Okay you may ask, where is/are the camp post(s)?  Well, in short, I haven’t written it/them yet.  As you can tell from the last sentence I don’t know how many of them there will be.  Work was quite busy over the last week and I really had little time for myself when I returned home, usually around 7-ish with photos to go through and upload.  Aside from that my mother had an episode a little over a week ago that left her with a slightly fractured ankle and so I have been doing some extra work helping with that.  Her ankle will be healing for about eight weeks (one down, seven to go…)

So how about some “small world” news?  Not about me, but about one of our church’s pastors?  Both of the main pastors at my church are from Canada, though now have citizenship here.  What do most boys growing up in Canada do?  Hint- it’s not baseball, the past-time of this country.  Even I participated in that for a couple of years- one tee-ball when I was very young, and one as a very poor player in intermediate league because my best friend at the time played it.  Interesting story there- he was on the best team in the league, I was on the worst.  What do you think happened when we played each other?  A classic case of overconfidence of course, so we won.  The only game we won if I remember correctly.  Oh, well.  My interest was never really there so I didn’t practice, got stuck in right field, and the only ball I ever hit was an easily caught pop-up.

But this isn’t supposed to be about me.  I am sure you have figured out by now that what most Canadian boys do growing up is play hockey.  You know all professional athletes start somewhere, and the story of a hockey superstar intersected with the story of one of our pastors on a team together as kids.  The reason for him bringing it up in his message was about teamwork, the body of Christ working together in their separate roles defined by spiritual gifts.  The story was how he tried and failed to score a goal on his own when a teammate was wide open to pass to.  Wayne even came up to him afterward and asked why our not-yet-pastor didn’t pass the puck to him.  Oh, did I just give away the superstar?  Even though I only gave his first name, I do believe that will be sufficient as all of you of course mentally added his surname.  Being a very gifted player even at a young age, you know he would have scored that goal too.  But anyway, just as not all hockey players are goalies or forwards, just as not all baseball players are pitchers, we in Christ are not all teachers, not all pastors, not all bearing higher-profile gifts.  God has given us different gifts and we are, as I already mentioned, to use them together whether our gifts are onstage, backstage, outside, or wherever.

So… how has your week been?  Camp post(s) still coming soon.

My lunch today:

That is all.

No, not that kind of wagon- though I freely admit my first vehicle was an 80’s Chevy station wagon.  What other kind of wagon can one drive?  If you’re a creative couple, this kind:

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Yes, driving a bona-fide Radio Flyer wagon, or what is made to look like one from what was originally a pickup truck.  Here’s the link to a news story on it:

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Skunkpost: You’re never too old for a Radio Flyer

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Back to the irregularly-scheduled program on D’s life…eventually.

Quite a storm today- I don’t know if it reached OH, but it did move fast.  The sky went dark around 4PM and pouring rain followed.  Hovever, as I mentioned the storm moved fast, so within an hour it was pretty much over.  I was actually in Waukegan at the time.  We started to walk the lot when Rene took one look at the sky and decided we were done.  Good thing, because two minutes later the rain came down.  I headed home, no incidents praise God, and stopped at a local electronics store to wait out west-bound rush-hour traffic which was much worse than usual.  I actually had to turn left off of the expressway because the right-turn lanes were backed up beyond the exit toll!  One main street further south, the traffic was no better, so I turned south on 21 and went to Abt Electronics where I bought a needed new dehumidifier and played a couple games of Ms. Pac-man and Galaga which were set on free play.

