Breakdancing and other cute pics

Did you know my girl could breakdance? neither did I.
Check it out, yo!

These other pictures are just some moments of cuteness I recently captured and wanted to share. Enjoy!

Coolest Invention at BRU

So, I was recently at Babies R Us when I realized that I needed to change my daughter's very, and I mean VERY dirty diaper. I had been about to check out when I discovered this, but decided that it would be best to take advantage of the nice "mother's room" with changing table at the back of the store. So, we get back there and I get all set up. In the middle of changing her diaper, I discover that my son is sort of dancing around the room in a strange fashion. Almost at the same moment that I noticed this, he blurts out, "Mommy, I really have to go poo-poo....right now!" My left hand holding my daughter by the ankles, and my right hand holding a quite nasty wipe, I lower my head, give a little laugh and then say, "right now? or can you hold it a little bit?"

Of course, we needed to go NOW. I quickly finish changing the diaper, throw the wipes in the trash, place my dirty dipe in a wet bag, stuff this in my diaper bag and run out the door with my daughter over my left shoulder and my son holding onto my right hand. Thankfully, the ladies' room was right next door. Even more fortunately, the people at BRU have installed the "safe sitter". AWESOME!!! are these people aware that moms will be bursting into the bathroom with one kid who is great at using the bathroom but not so great at cleaning up by himself and another kid who is under the age of two (read: at the age where she will not stand still away from the potty while Mommy wipes brother, but must instead be a close observer who wants to touch all things dirty")? They must be! The safe sitter is a seat mounted to the wall with a fold-down seat and straps that buckle the child in. I was actually able to just buckle her in and then attend to my son without having to worry about her constantly attempting to touch everything. What a relief!!!




The straps began being over her shoulders, but she is a master escape artist, so that did not last long. A five-point restraining system would have been nice, but this worked for long enough, and instead of discussing the potential improvements to said invention, I just wanted to take a moment to share how incredibly helpful this invention actually is, and what a difference it made to my entire BRU experience. YEA for you "safe-sitter invention person"!

Book Titles Collected from the Trip

Among many other things on our just completed vacation, I picked up some book titles that seem interesting:

Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. Glenn and Helen interviewed the author in a pod-cast from last December, which we finally listened to in the I-95 traffic around DC. The cover illustration I find to be off-putting, and in the interview Goldberg notes his lack of enthusiasm for it, although he will concede it probably helped sales. He said that the art department at Random House put it on the book.

Stephen Potter, The Art and Practice of Gamesmanship without Actually Cheating. I heard this book discussed by a group in front of us in line waiting to get into Independence Hall. Also by the same author, One-Upmanship: Being Some Account of the Activities and Teachings of the Lifemanship Correspondence College of One-Upness and Games Lifemastery and Lifemanship:Some Notes on Lifemanship with a Summary of Recent Research in Gamesmanship.

Rogers and Kostigen, The Green Book. I saw this title in the gift shop in the National Park Service's welcome center in the Historic District in Philadelphia. I had heard of this book but had not had a chance to browse in it.

One might ask why the NPS would have a book like this in the gift shop of its welcome center that celebrates the birth of our country. I would speculate that it reflects the same politically correct point of view that I saw in the Liberty Bell Center. There, chattel slavery in the US, abuses in our country of the civil rights of women, people of color, and native Americans are highlighted, and fair enough. As to overseas, the exhibit features as an example of [white?] man's inhumanity to [non-white?] man, apartheid in South Africa (including a large portrait of Nelson Mandela, may God bless the man). Nothing on abortion here or elsewhere. Nothing on the religious persecution in Muslim countries, Russia, and China, a particularly irksome omission; after all, the idea of "liberty" as the colonists first conceived it concerned mainly the matter of religious freedom. See also the First Amendment. As to the First Amendment, may I point out that the Establishment Clause portion of that amendment (the portion dealing with religious freedom) is the first of a series of freedoms to be protected, followed, not preceded by freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to assemble peaceably, and and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances.) But I digress: recycling is good, and the book is worth a look.

Ooops, another digression. There was an wall section in this gift shop dedicated to the movie, "Rocky". You could get books on the film series, shirts and towels. Somebody please tell me just why this gets a spot on hallowed ground?

Also, Lori Baird's Don't Throw It Out: Recycle, Renew and Reuse to Make Things Last See the discussion above concerning relevance. But in the defense of the NPS, there was not a word about Global Warming, or at least I didn't see any reference to that great issue of our time.

Continuing with the NPS gift shop, there was Walter Isaacson, Benjamin Franklin, an American Life. Franklin's relationship with John Adams had some rough spots, to say the least, according to the McCullough biography of Adams that I am in the midst of. So I would like to read Ben's side of the story. I don't know if this is the bio to read. Isaacson has apparently written other biographies. Has anyone read any of him?

Hogan and Taylor, editors. My Dearest Friend: Letters of Abigail and John Adams. I worry whether these editors can be trusted. Who are they? As to reading the letters, the McCullough biography really whets the appetite. Did John and Abigail have any idea that for centuries 100s of thousands, perhaps millions, would be reading through their correspondence, either directly by means of a book such as this or indirectly through such bios as McCullough's?

Alf J. Mapp. Thomas Jefferson: Passionate Pilgrim (The Presidency, the Founding of the University, and the Private Battle). When I was at Duke as a history major, it was the Dumas Malone biography that was the standard reference. What you get in a gift shop, even one run or franchised by the NPS, is a little problematical, one might think. I don't know who Mapp is. He apparently wrote a shorter volume entitled Thomas Jefferson: America's Paradoxical Patriot, and, frankly, maybe it was this one that was in the shop; I really don't recall.

As to the Malone work, see Jefferson the Virginian - Volume I (Jefferson and His Time, Vol 1), and start reading. There are six volumes.

Donald Ritchie, Our Constitution. I don't know anything about Ritchie, either. And one would think that a lawyer should already be deeply involved in the Constitution. But the visit to Philadelphia and the reading of the Adams biography and the length of time since law school all point to the need to get back into this document.

There was, of course, a big section on George Washington, trumping even Rocky. But none of the titles much interested me. What Dumas Malone is to Jefferson, James Thomas Flexner is to Washington, at least according to my recollection. Flexner published a four volume biography, beginning with George Washington: The Forge of Experience 1732 - 1775 - Volume I (Force of Experience, 1732-1775). But for those of you who aren't ready to tackle a four volume set, there is Flexner's Washington: the Indispensable Man. This is not a "Reader Digest" abridgment by any measure, but a complete and wonderfully written one volume biography of George Washington. Of all the books I have mentioned, I would say read this one if you will read no other.

Now if I could only get a vacation that would actually give me time to do some reading . . .

