KIDS + CHURCH = HILARIOUS

I found these stories on the Internet and had a good laugh.


A little girl became restless as the preacher's sermon dragged on and on. Finally, she leaned over to her mother and whispered, "Mommy, if we give him the money now, will he let us go?"


A boy was watching his father, a pastor, write a sermon.
"How do you know what to say?" he asked.
"Why, God tells me," answered his father.
"Then why do you keep crossing things out?"


A Sunday School teacher challenged her children to take some time on Sunday afternoon to write a letter to God. They were to bring their letters back the following Sunday. One little boy wrote, "Dear God. We had a good time at church today. Wish you could have been there."


Finding one of her students making faces at others on the playground, Ms. Smith stopped to gently reprove the child. Smiling sweetly, the Sunday School teacher said, "Bobby, when I was a child, I was told that if I made ugly faces, it would freeze and I would stay like that." Bobby looked up at her and replied, "Well, Ms. Smith, you can't say you weren't warned!"

Useless Facts

Some useless facts I found on the Internet today.

READER ADVISORY: SOME OF THESE ARE DISGUSTING!

• You share your birthday with at least 9 million other people in the world.
• The average human eats 8 spiders in his or her lifetime while sleeping.
• Each year, donkeys kill more people than car crashes do.
• Mosquitoes are attracted to the color blue twice as much as to any other color.
• In the USA, a pound of potato chips costs 200x more than a pound of potatoes.
• A raisin dropped in a glass of champagne will bounce up and down continually.
• You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching TV.
• Cat’s urine glows under a black light.
• Ohio is listed as the 17^th state in the USA, but it is technically # 47. Congress didn’t get around to voting on its admission to the union until August 7, 1953.
• The housefly hums in the middle octave in the key of F.
• Grapes explode when heated in a microwave oven.
• In England, the Speaker of the House is not allowed to speak.
• A donkey will sink in quicksand, but a mule won’t.
• There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.
• Dentists recommend that toothbrushes be kept at least 6 feet away from the toilet to avoid contact with airborne particles resulting from flushes.
• Walt Disney was afraid of mice.
• Turtles can breathe through their butts.
• Your fingernails have the same ingredients as fly poop.

Get Smart - Max on American History

Get Smart was one of my favorite TV shows when I was a kid. Hope you enjoy this cute clip.

February Photo Challenge

I think we all got so busy that we forgot to set a photo challenge for January. Barb has mentioned that she does not want to be the only person devising challenges, so I'll suggest a topic for February: RED!

Since February is the month of Valentine's Day, red seems like a natural fit. Also, since February is typically either brown or gray in Virginia (white occasional bursts of white), red will brighten an otherwise bland-colored month.

So, for the month of February, photograph some interesting red stuff - something other than, or in addition to, Valentine's decorations. We can also venture into the abstract realm by looking for patterns, shapes, etc. that feature the color red.

You Know You're Living in 2007 When. . .

A friend at work just handed this to me. I had to laugh because I saw myself in too many of these.

You know you're living in 2007 when:

1. You accidentally enter your password on the microwave
2. You haven't played Solitaire with real cards in years.
3. You have a list of 15 phone numbers to reach your family of 3.
4. You e-mail the person who works at the desk next to you.
5. Your reason for not staying in touch with friends and family is that they don't have e-mail addresses.
6. You pull up in your driveway and use your cell phone to see if anyone is home to help you carry in the groceries.
7. Every TV commercial has a web site at the bottom of the screen.
8. Leaving the house without your cell phone (which you didn't have for the first 20, 30 or 60 years of your life) sends you into a panic, so you turn around to go get it.
10. You get up in the morning and go online before getting your coffee.
11. You start tilting your head sideways to smile. :)
12. You're reading this and nodding and laughing.
13. Even worse, you know exactly to whom you are going to forward this list.
14. You are too busy to notice there was no #9 on this list.
15. You actually scrolled back to check that there wasn't a #9 on this list.