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Once home, I learned that a local resale shop was struck by lightning and burned to the ground- yikes.  The lightning strike was actually witnessed by one of the pastors at my church across the street, the one who oversees all of youth and children’s ministries.  There was no mention of injuries or deaths in the article I read, praise God, though at the time of the ABC news segment they didn’t know.  The article mentioned insurance, but only for the building as the goods inside were all donated.  I know the Lord will use this as a ministry opportunity, especially with the church being right by the store, but it will obviously be awhile before the store is up and running again.  Just take a look at the news segment at ABC News Chicago:

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ABC News:  Fire destroys Palatine retail store

Just a quick post before work to let you all know of something I just read in the paper.  You can actually go up on one of NASA’s final two shuttle missions.  Well, your image can anyway.  NASA has set up a page where you can upload your photo which will be sent up in one of the shuttles- you can even select which one!  You will even get a certificate for it after the flight, though I think you have to print it out yourself.  Anyway,  here is the URL:

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https://faceinspace.nasa.gov/

Cub scout award for… video games??  Where was this award when I was in Cub scouts?  I would have aced this one easily.  Okay, there is some work involved, but still- video games?  Here’s the text from the official site:

Requirements

Tiger Cubs, Cub Scouts, and Webelos Scouts may complete requirements in a family, den, pack, school, or community environment. Tiger Cubs must work with their parents or adult partners. Parents and partners do not earn loops or pins.

Belt Loop

Complete these three requirements:

1. Explain why it is important to have a rating system for video games. Check your video games to be sure they are right for your age.
2. With an adult, create a schedule for you to do things that includes your chores, homework, and video gaming. Do your best to follow this schedule.
3. Learn to play a new video game that is approved by your parent, guardian, or teacher.

Academics Pin

Earn the Video Games belt loop and complete five of the following requirements:

1. With your parents, create a plan to buy a video game that is right for your age group.
2. Compare two game systems (for example, Microsoft Xbox, Sony PlayStation, Nintendo Wii, and so on). Explain some of the differences between the two. List good reasons to purchase or use a game system.
3. Play a video game with family members in a family tournament.
4. Teach an adult or a friend how to play a video game.
5. List at least five tips that would help someone who was learning how to play your favorite video game.
6. Play an appropriate video game with a friend for one hour.
7. Play a video game that will help you practice your math, spelling, or another skill that helps you in your schoolwork.
8. Choose a game you might like to purchase. Compare the price for this game at three different stores. Decide which store has the best deal. In your decision, be sure to consider things like the store return policy and manufacturer’s warranty.
9. With an adult’s supervision, install a gaming system.

As most of you know, I was really into gaming back in the day. I spent hours at arcades and played my Atari and Colecovision systems to death. Ah, the days…  Speaking of scouting, JustJ would be pleased to know that the boy scouts are embracing modern technology in Geocaching.  One article mentioned a merit badge, but so far what I read on their site talks more of the activity than earning a badge.  Click here and here.  Scratch what I just wrote- merit badge information can be had by clicking here.

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Oh, you probably want an update on that quiz.  Of the three that garnered the most guesses, one of them is correct.  The one with no guesses?  You are correct in that it is not us.  The other video was among the two with a single affirmative response.  So without further delay, the two videos featuring our choir (at least in audio in the case of one) are:

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1. They Didn’t Know

[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/10678741 [/vimeo]

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6. Rise and Sing

[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/10677420 [/vimeo]

Check out what the junior high kids do toward the end of the video-

I can name most of the boys from their time in 4th/5th grade, including

one who was in my cabin at camp two years ago.

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So, how did you do? 🙂

I’m not a sports fan at all, but as a kid’s ministry leader and former substitute teacher (if not a parent) I can find certain actions by kids cute.  This was a speech done at the opening day Red Sox game by a 5-year old boy.  He was very articulate, and great memorization (I would guess it was memorized) for his age.  Warning- you might be offended if you are a fan of a certain New York team or if you dislike strong language (not f-bomb strong, but fairly close) coming from a child’s mouth, though he only uses such language once I believe.

When my nephew was in 5th grade, he accidentally brought his pocketknife, the onetime staple of just about every american boy, to school.  Naturally, he got suspended.  So was he caught showing it off to his friends?  Victim of a random search?  Nope.  Realizing he did something wrong by bringing it to school, he walked up to his teacher, handed him the knife, and told him he accidentally left it in his pocket and didn’t mean to bring it to school.  He might as well have been showing it off for all that confession got him.  Thanks to zero tolerance, motive could never be considered in his punishment.  My brother said at the time his teacher should have just kept it to himself, but realistically he would have been fired if the principal somehow found out, also thanks to zero brains tolerance.

