Category: Personal News

Paula and I went to see the doctor today, and we’re going to have labor induced this Thursday.

Pretty strange to think about, that we can schedule that. There is the chance that she’ll come early, but the doctor didn’t seem to expect it.

Expect some good news and a photo soon!

Let’s just hope the poem is wrong…

Monday’s Child is fair of face
Tuesday’s Child is full of grace
Wednesday’s Child is full of woe
Thursday’s Child has far to go
Friday’s Child is loving and giving
Saturday’s Child works hard for a living
But the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe and good and gay.

Then again, I’m not sure what that means. Thursday’s Child has far to go in order to reach what destination?

Could be worse, I suppose–we could have induced on Wednesday.

On a completely unrelated note, I was very disappointed earlier today. John Ortberg is the teaching pastor at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, which is about two blocks from my apartment. He’s also considered one of the best preachers in America.

Well, I’m always trying become a better preacher, so I emailed him and asked to interview him about the sermon preparation and delivery process (which I was planning to encode in MP3 format and upload to a website, probably Reach The U).

After a few days he emailed me back and declined, citing a busy teaching schedule. I was pretty bummed. I suppose I half expected it–for all he knows I’m some whacko–but it’s still disappointing. I consider him a professional role model, and so it would have been nice to meet him and figure out how he does what he does.

Maybe it will work out someday. I used to have a lot of success at meeting people I esteemed (or was just curious about), but my last few attempts have bombed (Doug Fields, Dan Betzer, Dan Kimball, and now John Ortberg).

First, no baby yet. You’ll know when baby Davis arrives. Relax.

Second, I was talking with a church staffer yesterday and he said, “One of the things that drew me to Chi Alpha was that you guys got the giddy.”

That’s a cool phrase–we got the giddy.

Just a quick update. The wonderful folks at International Assembly of God up in Burlingame threw a baby shower for us Saturday evening. We got some amazing gifts and were truly blessed by their generosity. Unfortunately, I had to attend without Paula, as she was still on bed rest.

I did my best. I got really excited about the color pink and I didn’t throw away any bows. I think that’s what you’re supposed to do at a shower…

And my in-laws arrived for a month-long visit yesterday. They’ve already begun pampering Paula to death, but I think she likes it.

One more comment–I just learned that Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is going to be this year’s commencement speaker. Wow.

Side note–I just learned that she was in the same class as Chief Justice William Rhenquist. I bet the profs who taught that year are feeling pretty good about themselves.

So Paula had another doctor’s appointment today, and the doctor has put her on total bed rest. “I’d really prefer to wait at least two weeks for the baby to be born,” she explained.

And so Paula asked if the expected date was still April 3rd and the doctor replied, “Your baby isn’t coming in April.”

Drum roll, please.…

Yesterday we went to see the doctor for one of those regularly scheduled pregnancy checkups.

It went really well, but it was kind of funny at the end. The doctor had finished explaining what to watch out for and Paula said, “By the way–what’s this feeling on my belly right now?”

The doctor felt it and said, “That’s a contraction.”

“Oh, I’ve had three of those since we’ve been here.”

And the doctor gave Paula some medicine to slow the process down. Time to pack the bags and get everybody’s number in my cell phone…

Happy Valentine’s Day, Paula!

I wanted to get you the universe’s largest known diamond, but since it’s 2,500 miles across the ring would probably be a bit awkward. Still, a 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 carat diamond would be quite the accessory.

side note: at first I assumed this was some sort of bizarre typo in the paper, but then I did some additional research. Just google for BPM 37093 to find many more links. Thanks to OxBlog for the original link.

Last night’s episode of the West Wing was the first one in a while that wasn’t completely lame. The ending was a bit contrived, but I liked the flow of the episode.

That, however, is neither here nor there.

Also, I noticed that a Stanford grad joined Cirque de Soleil while at the same time becoming Ms. Fitness USA. I swear, those students can be such overachievers… I bet her mom has some funny conversations, though. “So your daughter has a grad degree from Stanford–what does she do?” “She’s performs in the circus.”

That also is neither here nor there (but I note that you’re still reading, and so it was at least interesting).

Paula is doing well–she’s got just under two months to go until she gives birth to our first child. The biggest item on our to-do list now is buying diapers. Lots of diapers.

Things are going well with Chi Alpha, especially on a district (statewide) level.

Speaking of the district level, my district superintendent is retiring this April. This led Tim Smith, who leads Chi Alpha at Sacramento State to have some fun:

From: Tim Smith
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2004 1:24 PM
To: Glen Cole
Subject: Chi Alpha

Dear Bro. Cole–

I don’t want you to leave your current office, but as talking you out of it at this point seems unlikely, I am writing today to offer you a new job as an Associate Campus Pastor with me here in Chi Alpha-Sacramento.

The perks of this job include:
–unlimited time off for “Plus One” concerts and/or tours.
–a more relaxed dress code when on campus.
–the opportunity to have direct involvement in shaping the immediate future of our world’s leadership, both domestic and foreign, on a daily basis.

I’m pretty sure I can get Chi Alpha and AGHM to waive the year-long Campus Missionary Internship and Berean requirements, so we could have you on campus immediately after raising your budget. Also, if Mrs. Cole goes to work, they will count her income toward 20% of your budget, so that could help.

Anyway, you think about it, let me know if you’re interested, and we’ll schedule an interview over pizza and Coke.
Have a great day!
Tim Smith

To which the amused Glen Cole replied:

Dear Tim:

I knew God would speak to me about my future. Yours is the first offer, so we will be in prayerful consideration about this. 

Blessings!

GDC

That’s a lot funnier if you know Glen Cole at all. Or if you know anything about how Chi Alpha ranks on the internal AG pecking order.

I’m coordinating the district college winter retreat this weekend, so Paula and I are heading up today to start getting stuff set up.

I’m pretty excited–our attendance is up by about 60% over last year and so it feels like we have a lot of momentum going into it.

On a more personal note, around half of our Stanford Chi Alpha group will be heading up. Paula and I are deeply excited about that. In our experience, few things cause a group to bond as much as a road trip to and from retreat along with all the fun things that happen while there.

Paula and I got back from our holiday travels yesterday. We’ve been busy little bees.

We visited San Diego with Brian and Cecilee Orme (they lead Chi Alpha in Salt Lake City) and had a blast! We were actually working (inspecting potential conference sites), but it was a lot of fun.

Then we got home, finished our Christmas shopping, and hopped on a plane to New Orleans Christmas Eve. We had a great time with our families (and they had a good time examining Paula’s pregnant belly), and then turned around and came home.

If you’ve emailed me in the last two weeks, rest assured that I’ll get back to you. I have a few hundred messages to plow through, so it may take a little while.

Happy New Year!

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve posted anything to the site–I feel as though I’ve barely had time to check my email lately, much less update the site.

In any event, Paula and I are settling in to our new place. Stuff is actually getting hung on the walls and the few boxes that remain dwindle daily.

Things have Stanford have been pretty good–as always some bits are encouraging and some bits are discouraging. Our small groups are the real highlight for me this quarter.

On another encouraging note, I just got an email from Josh Wong (one of our alumni from last year) and it contained this exciting little snippet: Ming Fai has also gone to Myanmar! He said that I encouraged him to go there, so I am glad to hear that. He is now driving the production of a movie-CD about Myanmar to promote awareness and to raise funds for the orphans and missionaries there. I am helping him on that.

That was very neat to hear!