And now UR LOL at yourself.

Weekend at Virginia Tech University

This past Thursday evening, Dave, Joshua and I drove to Blacksburg, Virginia so that Joshua could participate in the Virginia Tech University Honor Band program. It's about a 4-hour drive each way.

Virginia Tech's Honor Band program is an opportunity for middle school and high school students to participate in an intensive clinic. This year, 550 students from 5 states participated. Their weekend began early on Friday morning with auditions. The students were then placed in one of five bands: two middle school groups and three high school groups. Joshua made it into the top band. On Friday afternoon, the bands met for their first rehearsals. The evening concluded with a concert presented by Virginia Tech's wind ensemble.

The original plan was for the kids to rehearse all day Saturday, have a free evening, then present a concert on Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately, a weather event (aka: snowstorm) prompted a change in plans. Since the storm was expected to hit Blacksburg late Sunday morning, the kids had a long rehearsal on Saturday morning, a late lunch and then a late afternoon concert. Some families left on Saturday evening. We elected to stay overnight and leave early Sunday morning.

When Dave woke up about 6 AM this morning, the snow was just starting. He quickly roused Joshua and me and we got out of town just as the snow was beginning to stick to the road. We got home about 10:30 this morning. The snow has been coming down in Fairfax for about 2 hours now. No big deal, we're only going to get 1-2 inches.

Virginia Tech has a beautiful campus nestled in the mountains of western Virginia. Most of the buildings are beautiful stone structures. The first one below is a classroom building.



This is a view of Burrus Hall, where the concerts were held. This building houses a quaint old concert hall.



This photo shows some of the details by the entrance to Burrus Hall. I wish contemporary architecture had nice details like these.



The student concert ended at about 5 PM on Saturday evening, just as the sun was setting. Since we were parked near the duck pond, I took some shots down there.




All in all, it was an enjoyable weekend. Joshua is looking forward to going back next year. Dave and I will be glad to go with him.

Eva Cassidy - Somewhere Over The Rainbow -

Eva Cassidy, one of my favorite vocal artists, was born and raised in the Washington, DC area. Strangely, her work has become more widely known since she died of cancer at the age of 33 in 1996. I'm glad she left a legacy of recordings. I wish I could take credit for this video, but it was produced by Stonewall Studios.

Crossmen 2003

This is a video of Joshua's Drum Corps, the Crossmen. This was their 2003 show, entitled, "Color." This year's show is entitled, "Metamorphosis." Joshua is being very coy. He won't tell us what the show is about. He says we will have to check the corps' web site and even - GASP - see the show for ourselves next summer. Imagine that!

Jonathan and National Capital Band

Jonathan just left to go to the weekly rehearsal of The Salvation Army's National Capital band, which is based in Washington, DC. He has no idea that I've just finished raiding the band's web site and downloading photos of him. I'm sure he'll be pleasantly(?) surprised the next time he visits my blog!

I've assembled some photos into the three panoramic images shown below. I've taken the liberty of highlighting where Jonathan is in each one since he is obviously the most important person in the group. If you want to see larger photos, click on each one.



This one has a repeat, but I'll leave it.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

How Do You Get Your News?

I have a confession to make: I have never been a big newspaper reader. I've never understood how people can spend hours on end consuming large pots of coffee and reading several newspapers a day. My preference has always been for news magazines, such as Newsweek, Time and McLean's (I loved this one when we lived in Canada).

I guess I could cite some reasons for my lifelong aversion to newsprint media. I could say, for example, that I hate getting ink all over my fingers, which is true. I could say, further, that I hate messing with large unwieldy sheets of paper that rip easily, which is also true. And, now that I can't read anything within two feet of my face without glasses, I can say, in all honesty, that newspaper print is too difficult to read, with or without my "specs."