The Three of Us in GSO

Carol and I arrived back in Miami Springs last evening about 7:45PM, and I'm here at the office on Monday morning. I was greeted by this photo that Mary Ann emailed us. She took the photo as we were leaving for Philadelphia exactly one week ago. (Mary Ann's hospitality while we were in Greensboro was simply SPLENDID! As usual, of course.)

Blogging from I-95

Carol and I left Rosemont this morning about 10AM, after 5 great days with Mary there. I have become accustomed to Mary fixing my oatmeal in the morning, and this week she moved me over from American coffee to a Kenya-like [CORRECTION: Spain-like] expresso. She, Carol and I started off some busy days in Philadelphia with our morning meal, and I will miss her.

Our plans were to drive about 3 hours south from Philadelphia to Lorman, VA, and catch the Auto-Train to Florida. We had a sleeping compartment reserved, and dinner and breakfast were going to be in the dining car. We would wake up Sunday morning pulling into the destination just above Orlando, and drive the 4 hours home refreshed, with the rest of Sunday to relax.

Instead, we received a call from Amtrak on Carol’s cell phone as we were crossing the MD line, advising us that the Auto-Train trip had been cancelled because of “weather in North Florida.” Later we learned after talking on the phone with Mary Ann that a number of bridges around Jacksonville are out. Ugh!

(We are now about 40 miles from Rocky Mount, hoping to get to around Florence before too late.)

So what we hoped would be a pleasant and relaxed coda at the end of some very, even intense (if you are 62 years old) weeks has turned into a sort of marathon, as we try to get home at a fairly decent hour Sunday night so we can be ready for work on Monday morning. Oh, well.

Adding insult to injury is the traffic on I-95 that we ran into as we approached Washington DC. It became much worse between DC and Richmond, bringing us to a halt several times and cutting our average speed on that leg of the trip to about 35 mph. On the other hand, that experience showed how wise we were on the way up, to drive from GSO to Philadelphia through Roanoke and Harrisburg, bypassing the Richmond/DC mess entirely. A second, “Oh, well.”

However, I am with my true love, and that certainly makes all the difference.

(LATER: We reached Lumberton, NC, at 8:45 PM. It's about 20 miles N of the SC line, and we are staying at a Hampton Inn. It has lightning fast WiFi.)

Into the Historic District: the Liberty Bell

After a quick lunch at a Subway on Market Street (Darn! They had a cheesesteak sandwich on their menu that I didn’t see until too late!), we made our way into the “Historic District”, an area run mostly, if not entirely, by the National Park Service. It is not to be missed. There is a pleasant “welcome center”, where we picked up free tickets for a tour of Independence Hall, viewed some exhibits which more or less oriented us, and saw a sign that presented a list of must- things to see if we were on just a “one-day visit”. I jotted them down:

1. Liberty Bell Center
2. Independence Hall
3. Great Essentials Exhibit
4. Congress Hall
5. Franklin Court
6. Carpenters’ Hall
7. City Tavern
8. National Constitution Center

As we had some time before our scheduled visit to Independence Hall, we went to the Liberty Bell Center, where resides (first, I will pause to let you guess) the Liberty Bell! It had crack in it, unfortunately, but they had it displayed anyway. We learned some things about the bell: it pre-dated the Revolution and was “first heard in 1753 atop the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia”, which is now known as Independence Hall. The bell had cracked early on. There were unsuccessful attempts to fix the crack, so unsuccessful that they made the crack longer and wider. The bell has an inscription: “Proclaim liberty through all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof”, which is from Lev. 25:10. The description of the Liberty Bell in the NPS brochure for the entire district refers to the inscription (“Its inscription was prophetic”), but nowhere quotes it. Is it Evangelical paranoia to think that they are uncomfortable with printing passages from the Bible? Probably.

But inside the center, the inscription was prominent and not just on the bell. By the 1830s, we read, the abolitionists adopted the bell as their symbol, and, later, others adopted it who championed the oppressed in the US (women, native Americans) and in the world, mainly South Africa. (No Muslim countries mentioned. Oops, there’s that paranoia again.) What do the civics classes in our high schools now do with that Biblical inscription? Does “liberty” as understood by 17th Century Pennsylvanians mean ‘liberty” as people understand that word today? Putting all that aside, I must say that being in the presence of the Liberty Bell warmed me.

Of all the colonies, Pennsylvania granted the most “liberty,” particularly of religion, and Philadelphia and the entire colony thrived.

Into Philadelphia, the City

Yesterday morning, we walked two blocks to the Rosemont station for the commuter train into Philadelphia. The track runs from west to east into the city and parallel to Lancaster Avenue, a sort of “Main Street” on which the Rosemont Plaza fronts.

The train station, small but venerable, has mostly been converted into a real estate office. The parking lot where commuters must have parked once, is now reserved for their customers. But at the back of it, facing the east bound tracks, there is a small ticket office in a room with benches along the wall, and an old electric heater hanging down from the ceiling, up in one corner: a harbinger of much colder days to come.

Still, the weather was sunny and very pleasant as we boarded the train. Like the train station, the train cars had been around for awhile, but also like the station, they were well kept, clean and comfortable. I observed the passengers as they got on and off: two mothers with a teenage daughter each boarded with us, the daughters with wide-eyes, following like puppies, and undoubtedly freshmen on their first commute to downtown too; a family speaking Spanish who seemed to be tourists (Mary guessed they were from Spain.); a young man dressed exactly like me, khaki trousers, open collared, print shirt, very standard issue blue blazer. At one stop we picked up an older man who had not bought a ticket, taking his chances with the trainman. And getting caught. Their exchange was polite, but he got off at the next station.

Into Philadelphia we rode, disembarking at the Suburban Station, which is underground, again old but very clean and well kept, and whose corridors stretch under several streets. We came up at the City Hall, a site to see itself, built in the late nineteenth century, with a tower on which stands a statue of William Penn. The tower was for just a little while the tallest in America, and meant to be, but to the frustration, I’m sure, of the city father’s, it was very soon overtaken by buildings in New York City and Chicago. It is a very interesting building. I’m sure there is a “school” to which its architecture belongs, but I would not be able to identify it, but one could guess a sort of very late Victorian. It has a plaza in the middle, with arches at the west and east ends through which we walked, coming out at the east end of Market Street.

Market Street runs straight east from City Hall, all the way down to the Delaware River and through the “Historic District”, which was our destination. It is a busy street, and as we walked along I saw that it was the retail area (and later learned it had been so from the 17th Century, thus “Market Street”). We immediately came upon a Macy’s, then older buildings converted to urban malls, the convention center, the US court house. The sidewalks were busy, people comfortably dressed, many tourists heading the same way we were. We stopped at one point to get our bearings, and a lady policeman came up and asked if she could help us. She was very pleasant as we have, in fact, found every person to be. (I wondered whether we were having a run of luck with regard to pleasant people, because we have seen and dealt with so many, or whether this is the way people are in this place. Maybe they change when winter comes, and simply the weather is the determining factor. Probably not.)

