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• I’m still suffering from symptoms from my concussion and finally saw a doctor about it. He prescribed ten days worth of prednisone.
• It’s become a bit of a holiday tradition for WifeGeeding’s family to eat at Neiman Marcus. That’s how yesterday’s afternoon was spent, and they are always gracious enough to pick up the tab. I’m definitely out of my comfort zone when I’m at those sort of places and feel I stick out like a sore thumb.
• Before I became a parent, I imagined doing a lot of things or experiencing a lot of “firsts” with my kids, only to realize some of them really aren’t as big as deal as I hoped and some things just don’t work out as you’d like. However, we have watched the first two (in order of original release) Star Wars movies as a family. What’s great is they are really into it, even though they already know some major plot elements, like who’s Luke’s father. But what I really cherished last night was watching my son’s face as he saw Yoda use the Force to raise Luke’s X-Wing out of the swampy water. I looked quite a bit like BoyGeeding at his age, and I remember watching that scene in awe, so it was almost like me going back in time to watch myself watch that scene for the first time. It was magical.
• If a genie granted me three wishes, one of them would be wasted on the ability to fart silently, no matter the amount of force behind in.
• DaughterGeeding class finished reading Bambi in class this week, so we watched the Disney movie yesterday. It was the first time she’s read a book and then saw a movie, so it was interesting gauging her reaction. Without any prodding or influence from us, her first words were, “That was nothing like the book, the book was better.”
• WifeGeeding cooks breakfast for me once a year, on Christmas morning. It’s a tradition for her family to eat French toast that morning. I don’t like French toast (but I do love their fries), so she’s kind enough to scramble me some eggs. Sadly, the kids don’t really like French toast all that much either, but she’s a trooper and adjusting.
• I’m not sure why this GIF of a crow’s ear freaked me out, but it did.
• Ten years ago, imagine how strange a sentence about President-Elect Trump tweeting about nuclear weapons would be. Okay, that is even strange for today.
• Since the election, there has been news of people engaging with Trump’s children on commercial flights. I would have thought they flew privately, especially after the election. The campaign lasted for almost two years, if they flew commercially then, I’m sure there would have been reports on social media of them being approached or harassed and going viral. And for the record, just because they do fly commercially, they shouldn’t be harassed.
• Trump sure does like to shake things up and isn’t much for the formality, but that’s what his voters wanted. It’s traditional for the presidents-elect to defer to the concept of the U.S. only having one president at a time and will yield to the current administration until the official peaceful transfer of power. This is an interesting ride. I remain hopeful, but it shall be interesting.
• Carter is only former president to RSVP for Trump’s inauguration – The Clintons and George W. Bush are still weighing whether to show up for Trump’s celebration next month.
• Christmastime clash: Baptists, leader divide over Donald Trump
• Though most of my readers aren’t fond of President Obama, I thought this TIME (yeah, I know, liberal media) article was insightful. But surely no one can disagree with this line (gulp) regarding his (or any president’s) legacy:
  • Such debates are good. They are the stuff of history and the currency of a free society, and Obama’s impact will be discussed and reexamined for years.
• At the time of this posting, I couldn’t find any news outlets to support this Reddit post, but here’s an image of former president George W. Bush dressed as Santa visiting sick children, and it’s noted the Secret Service were dressed as elves. Some Reddit comments that made me chuckle:
  • If some serious sh_t went down, those elf costumes would make it the most surreal shootout ever.
  • Christmas Accomplished.
  • “Heh heh. There’s a little saying we have at the North Pole. I know it’s in Texas, probably at the North Pole. Be naughty once… shame on… shame on you… Be naughty… Ya won’t be naughty again.”
  • “Join the Secret Service, they said. Protect the President, they said. Wear awesome suits, they said…”
• “Keep riding that white horse” – Art Briles wrote in an email thanking Starr – Wall Street Journal – The school’s former president reinstated a troubled football player over the objections of other administrators
• One issue I have with the Baylor alums I frequent is they seemed more upset with former university president Robert Sloan’s “Baylor 2012” strategy and work to get him ousted than what all has unearthed in the past year. I bet Sloan isn’t pleased with all that transpired, but sure glad he didn’t have to help manage it.
• I’m disgusted by how the University of Oklahoma and Bob Stoops have handled the situation of how their starting running back assaulted a woman. Especially the comment on how the span of two years makes a difference.
• Killing hatred with kindness: Black man has convinced 200 racists to abandon the KKK by making friends with them despite their prejudiced views
• I post links to Benjamin L. Corey blog often, usually with the disclaimer that I neither endorse or oppose him, but appreciate how he will add to theological thought or discussion.
  • No, Jesus Wasn’t Born To Die (The Part of the Christmas Story We Screw Up)
    • When the angels announce the birth they say, “Fear not! For behold, we bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day a savior, who is Christ the Lord…” The angels went on to praise God, saying “Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth toward humanity, with whom he is well pleased.“ But wait? God sent Jesus because he was pleased with us? If the Bible were to line up with the “Jesus came to die” narrative, shouldn’t they have been a bit more clear in telling people that God was really, really angry with them, but that they could now have hope because his son came to take the beating for us? The idea that Jesus came to die also hits a brick wall when considering other principles we know from the Bible.
    • Jesus didn’t come to die– he came to show us how to live. Jesus came to show us how drastically we had misunderstood God– that God does not delight in sacrifices.
• Why time management is ruining our lives – All of our efforts to be more productive backfire – and only make us feel even busier and more stressed
• Dallas Morning News – Oh, Dallas, I found our long-lost, never-before-seen, 100-year-old city flag
  

