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Answers From Me Part 3 – Day Relived

A couple of weeks ago, I asked The Stretch Community to ask me anything. And they did! I’ve answered two of the questions so far, and I thought I’d take a stab at another question today. This one comes from my brother (David Paul Stolpe) who has become one of the top commenters over the past few months. Here’s his question:

If you could relive one day, what day would it be?

This is a rather thought-provoking question. Honestly, I know I can’t change the past, and I have little control over the future, so I try to live in the present. But…if I had the opportunity to relive one day, I’d probably pick my wedding day.

For those of you who are married, you can probably relate to my feeling that this day went by so fast. In many ways, it was a blur. I’d love to take time to appreciate those in attendance – especially my family who came from all kinds of distances and directions to help us celebrate.

I’d love to relive the joy of that first newlywed kiss, the first dance, the piece of cake, the ride together in the Model A from the church to the wedding, the ceremony itself, and of course our first night together. I wouldn’t necessarily change anything about that day, but I’d try to appreciate more deeply the meaning of that day and the interactions with those in attendance.

And that’s my answer!

Now, it’s your turn. Answer my brother’s question: If you could relive one day, what day would it be?

Ice Breaker – Break for Breakfast

Each week on The Stretched Blog, I ask an ice breaker question. The questions are designed to help us get to know each other here in The Stretched Community. I’ll provide my answer to the question here in the post, and then you can leave your response in the comments. While you’re in the comments section, see how others answered the ice breaker question.

Today, I’m cooking breakfast at the 4th Annual Sunnyside Up Breakfast Benefit at my office where we’ll be raising money for Warriors for Tim and organ donor awareness. We’ll be cooking up egg and bagel sandwiches with bacon, pork roll, sausage, ham, and cheese. The idea of a good egg sandwich has me thinking about breakfast which leads me to this week’s Ice Breaker question.

Question: Where do you like to go for breakfast when you have a chance to go out, and what do you like to order?

My Answer: I grew up in diner country here on the east coast. For me, there’s nothing like hitting a local diner especially for breakfast. I eat oatmeal (and sometimes cold cereal) most days at home, so I like to order a bigger breakfast when I go out to a diner. Eggs (over medium), home fries, and an order of rye toast is my favorite breakfast out order. If I’m living on the edge, I’ll order creamed chip beef and gravy.

Answer this week’s ice breaker question by leaving a comment. I look forward to reading your response! (As always, feel free to share links.)

Ice Breaker – Conferences

Today, I’m headed to YS Palooza – a conference for youth leaders being held at our church and put on my Youth Specialties. I’m not completely sure what to expect, but I’m sure it will be challenging, educational, and inspiring. And this brings us to today’s Ice Breaker question.

Question: What experiences do you have attending conferences? What is one of your favorite conferences? What conference would you love to attend that you haven’t been to yet?

My Answer: I’ve attended 3 or 4 Willow Creek Grouplife Conferences, 2 or 3 FamilyLife Weekend to Remember Conferences, and the Maximum Impact Conference (now the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast Conference). Each one of these has been a great experience. I really appreciated the opportunity to rub shoulders with other leaders at each of these conferences. I enjoyed most of the speakers I’ve heard. I totally love the opportunity to be recharged and inspired.

I would love to get to the Killer Tribes Conference, the Catalyst Conference, the EntreLeadership conference, and Jon Acuff’s Quitter Conference.

Answer this week’s ice breaker question by leaving a comment. I look forward to reading your response! (As always, feel free to share links.)

Answers From Me Part 1: Spare Time

Last Friday’s Ice Breaker was all about Questions For Me. Many of you chimed in with all kinds of questions. It you missed out, go over to the post and add your questions (it’s not too late). As promised, I wanted to start answering some of the questions this week. Today, I’ll respond to a question (or several questions) from David:

What do you do in your “spare” time? You have your job, it’s got to be at least 40 hours, you’re involved in your church, you have your blog. Do you even have any spare time? What do you do for YOU? If the wife and kids were gone for a few days and you were off work, what kind of things would you do just because you have the free time?

I know, I’ve asked more than my fair share of questions – sorry. 🙂

This is a great question! We are definitely at a stage of life with our kids that it seems like we’re running from one thing to the next to the next. For example, yesterday after work, I went to Hannah’s track meet. As soon as that was over, I took her home and picked up Isaac for Scouts. I finally had dinner and a moment to sit down around 9 PM. It’s not always like this, but you get the idea.