Now it's Thursday

We spent our second intense Ikea day yesterday. As earlier reported, we planned to go back and get a sofa, actually a "loveseat", called a Klippan. And so we did. It came in a box 7' x 3' x 1', and was formidably heavy. When I looked at the stack of these boxes in the warehouse section of the store, I wasn't sure we could get it off the pile, over to the loading area, into our SUV, back to the Rosemont Plaza (Mary's apartment house), and up to her apartment on the elevator. But Carol and Mary were more than game, and so back we went yesterday morning.

We had some other Ikea chores to do as well. For one thing, we discovered that Ikea is not perfect, because two of the items that we had purchased the day before had defects, one of them a lamp set. There was no problem with the store regarding those returns. But we took the occasion a little later to look in the "scratch and dent and returned" area and found that there were several lamps there exactly liked the one we returned; if fact, they were the only lamps in this area. We resolved not to get another one like that.

The lamp set was really, really cheap, however, about $12. It consisted of two pole lamps that fit together: one could use the set together or separate them for different uses. Quite a clever design. But the product was made simply too cheaply to deal with the quality-control problem, I suppose, and I don't think that item is long for Ikea.

Of course, we took the occasion to walk back through the entire store again. And we added a chair, called the Poang, to our purchases, as well as some smaller items. We had lunch there again too, and I marveled once more at the really cheap, good food at Ikea's restaurant. (I had meatballs, Kellsey.) Just after check-out we had the now obligatory $1 frozen yogurt cone.

If you shop at Ikea, you need to be psychologically prepared for something to go wrong with the assembly. As I said, Ikea is not perfect. They have put a lot of time into simplifying their designs and packing carefully, but part of the bargain, unspoken as it may be, must be that the consumer is to have more tolerance for things going wrong than if one purchases an item from Nordstrom's. Fair enough, but anyone shopping there needs to know this.

When we put the sofa together, we found that the screw on one of the legs had a bad thread and simply would not mate. So we took the leg right back to the store and swapped. This second trip of the day also gave Mary the opportunity to return some things, not because they were defective, but because on the earlier trip that day she saw something better than what she bought on Tuesday (for Mary "better" means just as serviceable but cheaper without sacrificing style, bless her heart.) I am now sitting on the sofa, complete with replacement, and it is just fine.

Mary and Carol fixed supper last night, and so we had our first meal on Mary's new dining table. Mary covered the table with one of her "Kikoys", which is a colorful all-purpose, cotton fabric from Kenya, and served dinner on her new dishes. Welcome back to the States, Mary!

So we are pretty much done with the intense part of setting up Mary's apartment. There are pictures to hang and things to put away, but the basics are in place, and she should be ready to turn her main attention to school work soon. She begins her orientation a week from today, and classes start the following Monday.

Today our plans are to take the train into downtown Philadelphia for walking tour out of one of our guides.

We also want to locate Tenth Presbyterian Church, where Mary is thinking of attending this Sunday. (We are leaving Saturday.) As dedicated as we are to maintaining our connection with PCUSA, we remarked last night that we are much more comfortable going to a well regarded PCA church than taking our chances on whatever the PCUSA might have to offer, knowing nothing else about what Philadelphia has in churches. So we see again how important "branding" is.

The neighborhoods around Mary's apartment house are lively. Yesterday was freshman move-in day down the street at Villanova, and we have seen empty shelves at Target and even at Ikea, as parents and students like the three of us stock up for the imminent beginning of the school year.

Hello from Philadelphia!

I am typing from Mary's apartment. Today is Wednesday. We arrived Monday afternoon about 4:30PM after a beautiful ride up the Shenandoah Valley from Greensboro, via Roanoke. It was a week ago this morning that we left Miami Springs for our vacation, and events have tumbled over themselves, one right after another, since then.

Here in Philadelphia, the three of us have had a good time setting Mary up for the coming year. Yesterday, early, we visited the nearby Ikea store. That was a first for Carol and me, and what an interesting place! Whoever created that way of designing household items and marketing them has struck just the right pitch of the younger American. Ikea seems to know just what that consumer's felt needs are for useful, inexpensive things, for clever, pleasant design, and for a sense of personal participation in the acquisition process, whether the consumer is in a family or by himself.

We spent the entire morning there, making a list of what seemed necessary. Then we had lunch in the Ikea restaurant to review the list of what we thought Mary needed, did some further circuits in the store, and finally arrived at the warehouse area where we assembled as much of Mary's selections as we could fit in our SUV. (We're going back this morning to get one more large piece, a sofa.) We topped the visit off with an ice cream cone at a smaller restaurant right on the other side of the check-out counters. I would never imagined myself having such an enjoyable time shopping! Of all things!


We arrived back at Mary's apartment with all Mary's loot, and spent the rest of the afternoon assembling everything, which was no small task. My personal project was putting together the small dining/kitchen table with four chairs. I had no problem with the table, but the first chair didn't come out right because I misread the illustrated instructions (nothing written: just graphics). But once I figured out what was wrong, I disassembled the first chair, reassembled it, and finished the remaining three. I found the assembly one level above "easy", which was fine. But you have to be careful, and it all takes time, of course. I propose to call all that time "sweat equity", which made the products we purchased well priced.

The entire Ikea process involves a carefully designed DIY approach. Ikea has wrung as much of its own paid labor out of its delivery of things, whether its all the way down stream during the assembly at home; further up at the self-serve warehouse area; even further up at the way Ikea presents a basic product with a number of variations (mainly with coverings) that allows the shopper to complete the design himself: and finally in the clever design of the object itself, in a way that leaves the final manufacturing process to the buyer after he brings the thing home.



We did consult employees from time to time: they were always knowledgeable; they didn't hang around us at all, but they always seemed to be nearby; and if you stood there long enough with a puzzled look on your face, one of them seemed to show up and offer to help. And then, again, what one purchases is something not finished but requires assembly. The whole process involves a sort of partnership of consumer and seller that seems just to fit the need for inexpensive things and the buyer's desire to participate in - what would be the word? fabrication? assembly? maybe creation? - of what he is purchasing, rejecting the idea tha we are simply passive, slightly stupid creatures, simply to be "served".

Off the Bookshelf

I finished Mover of Men and Mountains, the Autobiography of R.G. Le Tourneau. This venerable autobiography of a Christian "industrialist", born in 1888, is full of muscular insights into business innovation, risk-taking, and prayer. Le Tourneau did not have much time for theological refinements; he took the basics and ran with them, and the book is a healthy reminder of the basic requirements of the Christian life. One can buy the paper-back for less than $8, and I ordered a handful for my friends.

