chetcromer.com

Welcome to my corner of the internet. Thoughts, journals, and whatever else comes to mind.

Best. Father's. Day. Ever.

Today was the best Father's Day ever. Hit snooze a few times and slept in, since the rest of the family was sound asleep. Went to church on my own after getting the kids out of bed 10 minutes before it was time to leave. Taught teens about trustworthy fathers (there's...

Happy Fathers Day

To all the men who have played various roles of dad, father, mentor, and friend in my life... Happy Father's Day. Especially to you, Big F Father. I love you. Thank you for always being faithful and true.

Is this what inventors feel like?

  There are a lot of words I could use to describe my professional life - computer programmer, solutions provider, architect, developer, business owner, and entrepreneur may just be a few. Those are all ways to describe what I do everyday - build, model, test,...

Disengaging the clutch.

I'm now the proud owner of a 1981 Kubota B7100. This 30+ year old tractor came to me after several years' worth of hope, 6 months of searching, and a rearrangement of money that made just the right deal possible at just the right moment. I still beam and almost clap...

The Puny Life of Freedom

An undisciplined, self-willed life is puny; an obedient, God-willed life is spacious. Psalm 15:32 (Message) Puny. Ever felt that way? It's a very touchy-feely word. You hear it, and you can visualize it immediately. I've never really thought of what the word meant, so...

Lectio Divina – Psalm 23

This weekend I was able to be part of a men's retreat led by Brian Hardin of the Daily Audio Bible. It was a great chance to get away for a day and enjoy God's presence with some other men - some who I share life with, and some that I had never met before. That sounds...

Why I Love the Morning

I'm up early today. Early for me, at least. Nowadays, that's 6:00 AM. When I was young, early was 4:00 AM. Early was Sunday morning when you'd decided NOT to get all the newspapers you had to deliver that morning prepped and ready to go the night before. Early was...

Hoppity the Lillypad Train

Another train story from the Cromer household. These are getting more and more imaginative as we wear out the obvious ones... which is in turn making them more and more fun. This one involves a train the size of a frog, lillypads, a dragonfly, and ... a yellow...

Noski the Snow Ski Train.

Tonight I told the story of Noski the Snow Ski Train. Thought about making a little picture collage for the kids to go with it, but decided to just record it and throw in a picture or two. These will be fun to come back to sometime....

Electro the Lightning Train

There was once a train named Electro. Electro had a special way of travel that was unlike any other train. He did not ride on rails. He did not even ride on roads. Electro was unique because he was able to travel between the earth and the clouds on bolts of lightning....

Marley The Ocean Train

There was once a train named Marley. He was a very special type of train, becuase he was able to ride specially designed train tracks that were laid across the bottom of the ocean. The OCEAN!? Yes, the Ocean! Every week, Marley would load up his train cars with things...

Without Days Like Today

Today is one of those days where nature feels almost monochromatic. Gray skies. Brown grass. Mud. Leaf-less trees, fog, and puddles. The occasional chipmumk quietly skurrying across a damp path. If it were not for days like today, days like those we will experience...

Faithful and True

My favorite new song from the conference I was at this weekend is called Faithful and True, by the Jordon Howerton Band. When I boil down the doubts in my life, what remains is a fear that God really ISN'T who He says He is. This weekend reminded me that God...

Day One at SYMC – My Clenched Fist

I'm attending the Simply Youth Ministry Conference here in Indianapolis this weekend. It's a conference for youth workers, BY youth workers. I'm there for a number of reasons, one of which is to share with some of those I meet my passion for building more effective...

The Thin Book of Trust – Sincerety

I'm reading a book right now called The Thin Book of Trust. I'm hoping to gain a better understanding of building and maintaining relationships full of two-way trust in my business, my personal relationships, and in my family. The book highlights four key distinctions...