Late breaking news! Andrew won First Place for the 2nd Grade at his school's Science Fair today! Yippeee! The winning experiment was, "Making Fluffy Buns Bigger".

Pictures and more commentary on the event later, but this is just cool! Now, if the teachers only knew the yelling, crying, meltdowns, and anguish that we put into that presentation last night....

One of the things I was taught about public speaking is to make sure you know how long you have to speak, and try not to run over. (Having an interesting topic, mannerisms, reading your audience are also important, but not for this blog entry.) It's no different when it comes to pastors speaking in church on Sundays. In fact, church pastors often get unfairly teased about "speaking too long" on Sundays, so they're usually extra sensitive about the time.

When my church recently moved into its new building (Riva Trace Baptist Church), we moved into a sanctuary much larger than the original. We took the old clock we previously had in the sound booth that the pastor used to keep track of time with us. But it didn't work in the new sanctuary. (I *think* this was the clock we had in the old church, but regardless, this clock wasn't working out...)



The clock I referred to is the clock labeled "First (Original) Clock" in the picture above. Pastor Dennis couldn't see the clock with the new lighting and because the clock sits partially in the shadows made it even harder to read. This picture was taken with my Treo camera from about where Pastor Dennis would be standing while preaching.

So the church got a second clock with red LEDs lighting up the time. Great idea. Except the clock wasn't much bigger than the original, and with the small lettering, wasn't really visible either (this clock is labeled "Second Clock" in the picture above).

So this week, the church apparently consulted with NASA to acquire a smaller version of the NASA Shuttle Countdown Clock. This clock is labeled "New Clock" in the picture above. Now *this* is a clock you can see!

Will it help Pastor Dennis finish on time? Only time will tell (no pun intended)....

My friend Tom and I both got our Treo 650s around the same time a few months back. We've had a lot of fun sharing our experiences in getting different software, etc., installed on them.

I was wondering this morning if our Treos weren't somehow linked together though. Last night, I dropped my Treo on the floor at church. It fell far enough that it bounced twice and knocked the SD memory card out of it. It stayed running though and didn't seem to have suffered any ill effects.

At about the same time, Tom's Treo mysteriously died while doing nothing. No power. No lights. No response to the charger. Nothing. Dead.

It has to make you wonder - did it die on behalf of my Treo? Hmmm?

Like many parents with kids, Zandra and I often help our son with his homework. This week, though, I am curious to find out what Andrew's teacher must have thought about us after his Wednesday spelling homework....His assignment was:

"Write sentences for each of your spelling words and use an abbreviation in the sentence. For example, 'The dog was barking on Elm St.'"

The sentences I helped Andrew with were like, "The peat moss weighed 40 lbs." and "Mr. Smith asked us whether or not we ate lunch."

The sentences Zandra helped Andrew with were like, "There is a shortage of R.N.s in hopsitals, " "The S.P.C.A. encourages you to keep your pet on a leash," and "There is a P.D.R.* on the shelves."

Hmmmm...not sure about some of those.

*P.D.R. stands for Physician's Deskside Reference

Found this little item on a mailing list at work. Hilarious.

http://www.applegazette.com/macrumors.php

Looks like the following:



The actual website has an auto-generator to create a rumor for you.

So let me make my point-of-view clear:

I am tired of all the news coverage of Anna Nicole Smith.
I am tired of all the news coverage of Britney Spears.
I am tired of all the news coverage of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and so on.

I therefore applaud the following Associated Press posting that showed up on CNN today:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/03/02/ignoring.parishilton.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

The AP had a "black out" of Paris Hilton stories for over a week. Someone *finally* understands that she isn't real news.

If only they could make that blackout permanent. And if only someone could trigger a virtual power failure about Anna Nicole Smith. It's pathetic we waste so much time, money, and resource on the funeral coverage of someone who was so promiscuous, that no less than 4 people claim to be the father of her child.