Monday Meanderings

Wow. 105 degrees or hotter since Wednesday. Makes you appreciate the A/C. However I didn't understand the weather thingy on a local channel that said, "Temperature - 103; heat index feels like 102."

A blog that Barbara reads explained the rules for playing "Swat Bug" recently. This particular blogger has ultra-competitive boys so the rules have to be very finely drawn - like for instance how you deal with the Volkswagen Dealerships along the route. We reminisced about our Swat Bug playing days when the kids were young and then we moved on. At least I did. Barb has taken the game to heart now like she never did during the old days. Every few miles now she yells "SWAT BUG!!" and pokes me in the arm. I'm sure she'll rebut this, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Went to Chuy's last Monday night, as is our custom, and asked for a particular server. While the brand-new hostess was looking up this server's tables, Barb walked over to a table that she knew was in the server's group. When the hostess caught on, she said something about "We must have been here before." Barb said, "After coming every Monday night for 20 years we do know our way around." To which the hostess replied, "Ohhh, that's so sweet. It's like a date night."

True. Monday night is date night. And so is Tuesday night and Wednesday night, and... Then there are the Monday morning and Friday morning breakfast dates. And sometimes we even have dates at home and eat together there as well.

During the ballgame the other night Orel Hershiser was talking about chewing sugary bubblegum when he was pitching and it was very hot and sweat created problems when gripping the ball. He admitted drooling just a bit so the ball would get slightly sticky. But he was quick to point out that he always used gum made in the USA so he could look the Ump in the eye and declare truthfully that he was not using "a foreign substance" on the ball.

Bumper sticker: "Pflugerville - between a rock and a weird place"

On some prior trip to California Pizza Kitchen we received a "mystery discount" coupon; bring it back and get the discount under the scratch off label. We've done this before and received a nominal 10% discount, but the other night the mystery reward was "Dinner for two up to $40." Whoo Hooo! With careful planning and dessert we owed .26 cents on our ticket. I love free food!

Why women live longer than men...

These pictures were among the Internet flotsam and jetsam that swam by one day. I think they tell a story. For instance, standing on a bucket on top of a ladder? Thank goodness someone is holding the ladder here.

And here.

Doesn't this violate the seat belt law?

Wonder what HE makes an hour? It can't be enough.

Who needs a truck?

Oh yeah, THAT's safe!

Ropes are for sissies.

At least it's eco-friendly.

Hey, it's strapped it down.

No problem, he can see through the holes.

It starts at a young age and just gets worse.

You hold it while I whack it with this hammer.

The hat trick. Three buckets!

Monday Meanderings

When was the last time Texas Baseball team won a game the old fashioned way? You know, get ahead and stay that way till the end. Consider:

Regionals - behind Army 10-6 in the bottom of the 9th, 8 runs cross the plate to win 14-10. Four to tie and a walk-off grand slam to win.

Regionals - tied with Boston College, Austin Wood pitches 12 1/2 innings of no-hit baseball. In relief! Horns win after NCAA record 25 innings. Yes, 25.

Super Regionals - NCAA record 7 sacrifice bunts and a walk-off grand slam against TCU.

Game 1 CWS - With the score tied and two outs in the bottom of the 9th, Texas beats Mississippi State with a walk-off walk! Augie told the batter: "Take on every pitch. Do not move the bat off your shoulder."

Game 2 CWS - Down 6-0 in the 3rd inning against arguably the #2 pitcher in college ball, Texas ties it in the 4th, knocks #2 pitcher out of the game in 3 1/2 innings and wins 10-6!

Game 3 CWS - Again up against Arizona State and #2 pitcher, down 3-2 in the bottom of the 9th; Texas, known as a small ball team wins with back-to-back home runs!

It will be interesting to see if there are any more miracles against LSU.

Indulging ourselves with fresh Bing cherries from Central Market. They are so good. And almost affordable. I remember fresh cherries in an outdoor market in Prague. As I recall they really were affordable.

Birthday and Father's Day this past week. Both were very enjoyable occasions. I've received well wishes from friends and families, dined well, shared in a cake at the office and enjoyed myself thouroughly.

Mom's black eye is slowly getting better. And no, there will be no pictures posted. And I know what you are thinking and the answer is no, I did not! If there were a black eye under that circumstance it would be the other way around!

Required reading...

You already know my philosophy about recommending books. But if you are a member of the same tribe as I am (and you know if you are) recommending this is a no brainer. If you are not of the same tribe you should read this book anyway. You will never find as much theology in such understandable terms anywhere else.

Randy Harris is well-known as a speaker, and deservedly so. His wit keeps you listening and his wisdom leaves you stunned. A couple of years ago I gathered in one place every mp3 lecture of his that I could find on the Internet; I searched high and low, and I'm pretty good at finding things on the Internet. I even purchased a few lectureship CDs. This was a rich, rich collection.