• WifeGeeding’s friend invited us to watch Home Alone with her family at the local theater and we obliged. The neighboring screen was showing Rogue One. I was tempted to see if the family would miss me.
• I forgot the great John Williams did the score for the movie and that it was a John Hughes joint. It’s not one of my favorite movies, but I’m glad the family enjoyed it.
• While watching the movie, I thought there was a lot of Tom and Jerry humor. And, as I like to do, I like to check out the IMDB trivia page after watching a flick, and was surprised some consider it a loose remake of First Blood:
  • The film is considered to be a loose remake of First Blood (1982) and this film does bare some similarities: In this film, Kevin is bullied by his family, especially by Buzz and Uncle Frank. Kevin gets sent to the attic for the rest of the night, when Buzz eats of all Kevin’s cheese pizza, causing Kevin to go berserk and attack Buzz, leaving Kevin starving, since none of the family left any pieces of pizza for Kevin and Kevin sets traps on Marv and Harry when Kevin is left alone to defend the family home. In First Blood (1982), John Rambo is wrongly arrested by Sheriff Will Teasle who won’t allow Rambo to stop in town for a meal. Rambo is abused and mistreated by Teasle and his deputies. When Deputy Arthur Galt tries to dry shave Rambo, Rambo goes berserk and attacks the deputies. And in the woods, to which Rambo flees, when he escapes from police custody, Rambo sets traps for Teasle’s deputies.
• Rogue One cast member, Alan Tudyk, is from Plano and graduated from the now defunct Lon Morris College. That’s only notable because WifeGeeding’s father was part of the board of directors or something similar. Other notable alumni are Sandy Duncan and three-time Emmy winner Margo Martindale, who just kills it in FX’s ‘The Americans’.
• The most attractive meteorologist on CBS11 had a brain freeze yesterday afternoon with her forecast, confusing east for west. She paused for a moment and had to do the Never Eat Sunny Waffles mnemonic.  I prefer using “Soggy” instead of “Sunny”.
• He seems to be doing well for 91 – Dick Van Dyke to Appear in ‘Mary Poppins’ Sequel
• He’s the rookie quarterback who sends flowers – Emmitt Smith thanks Cowboys QB Dak Prescott for this classy gesture after passing of his mother
• Too late for a Christmas gift, but you can still get them for your New Year’s Eve party:
  
• Gizmodo – This Deep Sea Fisherman Posts His Discoveries on Twitter and OH MY GOD KILL IT WITH FIRE
• How a Defense of Christianity Revolutionized Brain Science
  • Presbyterian reverend Thomas Bayes had no reason to suspect he’d make any lasting contribution to humankind. Born in England at the beginning of the 18th century, Bayes was a quiet and questioning man. He published only two works in his lifetime. In 1731, he wrote a defense of God’s—and the British monarchy’s—“divine benevolence,” and in 1736, an anonymous defense of the logic of Isaac Newton’s calculus. Yet an argument he wrote before his death in 1761 would shape the course of history. It would help Alan Turing decode the German Enigma cipher, the United States Navy locate Soviet subs, and statisticians determine the authorship of the Federalist Papers. Today it has helped unlock the secrets of the brain.
• Dallas doesn’t deserve such a nice guy like Dirk
  • He slipped into the hospital, as he’s done for a decade now, with a jolly disposition and enough Christmas presents to fill a large rolling bin. 
  • Nowitzki fans generally know about his philanthropy and particular soft spot for kids, but the public never has had a window into Uncle Dirk’s hospital visits because he wouldn’t allow it, no offense intended. No press releases. No photo ops. Not a solitary tweet. After lengthy deliberation, he’s consented to The News shadowing him during this visit, but with a request: That the story be about the “courageous” kids, their “amazing” families and the “incredible” doctors and nurses.
• Dallas Observer – Burnt Ends, Beef Ribs and Bacon: The Best DFW Barbecue of 2016
  • The bacon burnt ends at Heim Barbecue got my attention.
• Dead Seahorses and a Fake Corpse: Top 10 Weirdest Things the TSA Found in 2016