I am into the Chronological Bible each day, and we are moving through the prophets, just now coming to the end of Jeremiah. It has been instructive to read Le Tourneau as I read through this part of the Bible. On the national level, the prophets associate faithfulness to God with the prosperity of the nation; on the individual level, Le Tourneau associates his successes and failures often with whether he did or did not consult with the Lord about difficult situations before moving to a solution. I think sometimes in our rejection of the "health and wealth" Gospel, we tend to throw the baby out with the bath water: for why should the Lord bless us when we move away from our relationship with him by neglecting our prayer life or behaving poorly? On the other hand, didn't Jesus promise us that when we ask he will give? Is it really that simple, I wonder? I think it pretty much is.

I am continuing to read McCullough's biography of John Adams. It's so very good and so easy to read. But not much about the religious aspects of the people and events McCullough narrates.

Next off the bookshelf is Tim Stafford's, Shaking the System: What I learned from the Great American Reform Movements, a gift he sent to us via his daughter Katie during her recent visit. I have read the first 30 or so pages and would already recommend it. Tim Stafford and I are contemporaries, he grew up and received a great education on the West Coast and I on the East, both of us were raised Christians, both married Southern women, and raised with our respective wives each a daughter two sons. I have visited with him only once, years ago, and then at the Van Brocklins' home in Montreat with a number of people, so I have had no real conversations with him to compare notes, but I do have this fine book to read about the mechanism of social change. I look forward to continuing to read his book.

Micheal P. Schutt's Redeeming Law: Christian Calling and the Legal Profession, has been on my bookshelf for a year, sent to me by friends at the Christian Legal Society. I have finally picked it up because Ken Myers interviewed Schutt on a recent issue of Mars Hill Audio to which I am listening on my morning walks. I have read the first few pages, and it's definitely a keeper. I will be going back and forth between Schutt and Stafford over the next few weeks, I'm sure.

Still haven't got back to the Pitt biography or to Keller's The Reason for God, but I got into them deeply enough to resolve to finish them, and I will.

In reporting all this, I have to confess to uneasiness that all of this reading puts my internet skills at risk. I have found that books terribly displace internet surfing time, and that worries me.

Thinking about John Edwards

Watching the John Edwards story unfold is, to adopt an over-used metaphor, like watching a train-wreck in slow motion. I never thought he would be a good President. His populist political views seemed contrived to me, and insincere, in the face of his lifestyle. (As a Christian who lives well, I concede that there is a disconnect between what I espouse and how I live. I believe myself to be sincere, and I should concede that to Edwards. I should say, then, that I think his political views are simply wrong, and leave it at that.)

Edwards appears to me to be working very hard to contrive some sort of story, with the cooperation of people who very well may love him, to confine his adultery to a relatively short period of time and to exclude any certainty that he fathered a child out of wedlock. Is it simply embarrassment for himself and his loved ones that motivates him or does he believe that with a successful contrivance, he will be able to get past all of this and emerge with reasonable prospects of being an influential political leader, even President some day? I can well agree that it takes a very large ego to aspire to the Presidency, but can Edward's ego be not only that large but also totally blind. Why would he think that he can "get past" all this, and emerge politcally intact, if he holds that belief.

There is an answer.

Bill Clinton.

And if you compare Clinton's exploitation of a young woman in his employ and his efforts to discard her later with Edwards' affair with a mature woman in her 40's and what appears to be his subsequent, significant support of her and her child, at least financially, then Edwards moral repugnancy begins to fade. I am not arguing that Edwards is to be excused. (Frankly, the man must be in utter Hell right now.)

Clinton, on the other hand?

Vacation!!!

So far, our vacation has been all about water. Water at the water table. Which, of course, turned into water all over the patio floor and the people who were foolish enough to get within 5 feet of the kids and the water table.

Then, we went to the BEACH!!!!

...where there was LOTS of water!

....and sand....

...and did I mention, water?

The cutest part (not pictured here) was after the beach when we walked up to the bath house and Aidan and Honor stripped down to all their naked glory and luxuriated shamelessly in the refreshing showers that are lined up on the outside of the bath house wall. Yet another fabulous experience with WATER!!!

Firefly on Hulu

I'm sure I'm way late on learning about hulu.com and about "Firefly". It started with a post on Instapundit about a pilot/tv series called Firefly, which post was updated with a reference to hulu.com.

Amazing. Amazing website. Amazing series.

Four Cents

5:30AM seems to be the magic wake up time for me as a Daddy. If I wake up any later, it's pretty much guaranteed that I will not get to work/church/first event of the day on time.

Which is strange, because 5:30 is when my dad always woke up. And I always thought he was absolutely crazy for doing so.

So, by process of elimination, we can say with assurance that waking up at 5:30AM is NOT the cause of my father's craziness. I'll keep you updated as the investigation progresses.


NPR told me last week that even though GDP was up for 7th quarter in a row, the economy was still in trouble. Dear NPR, that may very well be true, but I don't believe anything you tell me about the economy. That's because you never, ever, told me that there were things other than GDP to consider when you used the GDP to tell me how bad everything was in the economy with the Republican president. Now that the GDP is doing ok, you tell me that the GDP isn't the best indicator anymore? I know you mean well, but, seriously, don't report on the economy anymore.

The Amazingness of Pottery Barn's Everydaysuede Slipcovers!

We have now had three major incidents with our PB Grand sofa. The first incident involved Aidan's recently cut leg and blood smeared across two cushions. The second incident involved Aidan, Macon, a large stack of books serving as a table for Macon's coffee mug and the toppling of said very full coffee mug across several cushions and down inbetween the cushions into the main slipcover portion. The third incident occurred today and involved Honor, a red (non-washable) marker and her zealous joy of drawing (and three cushions on our couch).

I cannot say enough about how much I have loved this couch and the ease with which all kinds of things just wash out when you throw the slipcover in the wash. I do not have photos of the first two incidents, but I decided to photograph the red marker slipcovers (or some of them) in faith that it would wash out and I would be able to show before and after shots.



My faith was well rewarded as I pulled the slipcovers from the wash without even a hint of any red marker on them! And did I mention that I have not ever had to even use any soap (not with the blood, coffee or red marker). All I have ever done is run a cold wash without soap and the blood, sugary coffee, and red marker all emerged completely rinsed out. A-mazing!



Three cheers for Pottery Barn's Everydaysuede!!!!

Opting Out of Credit Card and Insurance Offers

We get a number of unsolicited offers for credit cards and insurance in the mail each week. They are accompanied, of course, by a mail-back form, and parts of this correspondence have certain of our identifying information on them. So we put these items through the shredder.