This book reads just like one of those lectures. You hear Randy speaking on every page. Some examples:

“My friend Augustine died in 430 (most of my friends have been dead for several hundred years; I’ve found that makes the friendship much easier).”

“Here’s the theme of the book of Revelation: God’s team wins. Pick a team. Don’t be stupid.”

“My friends refer to me as the Dead Sea of e-mail. I receive and I receive but I do not give.”

I was reading this book while waiting my 30 minutes of indenture at the allergist's office and I embarrassed myself by laughing out loud.

And his take on 2 Corinthians 1:18-20 left me in tears.

The only place that I can find to buy this book is Leafwood Publishers or the bookstore across the street from the ACU campus, if you happen to be going through town.

Try it. You'll like it.

Whoa! We've been de-treed!

I mentioned that the City of Austin had tree-trimming crews in the neighborhood. They stopped by and left us a description of the 5 trees they were going to remove (small hackberrys) and the two trees they were going to trim - but they didn't mention that if there were smaller trees between the 5 they were going in the chipper too. Here's the before and after:

The view toward the house in back of us - before.

The view toward the house in back of us - now.

The corner toward the Nichols - then.

The corner toward the Nichols - now.

I feared the trim job on the Bramblett pecan.

But they didn't take too much there.

I do think it set our birdwatching back significantly. I saw a Cardinal down by the fence, looking around as if saying, "What the @#$% happened here? I went to work this morning and every thing was fine. I come home to a pile of sawdust!"

Monday Meanderings

Did another wedding last weekend. There's a lot I could say about it, but I'll not. Okay, one story: I'm going over the music with the coordinator before the ceremony and I see one of the grandmothers coming up the aisle, snipping the netting at each row; netting that previously stretched continuously down each side of the center aisle. I knew for a fact that the coordinator had stretched this netting because she had told me how long it took her to get it just right. She turned and saw grandma and shrieked, "What are you doing??"

Grandma said, "I'm fixing this so people can sit down. It's dumb to make people walk all the way around so's they can sit down."

"But Jennifer wanted it that way!"

"Honey, Jennifer ain't gonna notice, and it's stupid to make people walk all the way around."

Did you know that if you are in a restaurant and the waitress is spilling milk on the floor from the glass she's attempting to serve to folks at the next table, she's not amused if you tell her to "not cry over it"? Mom and I thought it was pretty funny. Maybe she was having a bad morning.

The monitor on my computer has been flickering for quite a while, slowly getting worse. I've been watching the Fry's ads for sometime and the other day they offered a 22" flat screen for less than some 18 or 19 inch units, so I have a new monitor. Only problem is the crick in my neck from turning my head side-to-side to see all of what's on the screen.

They say people who have been married for a long time adopt similar behavior. It must be so; the other day I was reading a book and early on there was a suggestion that one of the main characters in this book was not going to be around at the end. I found this totally unsatisfactory, so just like my wife of 47 years, I turned to the end and read the conclusion because I was NOT going to finish this book if this character was killed off. Good news - I'm still reading.

I saw a small blurb in the paper that American airlines was going to try some new cost-saving techniques on overseas flights. Somehow that does not instill confidence. What are they going to try? Shutting off the engines and coasting? Having passengers get out and walk part of the way? How about everybody jumping in the air at once to make the plane lighter? Or "Okay, everybody push!" Some things airlines just shouldn't make public.

Hop on your Harley - it's ROT Rally! **Updated**

Here's me and Mom at last year's Republic of Texas Bike Rally. Okay, maybe not.

But definitely we're going to be in the middle of it. In fact, it's very hard not to be in the middle of 50,000 folks on motorcycles this weekend - especially with the Harley dealership just up the street from our house. We began noticing the biker build-up on Thursday. Most folks come rollin' in this morning. The good stuff starts tonight.

Folks, this is not your yuppie trailer-your-bike to the competition and pose for pictures type of Rally. There are a few of those, but most folks on two wheels this weekend are the real deal. All EMS crews are on standby and leave has been canceled. There is an age limit imposed on the activities at the Expo Center this year because of previous indiscretions, dress-wise, and local adult beverage distributors are declaring the recession officially over! Lock up your wives and daughters!

Some of the live music at the Rally will include Ray Wylie Hubbard, Robert Earl Keene and Hank Williams, Jr. Are you ready for some free-fall? Also performing is Bag Lady Sue. How could we think of missing that?

But the big attraction will be Robbie Knievel jumping his motorcycle over the State Capitol building tonight. Wait. That may be jumping over a bunch of Budweiser trucks in front of the Capitol. Or maybe it's after enough Budweiser, Robbie is going to drive a truck through the Capitol. We'll just have to wait and see.

Now, where did I put my bandanna?

