Just so you know. I try to post sermons weekly at a podcast site--Loom & Wheel Sounds. On March 15-18, our church participated in Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary's Spring Practicum in which we had a SWBTS student bring the messages for a Four-day revival effort.
Our meetings were well-attended, and our student--one David Miller from Mansfield, T
exas--delivered excellent sermons straight from God's word. You can listen to four of the five sermons delivered here, here, here, or here.
Today' s the day to let your Irish show. Have a safe and happy St. Patrick's Day.
Bear with me on this one. I'm including this video, not for the sake of the definition of a political agenda (but you may enjoy Uncle Jay's news items there as well). Go ahead and watch 'til the end where "Uncle Jay answers one of your news questions." Jay's onto the direction of all things media. . . Just watch
As we were finishing our services this morning I received word of the tragedy in Maryville, IL.
Today I'm praying and would ask all my readers to pray. Fred Winters' life was taken for reasons we don't know. Now his wife and children as well as First Baptist Church of Maryville have lost one that they love.
I am speechless. I must pray.
Thanks to the ever-vigilant Bill Crider, I've added another lesser-known holiday to my arsenal. And so I give you Square Root Day (we'll wait until the uncontrollable applause and mayhem subsides). Grab your calculator and start dividing. Remember that we can't celebrate every year, so kick your heels up with extra special vigor today!
If you haven't decided how to celebrate Texas Independence Day, why not have some Tex-Mex tonight and enjoy the holiday.
It seems our local school district looks for any reason to dismiss, and exercises its right to dismiss on every occasion it can find. The occasion today is Pulaski Day. This holiday is celebrated in Illinois for the apparent reason of taking another day off.
So, happy Pulaski Day, even though (unless you're from Illinois or of Polish descent) you've probably never heard of him or his day. Take the day off, relax, and enjoy life.
I heard that one of the most familiar voices of our time has been silenced. I recall many days when we would listen for Paul Harvey's commentary as we had breakfast (as I grew older, I discovered some stations played him in the middle of the day). Like many, my favorite part was when he would tell "The REST of the story." I could almost see him turning the page after an inserted commercial for the Bose acoustic wave machine or some other sponsor, and he would say, "page 3."
It seemed that one of the things that helped begin the day was to hear Paul say, "Hello, Americans . . . " concluding with a hearty "Good Day!"
Thanks, Paul, for the memories, for the laughter, and for making us sometimes think about what we thought.
I recall a time (more years ago than I am ready to admit) when we celebrated the birthdays of significant presidents. Typically in the month of February we set aside times to remember George Washington (the Father of our country) and Abraham Lincoln (the Great Emancipator) because (1) they had birthdays in the month of February, and (2) they held certain distinctions as presidents of the Union.
Then someone got a burr under their saddle (look it up) and decided that we should honor all of our past presidents. The school boy in me said, "Cool, now we'll get more holidays!" But alas, what the decision-makers decided was that, instead of celebrating all of the presidents' birthdays, we could lump them all together into one. Consequently we went backward in the number of holidays we received, from 2 in February, to 1 in February and none in the other months which held birthdays of past presidents.
Be that as it may, today is the special day designated to honor our presidents, so here's something I couldn't do from memory -- list the presidents:
In the midst of a publishing community that is debating the value of keeping editors on staff, and the wash of a techno-age that fills young minds with convenience spelling for the sake of saving space on a text message, it has apparently become less than important to properly proofread tests.
Kudos to Geoffrey Stanford for his attention to a standardized test won him his fifteen minutes of fame. Read the story here.
I was intrigued recently by a commercial blitz. It started with the Superbowl ads for Pepsi Max. You know the campaign—targeting real men with this “healthy” version of Pepsi-Cola. The big ad on Superbowl Sunday had men encountering outrageously harsh pain with the age-old statement “I’m all right!” (or some variation thereof). It says a lot about a man’s machismo if he can be hit in the head with a bowling ball and respond with “I’m okay”. My son understands this concept and, whenever he trips and falls, re-echos, “I’m okay! I meant to do that.” He’s been doing that since he was three.
