The men’s lacrosse banquet was held this evening, and the team said goodbye to 18 seniors and Head Coach Rick Dinkins who retired after an 8 year career. Rick not only founded the program, but really is a guy who could get the best out of the boys. He will be sorely missed. He however has spent a lot of time grooming the very capable Coach Mac to take his place, and Andy will take the wheel from here. Scotty now enters his Senior Year under Mac, who was his coach the first year he played. It is looking to be an exciting year!

And speaking of Scotty, he spent the year on the JV team, first as an attack player, but just after the season started he switched to goalie. It was a great move for the former All-Star baseball catcher. He has a natural talent for it…and tonight he was voted MVP by his team!

The prospect of a great year for them is much better than you might think. Sure, losing so many seniors may seem scary, but older players always develop the younger ones. I lost seven players this year, but they all were leaders. Leaders develop hunger in the younger ones and believe me, heart is the most important attribute of any player I tell you!

So now I have two MVP’s. Through a lifetime of ice hockey I was never awarded such an award. But tonight I am prouder than I would be if I did.

Congrats Scotty on the award and congrats to Stephy too. I am no longer Steph’s coach, but I know she will do well. And I look forward to following them both as they further their careers!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Well I am out on the back porch again, this time with a very reluctant dog. There is a thunderstorm moving through the area, and because of it the cat has abandoned her post. Viper, who is often called a stalker or trailer in our home because he will follow you everywhere, stood at the door to the porch and just watched me until I talked him into coming out. He wants to be with me, just not in the line of what he considers to be considerable danger.

But though they hate it, I love storms very much. I have been fascinated by them my whole life. We used to watch them come in all the time, and where I am from just north of here, the weather is quite a bit more frequent and spectacular! I loved it!

One of the interesting things about my life is that I was actually struck by lightening when I was 16. I only remember the before and the after. I was thrown, not burned, nor did I even go to the hospital. (I would like to say it was because I was too tough, but in retrospect it was because I was too stupid.) But it makes for a pretty cool story and the detailed version is pretty rare. Many people do not survive such things. (AND yes, the picture is the clock being struck by lightening in “Back to the Future.”)

But, of course, I did. And lots of things have changed in this life because of it.

We make the most of the time we have on this good earth and tonight I am thankful for the beauty and the power of these storms. Afraid? Nope, not at all. They remind me of the One who was and is, and is to come. He has knocked me on my backside three different times in my life and each time I have been thankful about continuing on (lightening 1977, liver tumor 1989, stroke 2008) (Okay Lord, no more….I GET IT). But let me just say on this “dark and stormy night” (Snoopy in Peanuts – pick a year) that life is precious, not just each day, but each and every breath. And tonight I thank God for each one!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Yep, tonight we played in the 2nd Annual Michael Treinen Memorial Alumni Games at Hare Field. It was a marvelous night for lacrosse and for a good cause too. The money that was raised will go back to the Michael Treinen Foundation to continue their legacy of good work for cancer research and victims families.

But tonight was also a time to remember Mike. I met him on that very same field just over two years ago where as a young man undergoing chemotherapy to battle cancer once again, he stepped in to be my assistant after a stroke sent me to the hospital. I had yet to coach a game as head coach, he had the victory a few days earlier with Coach Mac already under his belt. We met out on the big “N” of the field for the first time.

In the short few months I knew him before his death, Michael came to mean more to me and my team than I could ever express. I was a hockey player and had only studied lacrosse. He was both a hockey and lacrosse player. We spoke the same language. I had never seen him play, but I could see him coach daily. He had a gift, not only in leading the girls, but in leading others in life. It was a pretty amazing couple of months.

His jersey that was retired last year at the 1st Annual Alumni Games was looking for a home and it got one this evening. Noblesville Mayor John Ditslear, who is a real quality guy, asked to display the jersey in its case in City Hall. You see, Michael did more than make his mark upon the lacrosse community, it was really upon the entire city. He was one amazing guy.

And tonight in the women’s game I was one of the refs, along with my son Scott. One difference between the women’s and men’s alumni games is that our game is the high school team verses ALL graduates, including the ones who graduated this year. The men’s game splits up alumni on both teams and puts a few high school players on each squad.

