— i’m really glad to see cnn.com with a cover story on child soldiering. the whole world, to some extent, but especially the u.s., seems to have been ignoring this issue for far too long. i wish the article had mentioned invisible children, the amazing film made by a handful of san diego college students (which has now turned into a full-fledged ministry). i wish the article had mentioned world vision’s work – they’ve been on the ground in the midst of this issue, providing help and care to child soldiers, for years.

— the police were so freakin’ good performing at the grammy’s last night. i wish they had done a medley — but i still loved the performance. and sting just doesn’t age. neither does prince. stevie wonder, on the other hand, has aged.

— speaking of the grammy’s… i thought it was the best collection of live performances i’ve ever seen at the grammy’s, or any other awards show, for that matter. the three-song collaboration of john legend, corinne bailey rae and john mayer was epic, like watching history being made. i actually teared up!

— my wife is leaving, mid-day-today, for a 5-day spiritual retreat with the soulshaper board of ys. this group works with ys’s director of spiritual formation (beth slevcove) to give input and guidance to ys in the area of nurturing the souls of youth workers. they’re going to a monestary up near l.a., and i’m sure it will be a wonderful time. but i’ll miss her — especially on valentine’s day! i packed 5 valentine’s cards in her luggage, each labled for a different day of the week.

— of course, the above means i’m single-parenting this week. packing lunches (well, overseeing the packing of lunches — the kids are responsible for packing their own), getting them to school, picking them up and shuttling them to their various after-school things, dinner, homework, all that stuff. on top of that, this is a psycho-busy week at ys. we have z finance peeps coming in for the first-round of budget development, and z tech peeps coming in for website and tech mtgs. a few of our out-of-state staff will be in also, for these mtgs, so my meetings quotient will be high.

— this morning, i finally wrote the last words for my half of the next two books kurt johnston and i are co-authoring for middle school kids. MY FAITH and MY FAMILY came out last month. we’re working on MY FRIENDS and MY SCHOOL right now. we have two more to write later this year. however… my half of MY SCHOOL (i finished my half of MY FRIENDS this a.m.) is due in 2 1/2 weeks. and i haven’t written a word yet. yes, i’m stressed.

— saw one odd movie, one horrible movie, and one decent movie this past weekend. the odd one: all the king’s men. i expected more, with a cast like that (jude law, sean penn, kate winslet, anthony hopkins and more). and there were elements i found interesting (it’s a 1950s period piece about state politics in louisiana, but really a story of corruption and greed and “the people”). sean penn was good in the role, in some ways, but almost completely unintelligible. seriously, my friend and i watching it (on DVD) only understood about every third word he said. we had to pause the movie several times to help each other understand what was going on. the horrible one: jeannie was out friday night, and i had an out-of-town friend over, so we decided to “guy movie night” it. all the king’s men was our first (we thought it was going to be a political thriller). then, we wanted a guy-ish action flick. couldn’t find anything. so we ended up with the marine. really, this could be one of the worst movies i’ve ever seen. we actually laughed so hard at points that weren’t supposed to be funny. there were lots of absurdly big explosions and stuff. but i won’t even bother explaining how horrible the movie was, except to say that i’ve never heard a musical score ruin a movie so badly, or turn it into a sitcom. the one decent movie: max and i went to the theater yesterday to see eragon. i’d heard it wasn’t that great, so my expectations were low. and i really enjoyed it.

— right now… this long post… the best phrase for it would be: work avoidance.