I like to work in the garden and in the yard. I have a garden that is roughly 12 feet by 60 feet. This year, I’m planting lettuce, spinach, radishes, turnips, parsnips, karoubi, potatoes, onions, shallots, peas, beans, zucchini, pumpkins, beats, tomatoes, peppers, garlic. Working in the garden gives me a chance to work physically. I also enjoy the opportunity to have think time. I also like to work on home improvement projects. This doesn’t happen a lot these days, but it is one thing I enjoy. Over the last 16+ years of home ownership, I’ve painted, tiled floors and back splashes, installed new electrical fixtures, installed a new bathroom, and finished a basement. Money and time are the biggest obstacles in doing more of these projects.

I probably watch more television than I should. I’m guessing I watch about 4 – 5 hours a week. The DVR helps keep this low, and helps me squeeze my favorite shows in when it suits my schedule. I’m still a big sports guy, so I enjoy catching a game (or moments of a game) when I get a chance. I’m also a closet “reality” TV fan. I watch Survivor, The Amazing Race, The Biggest Loser, The Voice, and American Idol when I get a chance.

Bringing me into the finish at The Thanksgiving Day Marathon – November 2012.

I run. I run to help counter my love for food. And I run for exercise and for think time. I’ve run 3 marathons, 5 half marathons, and tons of smaller races. I’m currently running 30-35 miles per week. Most of this happens in the morning well before the sun comes up. Yesterday morning, I ran 5.4 miles through the neighborhoods of my town – I was finished by 5:30AM. And then last night while Isaac was at Scouts, I ran 5.8 miles on the track at Ursinus College. I don’t normally run twice a day, but it just worked out this way yesterday. On a side note, I took a nasty spill with about 1/2 mile to go last night which is probably a story for another blog post. I was able to get up and finish my run, but I was glad that one of the Scouts was prepared with a First Aid kit when I made it back to the meeting.

I’m sure I have a lot of other interests, but this should give you a tiny glimpse into the “spare” time of Jon Stolpe. A lot of my spare time is discovered by being intentional with my daily calendar and weekly calendar.

So now it’s your turn, what do you like to do in your spare time?

Ice Breaker – Questions For Me

I asked a similar Ice Breaker question quite a while ago, and I thought it was a good time to bring out this question as I suspect there will be many new answers this time around.

Who? What? When? How? Why?

Question: What question(s) do you have for me? What do you want to know about me? This is your chance to ask me anything!

I’ll answer some of them in the comments and in a follow-up post next week. I look forward to reading your questions.

Answer this week’s ice breaker question by leaving a comment. I look forward to reading your response! (As always, feel free to share links.)

Ice Breaker – Favorite Teacher

Each week on The Stretched Blog, we ask an ice breaker question. The questions are designed to help us get to know each other here in The Stretched Community. I’ll provide my answer to the question here in the post, and then you can leave your response in the comments. While you’re in the comments section, see how others answered the ice breaker question.

We’ve been thinking a lot about teachers and teaching in our house the past few weeks. Teachers play a special role in helping us stretch and develop. With this in mind, teachers are the inspiration for this week’s Stretched Ice Breaker.

Question: Tell us about one of your favorite teachers.

My Answer: I’m sure I could come up with several answer to this question. One of my favorite teachers of all time was Mrs. Williams, my 4th grade teacher. 4th grade was a pretty fun year thanks to Mrs. Williams. She encouraged creativity and initiative in her classroom. I will always remember directing and acting in a play about a scarecrow in her class. Mrs. Williams let us decorate her classroom to look like a cornfield, and we invited other classes in to watch our play.

Mrs. Williams’ classroom was the upstairs classroom to the right of the door. F. L. Walther School was originally built in 1917 as a four-room schoolhouse and was added on to over the years. My 4th grade classroom is no longer standing, but F. L. Walther still exists as an elementary school in the Lumberton School District (New Jersey). I spent three years of elementary school in this section of the building (3rd through 5th grade).

There you have it – my answer. Now, it’s your turn. Answer this week’s ice breaker question by leaving a comment. I look forward to reading your response! (Feel free to share links.)