Why that is significant is that as I was huffing and puffing my way up and down the field I thought of Michael. He used to analyze things all the time and look at ways we could get better. I was struck at how it was our next year’s team out there against a team stacked with All State and college players, and how I’d just bet Michael was looking down from heaven thinking the same things. We got beat 11-5, though we were missing a few major players, but wow was I encouraged. I just knew Michael was thinking, just like I was, how we were going to move this team of raw talent into the new year. I just now need him to tell me!

My brother, I miss you, and want you to know what you did for me and for the girls I will spend a lifetime remembering and giving back because of. We still wear our orange everyday, and as long as I am the coach, we always will. God bless you my friend, you are coaching us still!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless! And if you feel compelled, go make a donation at

Yep, this is not a long post because I am still migrating information from my PC to the new MAC and it is NOT all that easy. It appears that anything I have ever done on my PC is not suitable for the MAC. And though I know that is not really true, the frustration makes me feel like it.

Yep, things are moving, but slowly. It appears to be MAC season. Hopefully it will be a fruitful one too! Keep me in your prayers! Times like these can be challenging!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!!

Tommy+

Yep, he has it made. His day is filled with goofing off and very little stress, while mine is a minefield! Yes, once again my laptop has the infamous “bad image” virus, the very same one that the computer repair place took two trips to fix last time, and really didn’t fix it as much as backed-up my files and then reformatted my hard drive…..and oh yes, charged me an arm and a leg. Of course I had top of the line virus software running all the time, which they said was pretty ineffective. They did however fix me up, take my money, and send me on my way.

You can imagine my questions this time….again. I mean what can I do to prevent it, other than using my laptop for a paperweight and never turning it on? The guy suggested a new laptop to me, you know, a better one that might be a better fit. And yep, he led me right over to the one I already had. Potential meltdown I swear!

So I walked right out of there. I had already backed up everything, so I was not worried about that. I just do not have the time or patience to do this more than once, nor can we keep buying computers every 15 minutes. So at the bequest of all the Mac cultists (all good friends of mine) I drove over to the Apple Store and vented my frustrations to the nice people there. Oddly enough, they were not just very willing to listen to me, but clearly this was not their first rodeo, they had heard it before lots of times. And though their products cost more money than God Himself probably has, in truth, with all the repairs and replacements, if I have no problems, it could be cheaper. So we bit the bullet and bought a MAC.

But no, I am not in paradise yet, nor am I all fuzzy-wuzzy in love. I still don’t have a clue as to how to use the most user friendly computer in the world, so this is to say I have not yet finished all my Kool Aid. BUT, I have gotten onto the Internet, and I have transferred my calendar. I also have done a few other things too. This blog however is being posted on one of two things I can still do on my old laptop…..get to Firefox and check my email. Tomorrow I hope to make the final transition and begin to repopulate my important files from backup. That will clear a lot of mines!

But for now I am calling it a day. I pray that tomorrow my life is more like Ben’s…..playing in my toys in bare feet and watching cartoons! Yep, I am a dreamer…..but tomorrow I intend to be a lot closer to it than I have been today!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

I was in Fort Wayne for work all day today, and though the people were wonderful, and the experience a blessing, I was not looking forward to the drive home. Stress occasionally works its way on me, and today that made the drive home look a bit larger than it really was. It is not that it is a long drive, because it really isn’t. But all the traffic can become a visual overload. I just didn’t want to weave in and out of it going home.

Oh but not to worry, because I had good training. You see, as a kid, my grandfather and I would OFTEN hope into the Thunderbird and just take rides through the country. They were always peaceful relaxing and wonderful. We were never in a hurry, the country was beautiful (all Indiana farmland) and I was with my grandpa. I could do that everyday….really.

And where I grew up, though it is not like that anymore, you had to drive through cornfields to get there….from any direction. We played in those fields as kids too, and there is just a certain smell and purity in the country.

So when I need to clear my head, or when I need some time away, I often drive through the country. Oddly enough, I always have. When I lived away from my grandfather, it was how I remembered, and now that he resides at the “home office” as I like to say, it is a way I connect with him and center myself.