According to the January 2008 issue of the AAII Journal,

Under Fair Credit Reporting Ace (FCRA),consumer credit reporting companies are permitted to include your name on lists used by creditors or insurers to make firm offers of credit or insurance that are not initiated by you. However, the act provides individuals the right to "opt-out," which prevents these companies from providing your credit file information for firm offers.

To "opt out" for five years, go to OptOutPrescreen.com, and you can register not to receive these mailings.

Katie and Mary Do the Town

More on Katie and Mary over on Mary's blog.

On Blaming Others

One night things didn't go at all well for me. My scrapers were in tough going and the crew that was supposed to break up the hardpan for us hadn't done a good job. The road to the dam site was full of loose rock that was hard on the caterpillar tracks of my scrapers. The electricians hadn't strung the lights in the right places. Kaiser came out, and of course I was full of excuses, blaming the other fellow.

"Well, now, Bob," he said, "when things haven't gone as well as they probably should have, and you start to blame circumstances and other people instead of yourself, you are never going to improve. It's when you start to improve these matters yourself that you improve the matters and yourself both."

I can't say I was completely convinced. Late that night I got into the car with Kaiser and another superintendent named Tom. Tom had had a bad night, too, and he was glowering in silence in his corner. Kaiser stood it for a while, and then he said to me, "Tom, there, is smarter than you are. He isn't giving me any complaints or excuses. He has enough sense to keep his mouth shut."

I got that point all right, and Tom brightened up some. Kaiser wasn't through with us. "The trouble with Tom is that while he isn't' blaming anybody or excusing himself out loud, he's sure thinking about it. In that way, he's just as guilty as you are, Bob. He won't improve any, either, until he stops thinking someone else is to blame and starts thinking of what to do about it."

That lesson has been worth a lot to me down through the years. I continue to preach it to myself and to anyone else who will listen. You will never improve unless you blame yourself for the troubles you have. Then when you realize your troubles are your own, you can take them to the Lord, and He will give you guidance. Just don't make the mistake of asking Him to believe the other fellow was to blame.

-From Mover of Men and Mountains: the Autobiography of R.B. Le Tourneau.

Hi-Ho, Silver, Away!

Such cute Cute CUTENESS!

It's so nice to be past the funk that plagued us last week. The kids (and their daddy) are doing well and we are all grateful to be able to taste our food normally again! Maybe now we can re-hire a babysitter and go out to celebrate our tenth anniversary! YEA!!!!!

"The One"

Really, this is kind of funny. If I were Obama, I'd take it that way and allow everyone to see him laugh at himself. If he did so, he would surely get a "bump". But I'm afraid he won't seize the opportunity, and will simply scold.

GREAT NEWS!!!!

My sweet sweet friend, Lindsay, who often comments and who has her own blog on our Kith and Kin roll had her baby this morning!!!! YEA!!!! Andrew Jason C_____ was born this morning at 7:52 am weighing in at 7 lbs 3 ozs, 18 1/2 inches long.

Andrew has an older brother James who is a little over two years older, and who is probably hanging with a grandma or grandpa right about now.

CONGRATULATIONS, LINDS!!!!

"The World is Ready for Change 'Cause Obama is Here!

Good on you, Ludacris. Nice touch.

The Failed State Index 2008

Foreigh Policy magazine has just published its "Failed State Index" for this year.

Some fascinating stuff: for example, Kenya is not a failed state, but it is "borderline," as are Syria and Egypt.

(Thanks to Thomas P.M. Barnett for directing me to this source. His post and comments are helpful.)

McCain and Fannie Mae

McCain on the housing bill's bailout. We should be outraged. He agrees.

Barack on Time Management

Not bad.

Loving Your Enemies; Visiting the Sick

In a post by Charlie Martin concerning McCain's visit to the Dalai Lama in Colorado, Martin writes, in part:

I looked around some of the left-wing blogs, and I was struck by one comment: “Does McCain think the Dalai Lama is a gook?” This because of the infamous statement about how McCain “hates gooks.”

Well, you know what? If McCain “hated gooks” at some point — after being captured, tortured, beaten, eventually crippled — I think most people would understand that. On the other hand, he has returned to Vietnam on several occasions, and had as much to do with Vietnam and the US reestablishing relations as anyone. Somehow, for all this “hatred,”he’d been on the side of the Vietnamese people since, and even the prison director now says “If I were an American, I’d vote for McCain.”

Later in the article, Martin comments on Obama's trip to Germany:

Contrast that [McCain's support of the Tibetan people against Chinese near-genocide, a low return political investment] with Barack Obama, who discovered that the Department of Defense didn’t want him to include campaign aides and a campaign photo-op in a visit to wounded American soldiers and Marines at Landstuhl. (Think of it: what could be lonelier than being severely wounded and in a hospital in a foreign country?) When there wasn’t anything in it for him, what did Obama do? He canceled out, so he could work out at the Ritz-Carlton and do a little Berlin site seeing.


UPDATE: The other side of the story regarding the cancelled visit to the troop hospital can be read here. The Financial Times refers to the story about Obama cancelling the visit as being "debunked". I would suggest that "debunked" is too strong a word and reflects FT's leanings toward Obama. But I also think that there may be something to Obama's side of the story. Obama, of course, is vulnerable to attack at this point because of his weak views on defense and his voting record regarding funding the war in Iraq. Fair game, I would say.

I'm Glad this Lady is on Our Side, Even if She's Not a Presbyterian

This lady. (Needs a Windows Player.)

10th Anniversary Crud

You know what stinks? When it is your tenth anniversary and you are both sick with the bug that your kids gave you after touching everything at the doctor's office earlier this week. Kellsey got it first (so perhaps I touched something at the doctor's office, or maybe I was just faster to develop the bug? or maybe the kids were beginning to feel nasty before they could articulate it? who knows...), then Honor and Aidan, and now Macon. While the kids seem perfectly better at this point, Kells is still fighting a lingering sense of nausea and cumulative exhaustion.

We are hoping to get to celebrate sometime soon, but at least for now Macon got to spend the day at home from work. (poor guy!!!) And, Kellsey is experiencing the giggles because she is just so tired she can't help it.

Some good news in this is that the last time Aidan had the throw-ups, he was prescribed a drug called zofran. It was originally developed for chemo patients to help with the nausea experienced after treatments. It is often prescribed now for pregnant women to help combat morning sickness. Anyway, I consider it the miracle drug because it immediate stops Aidan from throwing up. The good news part is that we had some left over from last time and were able to use it again to help him weather this bug. Thanks be to God!

18 Month Check-Up

Friday was Honor's 18 month check-up. She weighed in at 22 lbs 8 oz and they measured her length at 31 1/4 " (I think she may be 31.5 or a bit more as they could not wrestle her into straightening out her leg for the measurement...that's my girl! She's definitely got some spirit!) Basically, she is in the 25th percentile (maybe a little higher for height).