Well, I guess he did jump over the beer trucks. And the Capitol.

Boldly Go...

You how it is with old folks; sometimes they get a wild hair and go off and do strange things - like go to the movies. Yes, it's true. We went to see Star Trek.

Let's see - I think the last movie we saw in a theater on our own was Return of the King. That would have been in... let's see.. hmmm... 2003. How do we stand the craziness?

I didn't keep up with it, but I think over the years I've seen most of the original series, or 'TOS' as they called - Star Trek - TOS. As opposed to Star Trek TNG - the Next Generation or Star Trek DS9 - Deep Space Nine. I never got interested in any of those, or the movies, for that matter, though I did see a couple of them. Interestingly the Original Series only lasted 3 seasons - 1966 - 1969. But there have been a million reruns of those 79 episodes.

The new movie was billed as the origins, and they did a masterful job of gathering all the characters into the group that we are familiar with - Kirk, Spock, Scotty, Bones, etc. Plus, it was a pretty cool space-action movie in its own right. And guess what? All the characters have already signed up for two sequels.

Cool movie. Can't wait until 2015 to go to the next one.

Monday Meanderings

Feasted on tomatoes from the garden this past week. Well, okay, there were only 2 ripe enough to feast on. And they were small. Tiny actually. Think Yahoo marble-size. But it's early, yet!

New bird at the feeder; I had seen it before but thought it was a sparrow. Finally realized it was not and added Black-capped Chickadee to my list. Ah, yes.

Had a fund-raising dinner at the church for upcoming youth trips to the Communidad de Ninos in Peru. They served "Peruvian Pile-on." We told them gringos would never eat lettuce or tomatoes in Peru. But we weren't in Peru, were we?

We watched much of the Women's Softball World Series last week and into this (getting ourselves in shape for the UT men when they get to the College World Series in Omaha). Softball is a fun game to watch; slower paced, lot's of exciting plays - or errors. The only problem is the constant - and I do mean constant - cheering from the players themselves and their young fans. Mom pointed out an article in the paper about a local high school team that had set three goals for themselves this year: batting .325 as a team, making no more than 7 errors throughout district play and "yelling cheesy cheers." Hmmm. So it's intentional. Reminds me of a girl's soccer team I was once familiar with.

Haven't seen the little Vietnamese protester woman for a week or so. Either her demands were met or, most likely, she grew weary of the vigil. This was a protest that could have used a translator.

I may have to start calling this feature "Monday Memory Lapse." I think of things during the week that need to go in here, but unless I write them down right then I can't recall them. For instance, at breakfast the other day we mentioned two things to go in MMs, but here it is 1 1/2 hours later and I can't think of either of them. Fortunately, what's-her-name wrote them down.

From the Overheard Conversation Department: "Hello, Judy? This is Emily. Ya'll do acupuncture don't you? Great! I really need to get my dog in; can I come today? Oh, really? No, she can't wait that long. Thanks."

On the road again...

No. Not me. I'm talking about a bunch of kids from the Denver area - the Singing Youth of Denver.

When you are the primary sound guy at church you get to attend a lot of interesting events; Sunday was Baccalaureate, Wednesday was a concert by the aforementioned SYD group. Tonight is a wedding rehearsal, tomorrow the wedding. If I'm lucky I'll get to skip the party in the Family Room tomorrow night.

But what I really wanted to talk about was being on the road with a bunch of kids. Last night was about the half-way mark of a 15 day trip for these kids; about 30 singers and a few frazzled adults. When I got to the building there were kids sprawled on just about every pew - they were zonked. They came from Lubbock by way of Midland - at least they were in the Midland Christian Schools bus because their bus had broken down. I don't know when they left Lubbock but they didn't get much down time before it was time to perform.

All of which reminded me of road trips with kids from church - most notably the caravans to Trek in Colorado.

I remember spending a few hours at a Wendy's in Abilene one night, waiting on some mechanic friend of Jeff Boyd's to check out a problem with the van Jeff was driving to Colorado. We were only 4 hours from home and already having mechanical problems. On the same trip, at a small service station in Walsenburg, deciding the A/C on the van we were driving was shot and we would make the rest of the trip without it. This was going; it wasn't a big problem until returning. And then it was a big problem. "It's our turn to ride in the air-conditioned van!"

Of course, that was the trip that we drove straight through - coming and going. A really, really, really bad idea. "Gary! Get out of the van! You've been driving for 6 straight hours!"

And then there were the gasoline and restroom stops. Everybody is dying for a potty break, so you reluctantly stop. "Fifteen minutes! We're leaving in fifteen minutes!!" Thirty minutes later you get them all back in the van and they all have 32-ounce Big Gulp drinks. You know you're going to be stopping again in an hour or less.

