All About my Brother (aka Ryan)

Those of you who know my brother at all know he’s not a very public person.  Ergo, he has no blog or Facebook.  But he did send this list of 25 things about himself which he gave me permission (gasp!) to post.

Brother’s 25 Things (as written by him):

1. I love music, and have more than 10,000 songs on my iPod. Probably 70% of my music is hip-hop. However (surprisingly), the album with the highest play count is “Taking The Long Way” by the Dixie Chicks. It is dang near flawless and definitely skip proof.

2. I still play basketball twice a week. When I am playing, I rarely talk smack. The most I’ll say is “bucket” when I make a long jumper when closely defended or “and one” when I score when fouled. I prefer that my game talks for me.

3. I don’t like the following foods: radishes, beets, uncooked onions, celery. I’ll eat anything else.

4. I have to remind myself sometimes that I had cancer. I didn’t want to talk about it when I was diagnosed, or during the surgery or treatment, or follow up, and rarely talk about it now. When people ask how I am feeling and they look a little too deeply at me while asking, I have to remind myself “Oh yeah…cancer. I had cancer.”

5. I hold grudges FOREVER. The nice and politically correct thing would be to say here that I “used to” or “am working on not.” What good is a list like this if it isn’t honest?

6. My new passion over the last couple of years is barbecuing and smoking meat. I have done my best to go to the most well recognized Texas bbq places to compare mine against theirs. I want to constantly improve. Luling City Market, Kreutz Market, and Black’s are slightly better. Snow’s is better by quite a bit. However, my bbq is the best in the state of NM. I try to say that without ego.

7. My ego always gets me into trouble. Most of the problems in my life have stemmed from an elevated view of myself or my abilities. See above bbq story.

8. When I sing with all of our kids at church, I feel the glory of God in the room. It is a powerful, happy, electrical feeling. When children praise God with their mouths and hearts, it is the purest form of worship.

9. Stephen and I can have entire conversations without our wives knowing what we are talking about at all. That is what happens when you have been friends with someone more than 23 years. We break out jokes from when I was 10 and he was 12, sometimes.

10. When Kimber and I found out we were pregnant, it was on a Saturday. She came in holding the pregnancy test, and I laughed all afternoon and evening. That is why we named our baby Isaac. When we lost him during our miscarriage, I never wanted to laugh again. I felt helpless, defeated, and small. And angry…very angry.

11. I feel like I put forth more effort in some friendships than the other person does with me. It took me all 33 years to realize that 0% of relationships are 50/50. Someone always wants more than the other.

12. I am fiercely loyal to those who are close to me and do everything I can to protect them. I might die one day protecting someone I love, and I am perfectly OK with that.

13. I have two full time jobs and love both of them so much. One is working for the Lord at church, and one is working for one of the most Godly and Christ-like people I have ever met. I love going to work.

14. If I would have told some of you 10 years ago that I would be a children’s minister, we both would have had a good laugh. God is both great and mysterious.

15. My friend Big Moon has allowed me to see almost every hip hop artist I have ever wanted to see live in concert, for free. He even set up a lunch where I could meet one of my favorite of all time, Common. Our musical taste is 99% the same and we constantly introduce new music to each other. He tells people all of the time that I know more about hip hop than anybody he knows (black or white) and it always makes me feel good.

16. If our house was burning down and Cosmo and I were asleep, Kimber would remember my life insurance policy, grab Cosmo, and run out of the house crying. I have never seen anyone love anything more than Kimber loves Cosmo.

17. When Cosmo dies, I am coming to stay with one of you for a week. No, a month. Maybe longer. No promises. (Kimber is tearing up as she is reading this…I am 100% sure)

18. One of my favorite things during the year is to go to Denver with my dad to watch the Broncos play. We have gone to at least one game a year since 1986. I love to get the stadium early, sneak down to field level, smell the grass, and talk to the players as they warm up. I love that my dad loves doing this weekend every year.

19. If I need to laugh, I call Brant. If I need practical advice, I call Justin. If I want to talk football, I call Haney. If I want to leave 3 voicemails, I call Joel (Joel is the most popular person I know, so he can handle this, don’t feel bad for him). If I want to feel good about myself, I call Gaye or Celeste or Philip. If I need spiritual advice, I call my mom. If I want to feel happy, I call Matt Clark. If I want to talk business, I call Dad.

20. I could eat a turkey and swiss sandwich for lunch and Pad Thai for dinner every day for the rest of my life and I would be happy with my food selection.

21. I could name 100 things that I love about Kimber…but the one that I’ll share is that she makes me laugh out loud and/or shake my head in disbelief at least twice a day.

22. I rarely remember my dreams, but when I do, they are totally boring and stupid. Such as: me at work. Me shooting baskets. Me taking a walk. Exciting, huh???

23. I only had time to do this list because our system was totally down at work for HOURS. I rarely have this much time to do anything during a given day.

24. The average conversation time for me is probably three minutes. If you can’t boil down what you want to communicate to three minutes, then is it really worth saying?

25. I quote movies all of the time. The three most quoted are Anchorman, Raising Arizona, and O Brother Where Art Thou? Do you even care at this point, after reading all of this worthless drivel about me? Probably not.

The things I love the most about Brother:

1. He is LOYAL, LOYAL, LOYAL.

2. He is honest.

3. He is frighteningly smart.

4. He would do anything for family.

5. He makes me laugh uncontrollably and can put a smile on my face without saying much at all.

6. He keeps everyone safe.

7. He’s simple and mysterious at the same time.

Love you, Brother!