Another confession: I've never been a big fan of TV news either. Why not? First, as Jenn demonstrated in one of her recent blog postings, most TV news coverage is superficial, if not downright banal. Second, even "news" shows that are supposed to feature commentary by and discussion between "experts" are little more than badly written, cheaply produced melodramas that feature lots of shouting, bad manners and almost zero intellectual substance.

My final confession: I spend hours each day (and night) reading news on the Internet. I read tidbits from the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN and various other web sites and blogs. I especially enjoy reading comments and responses by other readers. I like starting a story, finding a link to another interesting story, wandering around from there, then eventually coming back to where I started. I don't always return successfully to my starting place, however, since it's easy to get lost in cyberspace; sometimes I can't even remember where I started! I've just begun using a RSS feed in Yahoo! and I think, once I get accustomed to it, this is a tool I will be using a lot. For one thing, it's easy to get back to where I started if I begin wandering too far astray.

I'll close with two questions for you:

1. What's your news poison? Are you an Internet junkie, a TV fan, a newspaper addict, or an aficianado of a technology I've overlooked?
2. Why do you prefer that medium?

I'm Really Late With These. . .

I know Christmas is long past, but I finally finished the roll of film that was in my camera and got these back yesterday. That's one of the drawbacks of using film. I usually post my digital pics on the same day that I take them, or the next day.

Anyway, I caught the guys lounging around in the living room and had to try out my brand new flash diffuser.



The final photo is one I took of the Christmas tree using my brand new cross-screen (sometimes called star) filter. I think I'm going to enjoy this toy.

The 21st Century Family

This morning I decided to update my calendar - a coil-bound paper contraption - and note all of the family's pending activities for the next few months. I think it's emblematic of the age we live in that, in order to get the information I needed, I consulted several web pages, checked their events calendars and duly noted the relevant facts.

To find out about Jonathan's activities, I went here. To find out about Joshua's schedule, I went here and here. This second page also has information about events for which Dave and I will be volunteering. Another site I visited was here. I haven't copied much from this page yet. We won't know until Sunday night whether these events - and more - will be added. I just wanted to scan the horizon for possibilities. The final site I visited was here, since I don't want to overlook an important extended family event.

Last week I wrote a post about our family outing to Blues Alley. When I made the reservations in December, I immediately emailed - another sign of the age - Dave, Jonathan and Joshua and told them to clear their calendars for that evening.

Dave and I haven't made any plans yet for a winter getaway. Those will depend largely on whether Joshua gets into the Crossmen. Once we know that, we will plan accordingly. It would be nice if we could do this the old-fashioned way: in person, face-to-face. If all else fails, however, we can either confer via email or check each other's blogs for updates.

Happy Birthday, Jonathan!

Jonathan turned 23 today. I am pleased to say that he has grown into a wonderful young man. He's even-tempered, tender-hearted and generous, and when he commits to doing something he throws all of his energy into doing it well.

Jonathan is a great son who is always willing to do whatever he can to help our household run smoothly. He stops for groceries on his way home from work, drives Joshua to and from activities and runs various other errands for Dave, Joshua and me. And he asks for very little in return.

He's also been a great big brother to Joshua. He's taken his role as mentor and role model seriously and has always tried to be a good example.

In addition to be a very good cornetist/trumpet player, Jonathan loves working with people, especially children. When he's had opportunities to combine his musical talents with his people skills, he's gotten great results.

Jonathan is now preparing to enter The Salvation Army College for Officer's Training in Atlanta in either 2007 or 2008. I'm looking forward to that day because I know he has what it takes to be an outstanding officer. The Salvation Army will be privileged to have him in its officer ranks. And I'm privileged to have him for a son.

Happy Birthday, Jonathan!

Making History

Last night, the Sears family participated in an historical cultural event at our favorite jazz club, Blues Alley.


As you can see in the photo above, this club is literally located in an alley, just off Wisconsin Ave. (aka, Embassy Row). Blues Alley has been operating since 1965 and has featured many big name jazz artists, such as Dizzy Gillespie, Wynton Marsalis and Marcus Roberts. The group pictured below - the US Army Blues - can now be added to that distinguished list.


