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I took a regular trip to Costco, no bulking up on items out of fear, I just wanted their $5 rotisserie chicken to feed the family for a couple of days. As people pushed their cart inside, Costco employees politely stopped them so they could wipe their cart handles with an antibacterial wipe.

Sigh.

This Sunday, March 8, I will bring a special message from Revelation 15: “Is The Coronavirus A Judgment From God?” The answer may surprise you! Join us at 9:15 or 10:50am.

— Dr. Robert Jeffress (@robertjeffress) March 4, 2020

Just a friendly reminder that a different Far Side cartoon appears daily at TheFareSide.com.

Welcome to the neighborhood, 945 – Dallas-Fort Worth is getting a new area code because its population is growing so much

Officials say phone numbers starting with 214, 469 and 972 are expected to run out within the first three months of 2021.

Once they run out, that’s when the new area code 945 will be assigned.Any new numbers starting with 945 will be assigned in 2021, officials say.

Even though I’m not into it, I think drone racing is cool. But anytime I see any footage I wonder how it will be incorporated into modern warfare (perhaps it’s already is, of course, big drones with missiles are already in use but I’m talking about small fast ones). I also muse about a potential movie in which the CIA or military recruits some 19-year-old kid who does this as a hobby but considered one of the best in some underground drone racing league. Or, more darkly, how terrorists use this and what’s done to counteract the threat.

BMW’s round logo is receiving its first redesign in more than two decades.

The German automaker’s refreshed logo ditches the black ring for a transparent circle. The rest of it, including the typeface, has a flatter and more modern look. The blue and white emblem inside the ring remains.

BMW’s previous logo made its debut in 1997. The company has had six logos in its 103-year-old history, all of them largely similar.

Here’s an interesting test using a LifeStraw. This guy (could be a gal with man-hands) placed some grass and leaves in a container of water for eight days and then examined the water 100x, 400x, and 1000x magnification with and without the use of a LifeStraw. For added kicks, he put samples in a petri dish.

It’s odd that the latest Star Wars trilogy started with someone using the Force to stop blaster bolts in mid-air yet we never saw that unique defense ability again throughout the rest of the series.

New Batmobile footage.

https://twitter.com/mattreevesLA/status/1235261421425958912

My neighbor’s son passed his driving exam. His experience got me thinking of the movie License to Drive and the “Uncle Phil” coffee on the dashboard test.

Seeing Barry Corbin in last night’s Better Call Saul was an unexpected but happy surprise.

My neighbor is taking his son to take his driver’s test today. Last night he asked me if I had any cones or knew anywhere he could go so his son could practice his parallel parking. That brought back memories of the empty house lot next to Coach King’s house in Mineral Wells which had two cemented poles for driving education students to practice. For kicks, I decided to see if those poles are still there. Nope.

I doubt anyone could challenge me on this, but the most beautiful thing to ever come out of Philadelphia (well, other than our country’s founding documents because this is America and all) is Grace Kelly. And now for some Grace Kelly trivia, her father won three Olympic gold medals for sculling (rowing) and owned a successful brickwork contracting company. FDR appointed him as the National Director of Physical Fitness. Her mother was the first woman to coach women’s athletics at the University of Pennsylvania. And, her Aunt Edna created the question mark. OK, that last sentence is totally false (I think).

I filed my taxes yesterday. For the second time in our life, we won’t get anything back. But that was somewhat expected as WifeGeeding moved from working part-time as a director of a preschool to becoming a fulltime kindergarten teacher.

Years ago I hired a roofing company to install radiant barrier foil in the attic. Recently, a significant portion has fallen off so I asked if they would come out and repair it. Initially, they quoted me $500 for labor but I pointed out to them that their website states parts and labor are warranted for a lifetime. The owner thanked me for pointing out what’s on his website because he had no idea that was on there and kuddos for him as he honored what was on there.

Former White House physician Ronny Jackson is running for a seat in Congress for Texas’s 13th District. He recently admitted to trying to get President Trump to exercise and hiding cauliflower in his mashed potatoes. Maybe that’s why he plays a lot of golf, he’s just trying to get his exercise.

“The exercise stuff never took off as much as I wanted it to,” he said. “But we were working on his diet. We were making the ice cream less accessible, we were putting cauliflower into the mashed potatoes.”

The former physician left the White House after withdrawing his name for consideration as the nominee to become the Veterans Affairs secretary amid allegations of professional misconduct.

Japan is getting mayonnaise slices.

Created by Japanese food giant Bourbon, the unusual condiment which will be launched next month, has divided reaction on social media. The slices follow on from the company’s foray into chocolate spread slices, which was a roaring success. Some Twitter users have dubbed them an innovative solution to saving time when making sandwiches and called them ‘the best thing since sliced bread’, while others claim it’s ‘disgusting’ and ‘a step too far’.

I’m panicking just watching this.

It doesn’t matter how big they get, they will always be our babies pic.twitter.com/JhaesiDJP8

— Woof Woof® (@WoofWoof_TV) March 2, 2020

DaughterGeeding and her Destination Imagination team competed in regionals this past Saturday. Last year was her and her team’s first year competing and they got first place and competed in state. There will be no return to state as they came in third place this year. They all took the loss well. For those of you familiar with Destination Imagination, her team Fine Arts challenge was Picture This, and if you are an X-Files fan, you may appreciate the photo her team had to theatrically recreate.

In Destination Imagination, they don’t have “judges”, they have “appraisers”. Their work isn’t being judged, it’s being appraised, we’re told.