Ice Breaker – Share Your Blog Link

This week has me thinking a lot about blogging. On Monday, I reached a milestone with my 1,000th blog post. And yesterday, Google announced the upcoming retirement of Google Reader (an RSS blog reader that I use to keep up on the many blogs I read on a regular basis).

Question: If you are a blogger, share the link to you blog along with a brief description of your blog. Then share the link to one of your favorite blogs and explain why it’s one of your favorites.

My Answer: Well…you already have the link to my blog. And trying to pick one blog out of all the ones I follow is pretty tough. This one though has definitely earned my attention more recently:

http://www.mattmcwilliams.com/ This has become one of my favorites over the past several months. Matt consistently features practical tips and advice for leaders. Check it out!

There you have it – my answer. Now, it’s your turn. Answer this week’s ice breaker question by leaving a comment. I look forward to reading your response! (Feel free to share links.)

Ice Breaker – First Job

From time to time, I tap into my family and friends for Ice Breaker ideas. This week’s Ice Breaker came at the suggestion of my wife, Leanne. She is in the middle of investigating new job opportunities.

Question: What was your first job?

My Answer: I shoveled a lot of snow and cut a lot of grass over my early adolescent years. This led to a job taking care of 11 acres for an elderly couple in our church. When I started this job, they paid me $3.15 an hour which was minimum wage at the time. I earned every single penny of that pay. After this, I land surveyed for an older gentlemen at my church. This was a great learning experience. I think the first job in which I earned an official payroll check was my job at Samuel Miller Christian Retirement Center. This job involved serving lunch to residents and washing the dishes afterwards. I don’t remember what I was paid, but I remember talking to the residents as I helped them with their lunch.

I’ve had many other jobs over the years including: house painter, cafeteria supervisor, babysitter, recreation room host, telemarketer, medical billing technical support staff, high school maintenance summer intern, facilities management intern, project engineer, and project manager.

Today, I’m an operations manager for a building automation company. I like my job; in fact, I love my job most of the time. I like the fact that I get to help people succeed. I like that I can help customers save energy and money. And I like the team I get to work with every day.

There you have it – my answer. Now, it’s your turn. Answer this week’s ice breaker question by leaving a comment. I look forward to reading your response! (Feel free to share links.)

Ice Breaker – Vanity License Plates

This week’s Ice Breaker is inspired by a road trip my family took this week. On our way to our destination, we saw a car with a vanity license plate that read “HWYADOIN”. I didn’t figure it out right away until someone in the car said “How ya’ doin’!” I’m not sure if I would ever get a vanity plate. I don’t think I would spend the money to get one, but it got me thinking.

Question: What would you get on your vanity license plate? (If you have a vanity license plate, what does it say?)

My Answer: STRETCH or STRETCHED. I think it’s pretty obvious why this would work for me. I wonder if it’s taken.

There you have it – my answer. Now, it’s your turn. Answer this week’s ice breaker question by leaving a comment. I look forward to reading your response! (Feel free to share links.)

Truth: Ice Breaker – Lies

This week, we’ve been talking about truth. The opposite of truth is falsehood. When we lie, we misrepresent the truth. The ninth commandment is “Thou shall not lie.” But if we’re all honest, we’ve all lied somewhere along the way. So this week’s ice breaker is a chance to confess – to come clean.

Question: Tell us about a time when you told a lie.

My Answer: As a kid, I used to play in the woods and in the local corn fields with my friends. After school, we would literally play for hours – building forts, making paths, and battling it out with sticks, dirt bombs, and toy guns. When it came to the corn fields, all the kids knew it was dangerous territory. There were stories amongst my gang of friends that the farmer would should kids with rock salt if he caught them in his field.

One day when we were playing, I found myself in the corn field face to face with the farmer. (Actually, we were probably 30 feet apart.) I remember him yelling at me, “Hey kid, what’s your name?” Instead of saying “Jon Stolpe,” I called back to the farmer with a name of a different kid from the neighborhood. I honestly don’t remember how the confrontation ended, but I seem to remember turning around and running as fast as I could with my heart beating a million miles a minute.

There you have it – my answer. Now, it’s your turn. Answer this week’s ice breaker question by leaving a comment. I look forward to reading your response! (Feel free to share links.)

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