So these ads – I especially like the one which claims that the can houses a nuclear reactor (or some such) and upon crushing it the guy says, “Hey, I just crushed a nuclear reactor.” [For those who have seen the ad more than once, don’t fill the comment section up with corrections to my memory, that’s not the point. I'm posting it here to avoid confusion.]
Now I’ve periodically tried diet sodas. They’re supposed to be better for you and all that. And any time that I have encountered the word “diet” in the title of something that’s not really all that good for me to begin with, I get suspicious. I’ve heard the mantra of the diet soda cult – “You can’t tell the difference!” (repeat four or five hundred times).
And now for the truth: Some of the drinks sold in the category known as “diet soda” do indeed taste worse than others. I recall a swig of Tab from years ago. That seared a memory that will forever be with me. I recall the days of Sugar Free Dr Pepper, and a taste test of Pepsi One (supposedly not a diet drink, but it had the same effect on me as Diet Pepsi, Diet Coke, and Diet Dr Pepper). The bottom line is that if a drink substitutes anything for the sugar or syrup that’s supposed to sweeten it; if the manufacturer tries to sell it with a “sugar free” tag-line – or even a “low sugar” tag line – the product will leave a taste in your mouth.
“You get used to it,” some of my friends argue – but if I have to get used to it, why would I want to drink it? As it is, I don’t drink that much soda anyway. I hear the same arguments about the use of certain artificial sweeteners, and “natural” sweeteners (you can’t tell the difference). But I have discovered that if it ain’t sugar, I can taste the difference. In fact, one popular sugar substitute today is made by changing the refining process for sugar (so it’s made out of sugar). I’m told that you can’t tell the difference when it is used – either by itself or mixed with sugar on the halvsies. But that’s a lie – you can tell the difference!
And so the point: The claim is that Pepsi Max is the kind of diet drink that real men can drink without fear of it being a sissy diet drink. So I had to try this new concoction. Who knows, maybe technology has found a way to make a low sugar drink drinkable. But alas, it has not happened. My advice to you, if you are not of the diet drink cult, and continue to taste the sugar substitute long after the drink is gone, don’t bother tasting this one. Great ad campaigns aside, Pepsi Max is just another in the long line of trying to get us to de-sugar our sugary drinks, and it tastes bad, too.
Here’s to you, Dr Pepper – and if anyone can find a bottle that’s sweetened properly with Imperial Pure Cane, send me some and I’ll be eternally grateful.
Christmas 2007. My Blushing Bride knows that I like to play Monopoly®, but she can’t really stand the game. So what does she do? She finds this interesting item called “Make Your Own Opoly”. It’s loosely (really loosely) based on the classic game, but provides for the owner software and game pieces to build a game custom tailored to their life.
It took a year, but the result I got was Benj-Opoly. Players can travel around a board and “buy” significant places or memories from my life. Once bought, you can charge rent when opponents land on that particular square. There are spaces for my birthplace, my school years, colleges, significant employment events, and references to my love for reading and writing.
There are a few drawbacks in the design of the game itself—such as “play the lottery” squares, which don’t square with my life, and the “Chance” and “Community Chest” squares have been re-dubbed “Good News”/“Bad News” with a little leeway for personalization, but not enough. I’m working on making necessary adjustments to these as well. Enjoy the pictures. And have a great day.
. . . that two of the big names in American modern history passed away this week, and I am waaaaay behind the curve on getting up an announcement, but in honor of these two men, I give you some of their work:
Andrew Wyeth (enjoy his painting, Easterly)
Ricardo Montalban (in his quintessential role -- Khan)
Yes, that's right. Today is Christmas . . . at least on the "old" calendar. In much of the world where the Eastern Orthodox church (and it's many variations) is the norm, Christians hold to the January 7th observance of the birth of Christ. In these cultures, the celebration is more of a solemn, religious experience and is not accompanied with the materialistic bent that has grown up around December 25th. (Often, as in my beloved Ukraine, this is left up to Grandfather Frost at New Year's)
So, may the blessing of the Christ visit you today.
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