Flash forward to today, and history repeats itself on a larger scale, at least where consequences are concerned.  And to a military veteran no less.  This former soldier found a black bag in his garden, took it inside, and found a gun inside.  Being a good citizen, or so he thought, he brought it in to the police who promptly arrested him.  He has since been convicted by a jury and now faces a minimum five-year prison term.  From the article:

Prosecuting, Brian Stalk, explained to the jury that possession of a firearm was a “strict liability” charge – therefore Mr Clarke’s allegedly honest intent was irrelevant.

Just by having the gun in his possession he was guilty of the charge, and has no defence in law against it, he added.

But despite this, Mr Blackman urged members of the jury to consider how they would respond if they found a gun.

He said: “This is a very small case with a very big principle.

“You could be walking to a railway station on the way to work and find a firearm in a bin in the park.

“Is it unreasonable to take it to the police station?”

Paul Clarke will be sentenced on December 11.

Judge Christopher Critchlow said: “This is an unusual case, but in law there is no dispute that Mr Clarke has no defence to this charge.

“The intention of anybody possessing a firearm is irrelevant.”

Is this crazy, or what?  It happened in the UK, but with the way liberalism is taking hold in this country we won’t be far behind.  While we have the NRA fighting against such gun-possession laws, all it would take is a single rogue judge to interpret the 2nd Amendment the wrong way and we will be a giant step closer to life in the UK.

Oh yes, click for the entire article:

Ex-soldier faces jail for handing in gun

I’ve been waiting to post until I catch up on reading my friends’ blogs, but I am realizing that if I do that I will never post.  Sorry Taylhis, Jamiahsh, JustJ, Whatever, and even MareMare whose blog I haven’t read in over a month!  Sigh… Where does the time go?  I have a couple of normal things I want to blog about, but that will have to wait as geek.com has just now posted on a third video from the maker of the car from the past we know as Herbie the Love Bug, Volkswagen.  They have decided to take up the cause of environmentalism and try to change people’s attitudes through what they call the Fun Theory.  A couple of weeks ago they started with trying to get people to burn their own energy by using the stairs instead of the escalator.  I remember my days of visiting malls and seeing the stairs used only infrequently when they were next to an escalator.  Often though, I would use the stairs simply because they were faster than waiting behind someone on the escalator.  Of course, if there was no one on the escalator I would climb up or down them like stairs to be even faster since the stairs were moving.  Anyway, see what they did in this video:

Next, they added something to a trash can to get more people to throw their litter away:

Just today I learned about their newest video.  This one involves a bottle collector, something I have yet to see around here.  For that matter, I don’t know of any sort of effort to collect recycling outdoors.  Many places like schools have some sort of indoor recycling of course, but that’s far from a large-scale municipal effort.  Is it just my area?  Surely we’re doing it somewhere in the US?  Of course, being a European company Volkswagen made these videos on the other side of the pond we know as the Atlantic Ocean, so it may well just be a European thing.  Meet the video game bottle collector:

The videos are actually larger than the small window we get here on Tangents, so you will probably want to click on them to open them up on their Youtube pages.

Here’s probably a very unique and unusual way of preventing people from committing suicide by jumping off of bridges.  Apparently this is somewhat common in China, so some workers decided to do something about it.  The source is the same as the last article, WPTV.com:

Slippery when buttered

Last Update: 10:12 am

Chinese workers have covered a giant steel bridge with butter because officials are fed up with traffic jams caused by people who slow down to watch suicide victims leaping to their death.

In a single month eight people jumped to their death with many more threatening to end their lives on the bridge.

The butter was spread over all of the climbable surfaces and it appears to be working. Officials report they are able to get to the bridge and catch the suicide attempters.

Copyright WENN.com. Metro.co.uk contributed to this report.

Here’s hoping that missionaries over there can spread the Gospel there more quickly to these urgent cases.