Or the stops where you do your best not to let any kids out of the van. If you let even one out, they all will be out and it will be at least thirty minutes before you get them herded back in.

Or feeding everybody. You had to make sure that wherever you stopped there were at least three fast food restaurants nearby because no one place satisfied everybody. And even then there would always be two or three kids who went three blocks down the street to an Arby's or some such. And were late getting back.

And there was that food fight at Underwood's, with the principal actor the youth director himself.

And trying to keep 2 or 3 vehicles together in a caravan. This was before cell phones or CB radios that worked for more than a mile or two. "Should we wait a while longer? Do you think they got ahead of us at that last divide?"

Or driving Bob King's Suburban one year with the really cool stereo - and all the seats in back folded down to make one big flat area the kids could stretch out in. You would get arrested for that these days - or at least ticketed.

Or simply spending 24 hours in a van with high school kids. Ah, the memories.

Better them than me.

What is a Baccalaureate, anyway?

Baccalaureate (I looked up the spelling, by the way) is a strange custom. There are several definitions - one is "a religious service for graduates." It is apparently a regional tradition; last year our worship minister stumbled over the word badly trying to make a last minute announcement that there was to be such a service in our building later that day. After several hilarious attempts to pronounce the word he said, "Ya'll - I'm from Arkansas - we don't have 'em there."

For the last eight years Anderson High - the high school across the street - has held their Baccalaureate (I copied and pasted it) in our building and I have handled the sound for most of them. It makes for a long day - especially if you are there for both church services, cram an anniversary lunch in and rush back to the building an hour early because the people in charge insisted that I be there early for mic checks, which they never did.

The Anderson orchestra sets up and plays prelude music and then of course the processional and recessional as the grads march in and out. I greet the orchestra director each year with a comments such as, "Well, another year and here we are again." He replies, "We are the only constant in this whole process." And that's true; we've been through three principals, countless academic advisers, and of course each year they get new suckers volunteers from the PTA to put the show on. And of course, the graduates themselves.

Anderson is one of the better schools in AISD - strong academic and art programs; the grads wear awarded medals signifying excellence - many have several such medals and as they all march in and out they clang like carillons. I'm always impressed with the speeches the students give; seldom with those of the guest speakers.

This year, a young man of Iranian descent was the National Honor Society president and his presentation floored me - and everyone in the room. He was clever, articulate, poised and dead-on with his charge to the class. He told them that in 20 years not one of them would remember or care who the President of Azerbaijan was - even though they stayed up all night to learn it - but they would remember the friends they made and the relationships that were formed.

Then he said, "My Senior year was made memorable by..." and named a young lady's name. There were a few laughs, then he named a second young lady (more laughs), and then a young man, and another, and then he launched into a recitation of student's names strung together so rapidly you just barely recognized them as names. This went on for two or three minutes, and I can't prove it but I think that he named - from memory - every student in the Senior class, because he finished by saying, "... my year would have been diminished if even one of you were not here."

They gave him a standing ovation.

Monday Meanderings

Rethinking Mexican Food. Not to worry - Chuy's is still numero uno - but we were in the neighborhood the other day and stopped at Pappasita's for lunch. We've been to Pappasita's before, but it has been a long time; it's simply not located on our normal foraging routes. We really enjoyed it - stuffed ourselves silly with just lunch entrees. For sure a dinner would require one or two take-home boxes. More of a Mexican food menu rather than Tex-Mex.

The really memorable part of the lunch was when the waitress set Mom's lunch on fire. Mom ordered Queso Fundido, which is Spanish for "Your cheese is on fire." So was the serving tray but the fellow at the next table sacrificed his napkin to save us.

They are promoting a Plato de Padre plate for Father's Day. It's supposed to be dinner for two, but the waitress said "Bring friends." Sounds like a Birthday/Father's Day plan to me, but I'm sitting by the fire extinguisher, just in case.

On the subject of food, we discovered yesterday that Marie Callender's serves a pepper-crusted Tri-Tip. Appropriate for a California-based restaurant chain, don't you think? It was excellent, by the way.

Mom dropped me off at Wal-Mart the other day so I could run in and get something. Meanwhile she would wait in the car till I came out. Normally, we call each other on the cell phone when we come out - saves circling the parking lot. So I'm outside, trying to find Mom's cell number in the bright sunlight, fumbling with the phone when I hear "Ahem" from Mom - sitting in the car right in front of me. I was busy, okay?

Finch season must be about over in this area - very few finches feeding (say that three times fast) these days. I did see a new bird the other day - thought it was a mockingbird until I noticed a very long curved bill. I learned it was a Curved-Billed Thresher.

Overheard conversation about an overheard conversation: "We were on the observation deck of the Washington Monument and heard this guy say, 'That octagonal building over there is the Pentagon.'"

And I leave you with a link to a hilarious audio track. It will self start when you click on it.