Last night was the first time an American military band ever performed in a jazz club. And we were there! Our family had a table right in front of the band, in front of two saxophone/flute players, to be precise. We were so close that Joshua and David could have turned pages for them! The band began at 6:00 PM with a jazz clinic. Unfortunately, we didn't make it to that session. Their first performance, which was sold out, was at 8:00 PM. We didn't make it to that one either. Their final performance, which was nearly sold out, took place at 10:00 PM. About two weeks ago, I managed to get reservations to that one, so that's the one we attended.

This group is good - - - very, very good. Many of their charts were arranged and/or composed by members of the group. That's good for several reasons. First, it testifies to their well-rounded musicianship; they are not just technician/players, they understand music well enough to create it from the ground up. Second, their repertoire is unique, even when they build upon standard tunes. Third, the arrangers/composers write specifically to highlight and challenge the skills of players they know. (Duke Ellington did the same thing with his bands. Instead of listing parts as first trumpet, second trumpet, etc., he listed by the parts by players' names: Eddie, George, whatever.)

The US Army Blues consists of players drawn from the larger US Army concert and ceremonial bands located here in Washington DC. This is the premier US Army musical organization in the country. There are other regional groups, but this is the one in which most US Army musicians long to play. The same standard applies to the other military branches - Navy, Air Force, Marine - the regional bands are good, but the best artists play in Washington.

The performance is only one part of the Blues Alley experience. The club itself is intriguing. From the outside, this place looks like a dive. When you go inside, the atmosphere is simple, almost Spartan: brick walls, little cocktail tables all smushed closely together. Since they can seat just 125 patrons, everybody gets a good view of the stage and the performers. Even the farthest tables are only 50 - 60 feet from the stage. The photo below shows the stage backdrop: an aged brick wall with a simple poster.


Blues Alley is a great little club. I've been to jazz clubs in Philadelphia, Chicago and Detroit, but I like Blues Alley the best. The Zanzibar Blues Club in Philadelphia has a high class ambience and people dress to the nines when they go there. But it seats several hundred people, so there is no sense of intimacy. It's more like a pricey restaurant with live entertainment. Andy's Jazz Club in Chicago is smaller than the Zanzibar but bigger than Blues Alley. The music and food are good and the ambience is pleasant, but not intimate. The club I went to in Detroit (I can't remember the name, but they serve great soul food) was much like Andy's.

Blues Alley, with its intimate ambience reminiscent of the clubs of the 20s and 30s, grinds the others to dust. Audience and performers chat together before and after the show. No matter where you are sitting, you can watch the sweat drip from the performers' brows, and examine the dings and dents in their instruments. This is the way jazz was meant to be. Listening to jazz on the radio, iPod, etc., is okay - it's certainly better than not listening at all. And concert hall performances are definitely better than recordings. But jazz in a small club - that's pretty close to heaven on earth. That's the Blues Alley experience.

Why God Never Received Tenure

1. He had only one major publication.

2. It was in Hebrew.

3. It had no references.

4. It wasn't published in a refereed journal.

5. Some doubt He wrote it Himself.

6. He may have created the world, but what has He done since?

7. The scientific community can't replicate His results.

8. He never got permission from the ethics board to use human subjects.

9. When one experiment went awry, He tried to cover it up by drowning the subjects.

10. He rarely came to class and told students, "Just Read the Book."

11. Some say He had His Son teach the class.

12. He expelled His first two students.

13. His office hours were irregular and sometimes held on a mountaintop.

14. Although there were only 10 requirements, most students failed.

Gauley Marathon: 09/18/06

This is a video of our rafting trip down West Virginia's Gauley River. I've isolated footage of our raft from the rest of the DVD and added a better soundtrack. Dave is in the front on the right-hand side. I was seated behind him in the morning. After lunch, I traded places with the lady in the rear on the left side. Enjoy!