She likes to dance and get down! She will boogie to the music and even enjoys playing her daddy's congas and bongos. She isn't half bad and already exhibits more of a sense of rhythm than her mommy. She must have gotten that propensity from her daddy, as he is so very gifted with rhythm and all things musical. What a fun thing to inherit, don't you think? This picture is a bit blurry, but it's only because she was drumming way too fast for the camera to catch!


She has an exploding vocabulary right now. It's crazy! She probably has about 50 words or more that she can say and between 40-50 signs, though she isn't using those as much as she used to now that she is able to speak more words. She has a couple of 2-word combos, but not many. The sweetest one is "bye-bye, Daddy", but the funniest one is, "poo-poo, yucky. " One thing I find funny is that Aidan used to call everything with wheels a "rar-rar". Honor calls almost everything with wheels a "bike!!"

If you ask her if she wants something, she will take a moment to reflect on your proposal and then either say "no" while shaking her head from side to side, causing all her little curls to go flying about her head, or she will say, "u-hunh!" in a sing-song kind of way to communicate her approval and/or excitement.

I also get a kick out of how she used to call crackers, "crack-ers", but now she just calls them, "crack". HA!


She has a great deal of poise for such a tiny bit of a thing. She has always been able to balance herself. It has been very strange watching her climb on things and then get down again. She almost never falls and she has an intuitive sense of how to get herself out of or off her perches. If she cannot, she will turn to you and both do the sign for and say the word, "help" out loud. Both of these pictures are evidence of her exquisite balance in action. You can't tell in the first one, but she is standing on top of Aidan's "Ramps Around the Garage" toy. In the second photo she is exiting the back of her wagon without any falls which is quite a challenge as those wheels can easily roll if you push too much either way.



She is quite quick to laugh and has an infectious smile. She still laughs the loudest and the most for her brother, whom she most often calls "bub-ba" or "bubber". She has some words that are so clear you cannot believe an 18 month old said them, but others are definitely only understood by mom, dad, and bubber.

The last anecdote I will share is this: Instead of saying "done", she says "none" and then takes her food and drops it over the side of the high-chair tray onto the floor. We're working on that, but mommy is not getting anywhere with that, so Honor continues to drop food on the floor on a regular basis to announce that she is indeed, "none".

"How a Young Lawyer Saved the Second Amendment"

The interview in the WSJ of Alan Gura by James Taranto is well worth reading. Gura represented the appellants in the Heller case before the Supreme Court. I find it interesting (and informative)that Mr. Gura, "[a] native or Israel, . . . grew up in Los Angeles and never owned a firearm until after that city's riots in 1992."

Post-Easter Egg Hunt

Only in South Florida. Plus today, Carol and Mary saw 15 iguanas out in the sun on the side of the road, along a mile stretch of Ludlum Drive that they drove down this afternoon.

God Takes Back One of His Own. Yet so soon.

Ben Entwistle. See Mary's post on Ben. Also see Missionaries Return to Triad to Bury Their Son.

Your State Government at Work (Or Mine, at Least)

During Florida's housing boom, state regulators allowed thousands of mortgage professionals with criminal records in the industry - costing consumers millions.

The Miami Herald has a big expose beginning in this morning's issue, lest we think that there is something special about government at the more local level that endows it with extra virtue. Those Democrats! Oh, wait, we've had Republican administrations for the last nine years.

The Herald quotes Don Saxon, the commissioner of the Office of Financial Regulation, which licenses mortgage brokers: "The statute doesn't say that based on those offenses [murder, for example, bank robbery as another], they have to be denied a license. It's discretionary." I hope ol' Don gets through this without losing his State pension. He probably will.

And what about Terry Straub director of the OFR's Division of Finance? "We look at all the facts, you know, whatever file, and we predicate on the fact that everybody deserves another chance." What a great guy. Read the article. You simply would not believe the people that this agency licensed as mortgage brokers, not to mention what these brokers did once they were licensed.

Our son, the budding carpenter

Today Macon worked on putting together a board which needed to be built out so it could be hung on the back of our TV Armoire. So, he built it out and then covered it with some batting and a bolt of denim that I had picked out with Honor this morning at Hancock's Fabric store.

Aidan, of course, assigned himself as Daddy's assistant worker. By the end, he spent most of his time drilling holes in a spare piece of wood. What I found most delightful, was how very satisfied he was with himself for drilling these holes. You should know, he drilled those holes VERY well indeed!

The Waiting

Oh! The waiting! The waiting. It is so hard to learn to wait, and really, I suppose there's not a one of us who is very good at it. Anyways, This morning began with some very great fun on the carpet with Macon and the kids. It progressed to breakfast, but in Aidan's mind, it could not bake quickly enough.


So, he watched.


On what was he waiting, you ask?


When watching grew old, he moved to the couch.


Honor decided not to waste time while waiting and saddled up to her Daddy where he taught her how to play a new game on his iphone.


And, finally, the wait was over! Aidan decided it was indeed worth it!

Sean at Farnborough!

I've been reading in the WSJ this week about the aviation show at Farnborough, Egland, especially about the F-22 Raptor that will be put on display there. It is the greatest fighter in the world and this is, I think, the first time people get a real good look at it. (Unfortunately, Secretary of Defense Gates doesn't want it produced in any quantity, because he thinks the next war will be just like the ones we are fighting now.)

But more to the immediate point: Sean is there, working for Aviation Week! I want that job!

Here's his report (and be sure to watch the incredible video of the Raptor being put through its paces.)

Way to go, Sean!

Abortion and the NAACP

At the threshold, let me say that I have a problem with referring to people as "black" people and "white" people. I mean, Obama is half "white" for Pete's sake. As I understand it, a "drop" can make you "black." Well, give me one (if I don't already have one), give us all one, and let's get over this.

This categorization is imposed upon us constantly, thoughtlessly, every day by journalists for whom it somehow simplifies things in their hurried, dead-line impelled days, politicians, for whom it can mean money and power, and ourselves, for whom it means we are mostly sleepwalkers. There is only one category that makes any difference.

OK. That's off my chest.

Now go to this column and read some rare commentary on the NAACP and its position toward abortion. Talk about blind and driven by a lust for power, there are your national NAACP elites for you.

And how about this:

Barack Obama understands that abortion is a divisive issue, and respects those who disagree with him. However, he has been a consistent champion of reproductive choice and will make preserving women’s rights under Roe v. Wade a priority as President. He opposes any constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court's decision in that case. Campaign website here (strangely hidden under "Women's Issues".)