So today, I probably could have hustled back in half the time, but I chose the back roads instead…..all the way from Fort Wayne. It helped a great deal, and I enjoyed it very much. And though I suppose a picture of a corn field isn’t very exciting to most, it is to me because it connects my past and present all at once.

So today I thank God that He provided me the beautiful fields to drive through this day, and in doing so blessed me tremendously. But now it is back to the grind. Tomorrow is another day, but thank God…….there is another corn field just across the field from my back porch!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Tonight I am playing smarter, not harder, so instead of asking my wife for a picture for the blog, I asked my son….the youngest son, who will do just about anything if you bribe him….thus the apple juice and the cheese puffs.

But regardless of whether his motives are to help me or not, it is just a blessing to have some company and to have that company not say “no.” Even with cheese puffs in his mouth he is more likely to interrupt than to actually motivate, but he provides a lot of comic relief. That would normally be Scott’s job, but he is out at open houses for graduates, and Stephanie, who is much more serious, is at work. So Mr. Ben just has to do.

His fake burps and laughs, along with his accompanying “excuse mes” are a bit hit, although almost exclusively with just him. For me the comedy is found in how he gets that orange stuff even on his nose when he eats, and how his mouth now looks like he bought lipstick at the Syracuse University bookstore. And everyone but he apparently knows that you cannot get that orange stuff off your hands by rubbing them together. Oh wait, he just found the right way…..he rubbed it on his shirt.

But the good news is that we are having a great time and getting this done…..together. He’s not exactly the world’s best writer. But tonight, Ben is all the help I need.

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

One of the lessons I have learned about my wife is that when she decides to do something, she heads into it full speed ahead. (With the exception of scratching my back which she stopped doing diligently on the way back down the aisle after saying “I do.”) So with trying to do something special for Stephanie, she was at about Mach 2 and I was just trying to stay out of her way.

But another lesson that I have learned about my wife is that if her mother is here, she will try to make Mach 2 look slow. Amanda really kicks it up even further and the sad reality for me is that it is pretty difficult to not feel the sonic boom.

The sad reality of the day has been that I have been suffering from a very bad headache and just trying to get by. And it was a busy one already. The two of them can accomplish more in one day that any team of people together than I have ever seen. And if you add Amanda’s sister Rhonda to the mix, well then it gets even more spectacular.

My mother-in-law leaves in the morning to return to Kansas and we will not see her for a couple of weeks until we stop out there on vacation at the end of June…..but it was a real blessing to have her here with us now.

And the last lesson I will share tonight, though there are many, is to not attempt to be too respectful or sentimental about what you want to write in your blog or you may be hung! I just took a picture of them both looking at pictures and it was a good one. But because Amanda (who did not see the picture) threatened my life if I used it (I am pretty sure she was serious) I decided to use this old one, with Rhonda included, instead.

As a scientist, I am sure she would make quick work of me and leave not a trace……and with her mom here, it could happen quicker than I’d expect. After all, who can keep up with Mach 2 plus??

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+

Today we held a graduation party for Stephanie at our house. A lot of the people from church, our friends, as well as lacrosse players, came by to say congrats……and Amanda’s mom even surprised us by driving in from Kansas. My sister Anna came too. It was a lot of work, but well worth it because it was a nice time.

The reality of it all though is daunting. It truly was the last thing connected to her high school and “kid” career. She is now 18, and a freshman in college. And although it was nice to reminisce a bit, our attention will now turn to finalizing her registration for classes, getting supplies for her dorm room, arranging for the move to St. Charles. It seems strange to me, not in the sense that I haven’t expected it all along, but in the fact that I have just never experienced it. But I am proud of her and although she is all grown up, to me she will always be my little girl.

But now I will call it a night. I am meeting the Bishop at 9am tomorrow morning in Indianapolis. He is in town to do a wedding. But I have to do a little reading to get my mind back on the work page! Being sentimental and nostalgic can turn a mind to mush, and when you figure in my damaged mind you can bet I need to review a few things before I head down there.

I hope your day was as blessed as mine!

Goodnight my friends and God Bless!

Tommy+