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We had a great time celebrating Memorial Day - I think we made it to at least two barbeques and an evening of playing games with family. The food was great, the time with friends and family was great, and it was just nice to have a long weekend.

Kristen also turned a year older this weekend. I learned long ago you don’t publicly discuss a woman’s age or weight - so yes, she’s 19 again this year. We had a great time hanging out - we ran down to Thousand Oaks and spent the day checking out a few shops before ending up in Santa Barbara. We intended to grab a nice dinner at The Beachside Restaurant, but Kristen started to feel a little ill so we swung by Borders and headed home early.

I also picked up John Wooden’s latest book: Wooden on Leadership, which I am very excited to start reading. He’s one of the few leaders I look up to who has lead as much with character as with competence. That combination seems increasingly rare these days, and I like to surround myself with role models who have found a way to be consistently competent while exhibiting character and integrity.

As promised, I ran around and took some quick pictures of our place now that things are starting to settle from our home improvement rampage. You can look at the before pictures here.

1. Dining Area
We were able to hang the ceiling light much easier than anticipated, but had some drywall patching to do after digging around to try to evaluate the situation. Also, you get a good look at the red wall — we painted the walls downstairs a light golden color, but painted the main wall that leads up the stairwell a nice brick red. You have to see it to appreciate it fully.

2. Stairwell Area
We re-carpeted and refinished the stair railing by sanding and painting.

3. Living Room Area
The main project here is meant to be invisible. We ran a gas line from just to the right of the window all the way to the kitchen — inside the wall. After patching and painting, you’d never know we did it!

4. Kitchen Area
The major project here was painting the kitchen cabinets. Kristen’s mom did a wonderful job on this, and our dad’s helped a ton with fixtures, water lines, and the rest.

5. Bedroom
The majority of the bedroom is going to be used as a home office, with the bed tucked away in this nice nook area. We haven’t pulled everything together to make the office look how we’d like, but it will come soon enough. I have ambitions of building a desk or two, so it may be a bit before you see pictures of that project.

All in all, we love our place, and are so grateful for all of the help we received. It was truly a team effort to transform our place, and now it feels like we have a new house!

Come by and visit! Unless I don’t know you. Then don’t. You might creep me out.

I was organizing a bunch of files on my computer today and ran across this image - one of my favorites:

I took the picture while on vacation in Montana a few years back. I couldn’t believe someone would put up a billboard like that as I drove by it — and later came back to take a picture. It still cracks me up.

Click on the picture for a full-size image (or click here)— you could even set it as your computer’s background if you like it enough.

I found this satellite imagery on a NASA web site recently. It’s a composite picture of what the world looks like at night. Amazing to see the areas that are so well lit compared to say the heart of the African continent which is almost pitch black.

Click on the image for a version that you could use for your computer background.

I promised some pictures of our place, both before and after shots of the changes we made once we moved in. Here goes!

1. Dining area
We initially thought we’d have to run electrical conduit up to the center of the room in order to hang a light over the dining room table. Turns out the wires were already there, just covered up by a previous owner. Of course we didn’t discover this until we’d taken a good chunk of drywall out - oh well!

2. Living Room area
The plan here was to take the gas line that ran to the fireplace (er, the old fireplace that was removed by a prior owner) and run it to the kitchen so we could put a gas stove in at a later date. This actually went much easier than expected, as we ran it just above the baseboard behind the drywall. We had some patching to do, but it really came together nicely.

3. Kitchen area
Another large project was to repaint the cabinets in the kitchen. Kristen’s mom spent a ton of time tackling this one, and did a great job. We also painted the walls, cleaned the light fixtures, installed our fridge (and ran a water line for our ice maker), installed an RO unit, and installed a new faucet.

4. Stairway
We spent a good bit of time with the stairway, but not until much of the other work was completed. My dad painted the metal railing white (it was black in this picture), and we painted the hand-rail and runners a khaki color. My dad and I re-carpeted the stairs as well, and they turned out really nice. I learned a ton on this part of the project, and think I could probably tackle a similar one on my own next time.