(Senator Foghorn understands that slavery is a divisive issue, and respects those who disagree with him. However, he has been a consistent champion of states rights and will make preserving those rights under the Constitution as originally adopted a priority as President. He opposes any constitutional amendment to overturn the decision of the Founding Fathers.)

Thursday Morning Thoughts

I'm on Amazon's email list, and it's one of the few commerical, non-lawyer sources I don't use MailWise to weed out. I received one today advising that there are 140,000 book titles now accessible through the Kindle. I really have the itch for one of those devices, but looking at the matter reasonably, I have no lack of books to read right now and have no access problem whatever. It's just the gadget aspect, I'm sure.

I started with a trainer at the Downtown Athletic Club a few weeks ago, and have been going twice a week, during the work day (the club is only a block away). I can tell its good for me, but the interruption of the work day is too time-costly, the thing is too dollar-expensive on even a medium term basis, and so I am going to rethink the exercise regime. Walter and I had a long talk last night about the issue and he has some suggestions.

Chambers and Partners is a British based law directory. Law directories are lists of lawyers whose lists, to one degree or another, are "selected." If you are a lawyer who practices long enough in the same locale and the same specialty and if you keep your nose clean, you are nice to people, and don't make too many mistakes that bite you or your clients, then you start to show up on these things. Chambers does these lists worldwide, and I showed up on the 2007 list for the first time to my knowledge. I learned yesterday that I show up again on the 2008 list, but with a "commentary". It was a nice birthday present. Chambers seeks to distinguish itself by having investigators call other lawyers in the community to determine a target lawyers' reputation. I have an idea that the investigator called my friend Sam Ullman. He is the only one who would use the "second mile" reference, other than perhaps myself. "Going the second mile" is, of course, a reference to one of Jesus' illustrations, and it's interesting that it has become one of Sam's staple descriptions of doing very good client work.

Static Electricity and Water Tables

Foot Pictures

Two weeks (plus a few days), I walked off a curb (without intending to walk off said curb).

OUCH! I wound up in the E.R. and had several x-rays taken. The good news was that it was not broken. The bad news was that I had indeed damaged some ligaments.

The swelling began immediately and turned into a lovely goose egg on top of my foot (not my ankle) within 10 minutes. The next morning the goose egg was mostly gone but the green and purple were beginning to bloom. A week later the purple had migrated.
This first pic is from the day after when the swelling had mostly gone down, but not completely.

The second pic is from a week or so later when the color had migrated a bit.

I am walking without a splint or ace bandage now (YIPPEE!!!!) but I am still a little slower than normal and still feel quite bruised. I will be allowed to begin exercise walking behind my double jogger again the last few days of July, which is good because I will need a couple of months to get back up to speed so I can run in the Austin Skirt Chaser 5k. That's right, folks, I said "Skirt Chaser". check it out.

Straws in the Wind

Last Thursday, the WSJ reported:

As average gas prices hit a record high of $4.108 a gallon this week, the government released new data showing that drivers have cut back their use of the fuel to levels not seen in five years.

This morning, the WSJ summarized on page 1:

The U.S. trade deficit shrank unexpectedly in May as petroleum imports fell by 10.%% and exports increased.

An Interview of the US Labor Secretary: Sounds dull, doesn't it?

It's not.

Trouble Focusing?

I struggle with pushing deep into a project these days, building a wall around, say, 90 minutes so that I can dive down, down into a sea of thought.

At the office, I have tried to protect my mornings by turning my phones off, exiting email, and closing my door from 9:00 to Noon. I've asked the people in the rest of the office many times (via email and at firm meetings) to save what they have for me until after lunch (with very limited success, although growling helps when someone comes through the door.) Even when my "quiet time" is honored while I am inside my office behind the closed door, I have to come out sometimes, only to be ambushed by people who have been saving up. (Often as a result of that interruption, I forget what I came out of the office for. As a result, I will go back into my office, shut the door, and then remember what it was.)

And then there are the emails. At the office, we use a spam filter service called "MailWise", and that has been a great help, although not, of course, for managing client matters. We have clients who believe that one can carry on a consultation via email. My suspicion is that they believe that email, appearing to be so quick, must be a cheap way of getting advice from someone who charges by the hour. In addition, email has a sort of immediacy that would appear to solve the problem of their lawyer taking so long to get their work done. (If I just hammer the lawyer with emails each day, he will finally give up and tell me what the answer is to my question.) There is a lot more to say about email, of course, but I will move on.

Dealing with interruptions and distractions, having difficulty focusing, all of these things have made me feel, well, old. This is all about being in one's sixties, I've thought. I am losing it.

But maybe not. A recent article in the WSJ, Unloading Information Overload, discussed the matter of distractions, and is worth reading if you can get a copy. (Not sure whether you need a subscription for the link.) The writer, L. Gordon Crovitz, points to some other recent discussions of the problem: Nicholas Carr's, Is Google Making Us Stupid?, in the Atlantic magazine, which is available on the 'net (how does the magazine make any money?), and a book by Maggie Jackson entitled Distracted: the Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age.

Recently I watched a documentary on the writer David McCullough. What an affable, engaging gentleman he appears to be! And yet he knows how to build a wall around himself to get his work done. Out in his very large back yard, he has an office in a tiny house, a house just large enough for his desk, some bookcases and file cabinets, and a bath room. There is no phone there, and there is certainly no internet connection (he uses an old typewriter for his work). The spot of land where the office sits is separated from the rest of his home by a fence, and there is a gate one must go through to get there from his residence proper. The gateposts are about 3 feet high. He said that when he is in his office, others are forbidden to pass through that gate if they are taller than the posts (he has grandchildren).

Joe and Linda Just Doing Their Duty for Miami Springs

Travis Wheeler said, ". . . Here in Miami Springs, there is (sic) not many things for our young crowd to do. We really appreciate what they did for us." . . . Mario Muchin said, "It's good for the young adults to have an outlet. A place to come to where they are going to be protected and taken care of by Joe and Linda."

Joe and Linda own the Hurricane Bar & Grill on N. Royal Poinciana. What they did was introduce "Beer Pong" to their establishment last Thursday night, according to the Rivers Cities Gazette.

Book in the Mail

It's All Too Much: An Easy Plan for Living a Richer Life with Less Stuff

Based on Kevin Kelley's review of a review

Merlin Mann's review turned me onto this fantastic book. We've rethought our household because of it. We were reminded that life is not about stuff; it's about possibilities, which the right tools can enable. For a world of expanding stuff, this book is the necessary anti-stuff tool. . . . It will help you distinguish between that which is fabulous for you personally and that which is just more junk to organize. I've learned so much from the author that I've excerpted it generously in the hope that even if you don't read the book, you'll glean a bit of its wisdom.

