Save The Words

Some words are becoming extinct from everyday conversation.  This website wants you to adopt a word and use it in conversation to help prevent it from vanishing.

SaveTheWords.org

It does take a bit before it loads.

Posted in Interesting | Comments Off on Save The Words

Red vs Blue – Productivity and Creativity

Trying to improve your performance at work or write that novel? Maybe it’s time to consider the color of your walls or your computer screen.

If a new study is any guide, the color red can make people’s work more accurate, and blue can make people more creative.

Full Article

In short, just hang Old Glory everywhere.

Posted in Interesting | 1 Comment

Bag of Randomness

  • I think my friend DJ needs to schedule a weekend for the scholarship trustee members to meet, some of us would like to plan around such an event.
  • For the next six weeks I’ll be teaching a class on Thursday nights, which means that for the next six Fridays you may only get a Bag of Randomness, just a few posts, a normal day of posts, or nothing at all.
  • On Saturday I was lucky enough to have lunch with a high school and a college friend, and then we decided to check out Ticketstock, an event thrown by the legendary Sports Radio 1310 The Ticket.  Man, those Ticket events sure are interesting because the people that attend sure are an interesting crowd.  Yup, me included.  I actually bought the book they were selling about the station, and got it autographed by Bob, Dan, Rhyner, and Gordon.  Bob has recognized me in the past from the time I met up with him and invited him to speak to my Bible Community, but he didn’t recognize me this time around.  Gordon and I talked a little bit about this little website, but nothing major.
  • I read the introduction to the book, and it cracked me up that Line Four Guy was somewhat profiled.
  • I did see an old female college friend working a booth at Ticketstock.  In college we called her No-Concept-of-Personal-Space-Jill because she was a close-talker, but her name wasn’t Jill, I changed the name to protect the innocent.  Actually, we had lots of names for girls in college.
  • One of her first questions was a typical question an HSU student would ask, what church are you attending?  I told her the name, and she just looked at me weird.  I went on to explain it was a medium size church and that it was Presbyterian.  It also seemed as if she was a little disappointed I wasn’t going to one of the mega-churches in the area or was part of a new start-up church.
  • I’ve been a little so-so on the new U2 song, but like I said, it’s growing on me, and U2’s performance of the song last night on the 51st Grammy Awards was pretty darn good.  What’s been fun it to search the web and get different interpretations of the song.
  • I use to not like Justin Timberlake, I guess I just wasn’t much of a fan of the boy band era of the 90’s, but the guy has grown on me and I can definitely see his talent as an entertainer and his appreciation for his craft.
  • Back in the day, husbands and fathers were depicted as respectable and intelligent figures, i.e. Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best, My Three Sons, The Andy Griffith Show.  But today, you often see husbands and fathers mocked and complained about, i.e. just about everything from TV to blog posts.  So when I read this blog post from a woman praising and admiring her husband, I was extremely touched.
  • Fun with Star Wars toys.  Pic
  • Angry bread.  Pic
  • I read a little bit more about the National Prayer Breakfast.  Tony Blair had this to say, “From within it is corroded by extremists who use their faith as a means of excluding the other. … If you do not believe as I believe, you are a lesser human being.”  I think he makes a great point, but I also know a lot of folks from my past that would absolutely disagree with him.
  • The National Prayer Breakfast sure is interesting as it encompasses several different faiths.
  • There was a point in my life in which I thought compassion and kindness was only a Christian trait.
  • I had an interesting lunch the other day.  There was one girl in our group that wasn’t only the over-laugher, but had that loud high-pitched teeth shattering kind of laugh.  I also talked to a guy who’s daughter is getting married to an Italian man, and he’s helping plan her wedding that will take place in a small Italian village of less than a thousand people.  The church in which the ceremony will take place is over 400 years old.
  • Apparently Adobe Photoshop has something built into it where it can recognize money.  Pic
  • Trouble brewing at the Trinity Broadcasting Network?  LA Times Article
  • There’s hope for the Baptists yet, a dozen of them will participate in Evolution Weekend.  Link
  • There are two things I think that will never interest me, hunting and NASCAR.
  • A United Methodist Church offical supports the repeal of the “Mexico City policy.”  Link
  • These poor ducks are suffering from a drought.  Pic
  • My latest screensaver is one called “Holding Pattern Coach Class,” since I’m working at an airline and all.  Link
  • I got an invite to attend a ten year college reunion.  I have no plans on attending, but was surprised that the invitation had a buffalo on it.  A buffalo, for a school who’s mascot are the Cowboys?  Seriously, I’ve never seen anything regarding a buffalo during my college years on that campus.  Maybe the conservatives running that place are taking the end of the Bush presidency too hard.  You should have seen the support he got when he was governor at that place.
  • Australia has a coin operated self-service dog wash.  Link
  • I cracked up at SNL’s Weekend Update piece about Michael Phelps.  Hulu My favorite line, “Parents, if you kids say Michael Phelps smokes pot why can’t I?  Just say, you can right after you win 12 gold medals for your country.”
  • I bet in my lifetime, towards the end of it, pot will be legalized, highly taxed, and the tobacco companies’ profits will soar.
  • Prarie dog and bird fight for food.  Pic
  • This guy took a lot of pictures of himself.  Link
  • An easier way to learn to play a guitar.  Link
  • Congressman Twitters an Iraq Security Breech.  Article
  • Another sad sad story to put things in perspective.  Article
  • The shoplifting dog was finally caught and identified.  YouTube
  • Randall Hinton is paid $93,803 a year to do nothing for the state of NY.  Article
  • Dogs and children should bring a smile to your face.  Link
  • ‘Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you.’` St. Augustine
Posted in Goofy | 2 Comments

Dr Ben Carson

WifeGeeding and I had nothing to do on Saturday night, so we started to flip channels and I discovered that Cuba Gooding Jr was in a TNT movie  about Dr Ben Carson.  The first time I heard of this man was in a psychology class in college where the prof played a tape of Dr Carson being interviewed by Pastor Dr Robert H. Schuller.

I remember being extremely touched by this interview and have been an admirer of Dr Carson ever since.  That interview mirrors the movie, where it talks about Dr Carson going from being the dumbest kid in class to first in the class, from growing up in Detroit to becoming a world-renowned neurosurgeon at Johns Hopskins.  Two parts stood out the most to me.  His mother couldn’t read, but made her two sons read two books a week and turn in a book report to her, and she placed check marks on the paper pretending to grade them.  The other thing that stood out was his anger issue.  One time he grew angry in school and tried to stab a kid, only to have the knife hit and break apart by the victim’s belt buckle.  He ran home and asked God to take away his anger problem.

I can’t find a video of that interview, but I was able to track down the transcript.  If you have ten minutes, please check it out, you may be doing your spirit a favor.

Posted in Interesting, Pop Culture, Spiritual, Touching | 1 Comment