing with Rene’
Singing and saving the day
Swim meets and goggles and swim caps to cover our hip length hair
Proud to be matching cone head mermaids

I am from the stage
Somewhere over the rainbow
Best friends in costumes
I am from the scent of Great songs of the church
My great grandmother’s scratchy crocheted cape,
Baptistery chlorine and 728B in my biggest voice

I am from Lake Billie Chinook
Sunburns, water skis and our own private trailer
Camping and fishing
Losing a sombrero on the lake
A one man, two girl tent
A burnt orange backpack that was too heavy

I am again from the end of the street
Still love sawdust and custom designed clothes
The tree house is a rectangle now
728B is a classic sung into a microphone
Singing and saving the day
Wonder Woman on a Bike

Trials and Tribulations

Greetings everyone from your long lost lawyer blogger friend.

Things have been particularly busy of late. The month of November was taken up entirely preparing for and then doing the lawyering in a two week jury trial. I basically did nothing but work on that case for about a month. Now I am slowly recovering and trying to get to know my family again. Thankfully all that hard work ended with a win for my client. It was an especially gratifying win not only because of all the hard work that went into it but because my clients are genuinely good people and it would have been a grave injustice if they had lost. If it weren’t for all the darned confidentialities and professional etiquette involved in such a thing, I could fill this blog with good stories from this trial for months to come.

Instead, I will just offer this bit of advice for any new or would-be litigators out there. When your entire case comes down to your own client’s memory and understanding of events, calling an expert witness in to say that your client has severe mental impairment that puts his memory in the .5 percentile is probably not your best move. The lawyer on the other side just might seize on that and remind the jury at every turn that 99.5% of the population remembers things better than your client.

I’m just saying…

We have all had “now you’ll find out who your friends are” moments in life. Maybe it is when your second rap album flopped and you had to sell your Maserati and most of your bling. The ones who stuck around when you were blingless are much more likely to be your friends (either that or they are just conservative investors and are hoping you swing back to your former playa status).

Or, maybe it was when you had to take some big risk like when you decided to wear green and orange together for the first time. The ones that stuck with you and didn’t even make hurtful jokes about your sexual preferences behind your back are, again, much more likely to be your real friends.

But those are just a couple universal examples. Maybe yours was a variation, but those friend testing moments are real and can be some of the more affirming or devastating moments of our lives.

This trial was just such a moment for me. I basically dropped out of life for 3 weeks. I was at the office all the time. I doled out all of my duties at Church and all aspects of my personal or family life were simply put on hold. I didn’t return emails or phone calls. I didn’t show up for social gatherings even when they were at my own house. I only saw my wife and kids when they were sleeping. I was dialed into that trial, 100%.

The people I thought were my closest friends all responded basically the same way. They covered for me at Church, they prayed for me, they never complained, they changed their schedules to accommodate mine and even came to court to watch me litigate. They sent me encouraging emails and on the rare times they saw me out of court they convincingly feigned interest in my ranting and raving about the latest boring trial detail. Then after hearing me wax on about things no one but a lawyer half brain dead with exhaustion and stress would care about, they would smile and tell me it was interesting and then tell me they thought I would be great.
Basically, the side effect of the whole draining experience was a big fat reminder that I have really good friends. They are the kind that stick with me when I’m blingless or when I make questionable fashion decisions. They even stick with me when I completely ignore them for nearly a month. But more than stick with me, they encourage me and try to help me when they are getting nothing from me but an earful about the “hearsay” rules or why western civilization may come to an end if parties are allowed to argue their case unfettered in voir dire. Those are true friends indeed and I have a whole bunch of them. I already believed that, but now I know and as my good friend the narrator from the GI Joes cartoon of the late ‘80s would say “you must fight the evil forces of C.O.B.R.A.” and also, “knowing is half the battle.”

Well, when it comes to friendship, knowing who your friends are is more than half the battle, it is the victory itself.

But, as great as my friends are and as thankful as I am for them, they all paled in comparison to the effort shown by my best friend.

I have been married for more than 15 years now and have known my wife for all but the first 11 years of my life. During that time, she has never stopped amazing me with her talent and faith and grace and beauty. But even still there have been moments where she has elevated her game to match the circumstances. There was the LA earthquake and the impact it had on her job, the move to Virginia where she knew no one and still had to be the sole bread winner for the family while I was in law school. There was the house fire, the move to Eugene, the move to Portland, the first house remodel, the second house remodel, the parents house remodel and the miracle of strength of will and character that she displayed when giving birth to our boys. At each of these times a truly extraordinary woman stepped up to perform nearly super-human feats.

So, when these moments come, they should no longer come as a surprise, but I have found that I have never “gotten used to” the spectacular. So, while it was in keeping with her character to respond the way she did when I was in trial, it still amazed me.

Now maybe it wasn’t on the level of giving birth or dealing with a devastating fire, but to me my wife’s response to suddenly losing her husband and father of her children for 3 weeks was nothing short of spectacular. She never once complained. Never asked me for more of my time. Never tried to make me feel guilty for my absence. She always told me how nice I looked and how great she thought I would do and then simply took care of the house, the boys, and the myriad of other obligations. She listened and encouraged and gave me more support than I had a right to ask for.

I had lots of help with this trial from other lawyers and the great staff at my office. But no one contributed more to my success in trial than my wife. As she has done so many times before, she not only placed my needs ahead of her own, but did it with a smile on her face.

My trial could have been a very rocky time for our marriage. Instead, because of Tanya, it simply made me love her more. Apparently, I felt like you should know.

Changing gears a bit, I also need to post an update about my Dad and his health. Basically, it is not very good I’m afraid. The cancer has been back and growing quickly in his liver since August. He has been trying a number of different medications to stop or slow it, but nothing has worked. Surgery is not an option.

Recently we discovered that the liver is beginning to show significant damage and he has been generally feeling worse and worse. Though thankfully he still feels well enough to keep working and traveling to see the grandkids and the like. Right now we are trying to get our hands on newer still unproven drugs through clinical trials in hopes of finding something that will stop the cancer. The clinical trials are all over the country and can be difficult to get into, but they are what appears to be the last line of defense.

Please continue praying for my Dad and my Mom and my family. I am praying that he can get into a trial soon that doesn’t require him to move to Boston or Chicago or Denver and that would allow access to the drug that will finally shut this cancer down.

Thank you to all my friends who have contacted me even when I haven’t posted here. And to all of those who put up with my absence the last month. It has been a great encouragement.
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