Being the son of my father, I am already disposed to get rid of "stuff". Nice to have help along the way. :-)

Diplomacy not War on Iran - top Pentagon Official

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, no less. Thanks, Tom.

Crossfit Central Representing

Our crew from Crossfit Central did well at the Crossfit Games in California last weekend.

Jeremy Thiel - the head coach at Crossfit Central - finished third in a group of several hundred crazy strong competitors. crazy strong as in very strong, knock out a hundred pull ups in a few minutes kind of strong. Navy Seal type strong.



Here's the breakdown.

Eighteenth Century Flip-Flop

I'm starting into Hague's William Pitt the Younger, and the first chapter describes the brilliant, Churchillian-like career of William Pitt the Elder, the subject's father. In pertinent part, Hague writes:

Having finally thrown in his lot with King George II in 1746 in return for a place in the government, [the Elder] Pitt was happy to use his oratorical skill to advance arguments sometimes the exact opposite of those he had propagated in opposition [to the King's party], a phenomenon well-known to this day. He had made his name in opposition denouncing the payment of subsidies for Hanoverian troops even to the point of saying he would agree to be branded on the forehead as a traitor if he ever supported the idea, but once in office he swiftly switched sides on the issue with "unembarrassed countenance."

Wal-Mart Exotica

Only in South Florida.

Infant dies in car crash: baby carrier unrestrained

This, from today's Miami Herald, makes you sick. The little girl was 9 months old. The mother survived the single vehicle crash, a Volvo no less, with "non-life-threatening injuries." Among other things, the article states,

[Florida] State law requires that all children 5 and younger ride in a crash-tested, federally approved child restraint device. For children 3 and younger, the device has to be a carrier or child seat.

So much for Florida law.

Mmmm!

"Spicy Vegetarian Chili" from Carol's kitchen this evening!

UPDATE: Note the fresh green salad in the upper left hand corner and the bottles of oil and vinegar. The little bottle is extra virgin olive oil from Carbonell. As gifts, we bought several sets of these little bottles in the train station last April in Córdoba as we were leaving on the leg of our trip that would take us to Toledo. Carbonell has its own little store, there in the station. As one US retailer states about Carbonell:

Carbonell has been in Córdoba since the 19th Century, where it has produced a quality oil from the seemingly endless olive groves, which carpet the rolling hills of Andalucía. This extra virgin olive oil from Carbonell is the leading national brand of olive oil in Spain. Many of you who grew up in Spain remember that your mother had two Carbonell containers in her pantry. The green-labeled bottle of Extra Virgin Carbonell can be used with salads, fresh vegetables and gazpacho. This extra virgin oil has a mild but tasty blend of Andalucían olives.

Since our trip to Spain, I have taken to putting the oil and some balsamic vinegar on my salads. The vinegar is from Italy. The combinaton really gives the salad a great, fresh taste.

The US and AIDS Relief in Africa

The Bush Administration has done a lot of good with "Pepfar", the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, in place since 2003. The WSJ editorial page last weekend wrote of its success and the difficulty in getting Congress to renew it, which Congress finally did recently.

Too Much Money in the System

On the present and ongoing and worsening crisis in the financial sector. (I like the reference to Warren Buffet's "three I" analysis toward the end of the article.)

"The Challenge: Welcoming Nonbelievers While Emphasizing One True Path"

This is the headline of an article in the WSJ Thursday (July 3). It describes the findings of a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. The issue, as expressed by a Rev. Mark Roessler of Tucson, Ariz., is how "to be real inclusve - 'Ya'll come!' - but real exclusive on how you get to heaven."

Our church has dipped into the "seeker-friendly" tool-box. That box includes, according to the WSJ article "the permissive dress-code . . . the 'message' (never sermons) . . . the hard-rocking nine-piece jazzed up praise bands . . . the Starbucks cart that sits in the lobby (and the fact that worshippers can take their nonfat lattes into the pews."

Our praise band is two pieces and some singers, with no "hard" rock. And Van's sermons are always true to the Gospel and never stray into "buoyant, hip and dedicated to self-help themes, rather than theology." But we do want to make it easy to come into the worship service.

We are not exactly growing, but I think the service is a great improvement over what it had become before Van came: music directors whom we could afford and attract, but who didn't know how to play the organ and were from other or no religious traditions, choir members who looked very old, sang very old, and, the real problem, still lived in a 1950s world. The worship service core leadership before Van were folks who thought of the worship service not as a portal for those outside the church but as a refuge from all the change that life was throwing at the members. We are much improved, I think, though we could do better. Now there is the coffee and an uncompromised Gospel.

John Adams

Carol and I finished viewing the last episode in HBO's miniseries, John Adams, last night. (Juan had recommended it and Netflix had it.) What a fitting way to end the Fourth of July. The DVD set also has a short piece on the author, David McCullough, which is well worth watching too.

I read McCullough's 1776 with great pleasure, but I had never been able to get into John Adams. This will send me back to it.

A Miami Springs Fourth of July

Carol and I were home for the Fourth; the first time in many years, as we usually spend the Fourth at Montreat. But this year, with Mary coming home soon, then the rest of the family joining us in August, and finally the trip to Philadelphia, we thought we needed to be here this week. There was plenty here to do. Our church had a pancake breakfast that started at 7:30 AM. (Among others, the Tuttles came. Rick attends our Friday morning breakfast group, and with him this morning were Mary and their two beautiful daughters, Paloma and Anna. Larry was there too.)

Rick Reed brought his pickup over to be decorated for the parade. Carol and others worked on the truck. Then there was the parade itself, starting at the Rec Center and moving east to the Circle and finally up Curtis Parkway to the Miami Springs Country Club. The parade has grown much bigger than the last time we saw it. Chairs and vans lined the medians on both Westward and Curtis Parkway, and the parade line was more than a mile long.

The first short video is the FPC truck starting out from the Rec Center.



The second is the truck moving down Westward.



This evening, Carol fixed a great barbeque dinner, with chicken on the grill as well as fresh pineapple slices and ears of fresh corn. A big thunderstorm moved through as we were eating dinner, and I hope it passes by in time for the fireworks down at the golf course to go as scheduled. We just need a couple of grandchildren around here (and their parents, uncle and aunts) and all would be complete.

"There's something wrong with this guy and let me tell you what it is - deceit."

Obama, right? Wrong.

No Messiahs in this race.

Why the Burglary Rate is Pretty Low

in Hialeah.

Not only Moving to the Center, but Boring a Hole In It.

The WSJ today reports that Obama may ask Robert Gates, the Secretary of Defense, to stay on during an Obama administration. MoveOn.org will love that one.

Obama Ringing "Never Again" Bells

For this gentleman, at least.

An Obama Moment

Geof Stone, a classmate of mine at the U. of Chicago Law School, describes an "Obama Moment."