Regionals this year were held at R.L. Turner High School. On display in the main hallway was a time capsule opened in 2012 year but buried 25 years ago in 1987.  That 7-Up can looks older than expected, very soup can like.

In the cafeteria, I noticed there was a spot students could leave and take unopened food packages instead of tossing them, which I thought was nifty.

 I find pastrami to be the most sensual of all the salted, cured meats.

The world’s largest privately-owned giant sequoia forest is now protected

A conservation group has closed a $15.65 million deal to buy the largest privately owned giant sequoia grove left on Earth, an ancient forest with hundreds of the endangered redwood trees, which can live for 3,000 years and rise nearly as tall as the Statue of Liberty.

Now it’s their responsibility to make sure the forest area is raked to prevent forest fires.

Even though John Dickerson can be a little vanilla, I love his work and insight. I was excited to see he’s written a book and I’ve already pre-ordered it. Kuddos on the cover. When I think of presidents stressing over the job, it’s either that LBJ photo I think of or that one with JFK hunched over a table looking out the Oval Office window.

On June 9 my new book will come out. I hope people will find it useful. This is what the cover will look like. If you would like to pre-order you may so here: https://t.co/nBnQiUmrUS pic.twitter.com/uPWdGIgC45

— John Dickerson (@jdickerson) February 28, 2020

GeedingManor was in need of a few minor roof repairs so I contacted a company I’ve done business with before. The roofer they sent out, who couldn’t have been nicer or more professional, only had one leg and was one of the more in-shape and nimble men in his forties I’ve ever come across. He also has one other birth defect, one of his pinkies bends at 90-degrees. He said it never bothers him, doesn’t know any different, and he even plays guitars with that hand.

Anytime I hear someone use a variant of “the Bible clearly says” I get very concerned about what’s gonna come out next. Sure, the black and white (and sometimes red-lettered) text of the modern-day English translation may specifically state something, but it’s reckless to ignore the context of the surrounding text, chapters, and book, and especially the culture and time period of the people involved as well as the author. Furthermore, after 2000 plus years, you have to consider what can be lost or confused in translation from the original text. Heck, our own English language has changed a just from 200 years ago, it can be a challenge reading documents written by the Founding Fathers. This piece from the Declaration of Independence doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue.

“He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

The Bible is powerful, but you have to be cautious when interpreting and especially preaching from it. I’m more apt to say the Bible doesn’t clearly say a lot. It’s full of metaphors and poetry and imagery. Christianity has three major sects or branches,  Catholic, Protestant and (Eastern) Orthodox. And that can be further broken down into denominations such as Baptist, Episcopalian, Methodist, Anglican, etc., etc.). We have these differences because of a difference in interpretation of “what the Bible clearly says.” Each has schools of theology and seminaries supported with a plethora of dissertations on why scripture should be interpreted and practiced in a particular way.

All of this reminds me of something pastor Andy McQuitty of Irving Bible Church once told me. He sent a letter to a handful of churches of various denominations asking what they believed about a woman’s role in church leadership. Most replied back constructively referencing scripture and how it supported their belief on the subject matter. One church replied back bluntly with, “We believe what the Bible says.” McQuitty then added, “Ohhhhkaaaay. We know what the Bible says, but what does it say.”

Theological rant over. My apologies. And yes, I know I’m on the monorail to Hell, I even got a Fastpass for it.

The likelihood of a mass shooting occurring at Lewisville’s Music City Mall is nil. For there to be a mass shooting, there has to be mass. It’s hard to spot more than two people at a time in that place.

When it comes to the two Christian based fast-food giants, Chick-fil-A and In-N-Out, I say Chick-fil-A does better with customer service but In-N-Out does better with quality and cleanliness.

I like going to Chick-fil-A to get a chicken biscuit (the best fast tasting food breakfast sandwich by far) between 10:00 – 10:30 AM because I can get waffle fries. I’ve never been a fan of their version of hashbrowns.

Yesterday, I received two pieces of mail from the Bloomberg campaign as well as a text message.

Today’s dose of ‘MURICA!

If you’ve ever reached for an afternoon snack and found yourself wildly disappointed, our new Snackin’ Bacon with Sweet Black Pepper seasoning will cure those afternoon blues. Here at Dunkin’, we’ve been working hard to formulate the perfect afternoon pick-me-up and really, what’s better than a bag full of bacon?

https://twitter.com/RexChapman/status/1232723545886744576

What’s up with mugshots as of late? Lori Vallow is the Idaho woman who has two missing children but remarried and moved to Hawaii. Then there is the woman who has several aliases who posed as a newborn baby photographer and drugged a woman via cupcake in an attempt to steal her baby. Both of their mugshots have them looking slightly to their right as if they are characters on The Simpsons.  I always thought mugshots had to be facing directly at the camera.

That Lori Vallow case sure is interesting, there’s got to be a Netflix docuseries in the works. Between her and her new husband, Chad Daybell (who married her three weeks after his wife died), are three deceased former spouses – her brother shot and killed her husband claiming self-defense. Months later, her brother also died, although it’s not clear how. Her first husband died young of a heart attack and she had the body cremated. And then there’s this added element.

Vallow reportedly believes she is a “god assigned to carry out the work of the 144,000 at Christ’s second coming in July 2020,” according to divorce documents her late husband Charles Vallow filed before his death.

Daybell has written several apocalyptic novels based loosely on the theology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Both he and Vallow have been involved in Preparing a People, a group that promotes preparing for the biblical end times.