5. Upstairs bedroom
The entire upstairs is the master bedroom area, including a walk-in closet and master bath. As with the rest of the place, we scraped off the acoustic ceiling (popcorn texture), and re-textured and painted. We also installed new baseboards throughout, but these pictures give you an idea of what the upstairs looked like before we started.

The second bedroom will soon be a nursery, and the bathrooms will also need a little updating, but for the most part, we are extremely happy with the way everything came together. We had tons of help, and could not have done all of this work without the help of our parents and some key friends.

Thanks!

I’m not sure you can call miniature golf exercise, but it certainly counts as recreation. We went to a barbecue at a local park and then went miniature golfing with a group from church tonight. It was tons of fun and great to just hang out with everyone in a casual setting.

I started off the night with four straight birdies, but then it went downhill from there. I ended the night three over par for eighteen holes. Not Tiger Woods by any stretch, but I still had a great time. Of course I probably would have had even more fun if I hadn’t finished second!! Oh well.

I was able to save the ultrasound video in QuickTime format — which just means it will work on the Mac now. Here’s the link:

Click Here to View the QuickTime Ultrasound Video

Or just click this picture:

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.
— John F. Kennedy

I just read a fascinating article in the May issue of Fast Company that reflected recent findings in the fields of neuroscience and psychology: When faced with making significant, enduring, life-altering behavioral changes in order to prolong or improve the quality of one’s life, 90% of heart surgery (post-bypass) patients could not make the changes required.

Did you catch that? 90 percent.

That means faced with life or death, nine out of ten chose death. Or rather their inability to change implies that they are willing to live (or die) with the consequences.

The article goes on to discuss that fear, even of death, is an insufficient form of motivation. Rather, changes that are introduced as an agent of bringing joy and a better quality of life - in other words changes that will bring a better future - are actually more effective. The changes must be radical, so that immediate results will be seen, and they must continue to bring results as the changes are implemented over the long run.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m any different? Odds are I’m in the majority that is content to live with the consequences rather than live with the discomfort that I perceive will accompany change. Why am I so content to live in mediocrity? I think I want to accomplish more, build deeper friendships, mature in my faith, experience an enriching, fulfilling marriage, thrive in a challenging work environment, and live a full, healthy life in pursuit of excellence. But am I willing to pay the price?

As I consider my work environment and the changes I’ve attempted to push through to others or even changes in general strategy, I’ve seen that the attempts to make slow gradual changes have seen widespread failure. They work for a little while. Then everyone reverts back to their old habits.

However, when I’ve introduced sweeping changes they have actually been more effective. It hasn’t been easy, and it takes a lot of personal effort to succeed. I’ve had to paint a picture of what lies ahead if we make the change - and it has only worked when that picture is far better than the course the organization is on at present. I’ve had to be decisive and very clear in my communication. And I’ve had to be humble enough to admit that I see with limited vision and will own my mistakes as they come.

I can foresee some radical changes coming in my personal life as a result of entering into fatherhood. They’ll be a catalyst for change in many aspects, and as a good friend of mine says, “With change comes opportunity.” I want to be willing to pay the price of pursuing excellence and fleeing mediocrity. I want to be in the 10% that beats the odds. I’m making some decisions to take advantage of this change agent to cull some of the dross that has filtered into my habits and routines. With God’s help and a willingness to keep learning and growing, I’m confident I’ll beat the odds.

We had our second ultrasound on Wednesday of this week.

Click here to view the video: Baby Pruett Ultrasound Video.

There is also an AVI version (may work on the Mac): Baby Pruett Ultrasound Video.

It was rather amazing to see how much more “lifelike” the baby is now, even though we’re only at about 12 weeks. We were able to see (and hear) the heartbeat, watch the blood circulating, see a cross-section of the brain, and recognized many other features such as particular bones and the spine.

At the very beginning of the ultrasound, the baby arched its back for what looked like a big yawn, then dropped back down again to rest. It was pretty funny to see, but also made it so much more real. Amazing that at less than 3 months into the pregnancy we’ve already got a real baby. I think the people that argue that a pre-birth baby is just a fetus haven’t seen an ultrasound before.

I’ve edited the 11 minute video down to about 2 minutes. I’m working at providing it in more than just Windows Media Player format, but we’ll have to see what I can do.

Take a look, let me know what you think.