• That’s a pretty creative pop-culture Christmas ornament.
• WifeGeeding drove to East Texas with the kids a day early, so I borrowed SisterGeeding’s Mini Cooper since the Nissan Leaf can’t’ make it that far. I’ve sat in many cars, but that Mini Cooper had the most comfortable seats I’ve ever sat in. It made for quite a pleasurable two-hour (four, there and back) driving experience. Those Mini Coopers are a lot faster than I thought.
• When I left Lindale, the car’s dashboard stated the outside temperature was 76°F. Forty-minutes later, it read 30°F. When I got out of the car to fill up with gas, I can’t recall feeling wind that strong or biting cold in my life. I saw this sign posted on the gas station door. I can understand the safety concern regarding the hoodies, but I don’t for the pants.
  
• I don’t care if Jerry Jones or his son are rich beyond their dreams or how successful and famous they are, none of that should take away the joy and pride they had in watching their grandson/son win the state championship in high school football as the team’s starting quarterback. And I don’t care how rich and privileged that child is, he can’t control the circumstances of how his father and grandfather are. For him to quarterback his team to a high school state championship in the stadium his family is responsible for is quite unique. There’s no telling how much crap he had to listen to from opposing players about who he’s related to.
• Attendance for the game was just a tad over 35,000.
• It was interesting seeing Tony Romo watch Jerry’s grandson play in the state championship game sitting next to Jerry in the owner’s suite. The kid does wear Romo’s number. But I thought it was even cooler for Stephen Jones to just be sitting in the stands with other parents. And I’ll hand it to Jerry, he didn’t walk appear on the field until after the champions had some time to celebrate for themselves, it’s like he understood (for once) his presence would be a distraction.
  
• The Wall Street Journal had a feature on Jerry Jones yesterday.
• During Cowboys home games, the broadcast team will often show a profile of the new practice facility, similar to this one. What’s misleading is that field is just a gathering area for the public and not used by the players, the actual outdoor practice fields are out of the picture, located mid-left of the domed structure.
  
• Random house in University Park. The Big Tex head really sells. it
  
• Non-spoiler Rogue One: A Star Wars Story thoughts
  • We watched the movie at the Harkins Theater Cine Capri, which was a first for me. The screen was massive and the theater was a tad swanky with the curtains hanging around the screen. Before the start of the movie, the curtains close and cover the screen, a man in a suit comes out with a microphone to welcome the audience, he boasts about the size of the screen and the quality of the surround sound, asks for everyone to either turn off their phone or set it to silent, and then the curtains open again and the previews start.
  • Before the start of the movie, I jokingly asked my friend if he had any hand lotion because my hands were dry. About a minute later, a woman sitting in front of us handed me a bottle of lotion.
  • They decided to do away with some Star Wars tradition you see at the start of the film, which felt odd, but it had my blessing with how it was done.
  • I felt The Force Awakens forced too many things in how they connected old characters or with some comedic moments, I only sensed it one time in this film, but I was okay with it for the most part.
  • I first saw it in Ant-Man with Michael Douglas and then again with Robert Downey Jr. in Captain America: Civil War. Special effects have made it possible to make the actors appear as their younger selves, and this Star Wars film was able to resurrect dead actors and use them substantially in incredibly real detail.
  • One character for the Empire wore a white uniform which stood. All I could think of was Col. Nathan Jessup from A Few Good Men commenting on whta he thinks of white military uniforms.
  • A lot of movies and television shows will try to push a strong female lead and/or diverse cast, and in doing so, the quality of the product is diminished. This film accomplished it and you don’t even notice it. There’s no replacing a strong storyline and with good acting.
  • The Darth Vadar scenes alone was worth the price of admission.
  • This film’s storyline takes place before A New Hope, or the very first Star Wars film ever released. I really appreciate the technology and designed they used to keep that same feel of the original trilogy. One major complaint of prequels George Lucus did was that the storyline took place before the original films but the design and technology used by the characters looked more advanced.
• Obama got pranked by the White House staff

Sometimes you gotta have fun. For the past three weeks, there have been four snowmen on display in the Rose Garden (see photo in earlier post). We’ve been joking that we should move the snowmen a few feet closer to the Oval Office every day to see if anyone noticed. Then we realized the snowmen were too heavy to easily lift. But finally this morning before the President came to the office, some helpful staff–I won’t say who–moved all the snowmen so each one was peeking through a different window into the Oval. This photo was taken this afternoon as the President signed end-of-the-year bills.

A photo posted by Pete Souza (@petesouza) on Dec 16, 2016 at 1:47pm PST