M10 show Week # 124

 

An' this week's show brought ta you  by Red Robin Burgers, where...

Wait a minute!  Are you doing a commercial?

Well, I got ta thinkin', we oughta let 'em know what we just et in a more... "commercial-like" way, an' if'n they hear about it, maybe we can make some money on the side...

And that's exactly how you get charged for putting posts on Facebook and X/Twitter, and end up being labeled spam...

Serious?  But ah seen other people do it...

Other people monetize their blogs.  If I did that, we'd probably have made 15 cents by now... 

Off this post?  That ain't...

Off 14 years of blogging!

Ouch.  Okay, so what's up this week?

1973 this week, and one debut, a third time for Shannon and the Clams, at #7...

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Wow... that's a number one if'n I'm a judge...

Pretty much my thoughts.  So lets look at this week in 1973, and what 11 year old Chris would have on his list...

We ain't gonna go fetch you from then, are we?

No, that would cause a metacrisis in the Tardis.  Besides, I was a dork...

On the right, just under the lady in the chair (That's no lady, that's my sister Pete!), hamming it up.  See, dork.

Uh, I hate ta agree wit' ya, but... point made.

So this week in Australia, they were in the sixth of seven weeks for Dawn's Tie A Yellow Ribbon 'Round The Old Oak Tree- a song that had hit #1 across North America a couple of months back, and was on this week's Cashbox chart at #34 in its 21st week.  In Canada, Clint Homes and Playground In My Mind was the topper- it was 5 here, on its way to #2, while Australia- who agreed with us once this week and will not a second time- peaked it at 66.  At one point, the song has a little girl singing, "My name is Cindy...", which was notable because I had a crush on a Cindy at the time....

Oh, how innersting!  

Geez, can a fellow reminisce? (NOTE:  I'm stunned I spelled THAT right the first time!)  Here, queue it up whilst I prepare my top 5...

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That wuz so cute..

Are you crying?

Nah, I gotta bug in my eye!  Durn gnats!

Uh-huh.  So here go my top 5...

5- Paul Simon, Kodachrome.  #7 on its way to 2 here, it peaked the same in Canada, and 20 in Australia.

4- Seals and Crofts, Diamond Girl.  Moving up to 28 this week, it would stop at 6- just like their other two big hits- here, 13 in Canada, 57 in Australia.

3- The Spinners, One Of A Kind (Love Affair).  Moving to #10 this week, here it would stop at 8, 16 in Canada, and as per usual with Motown- style tunes, wasn't released Down Under.

2- Doobie Brothers, Long Train Running. At 14 this week, it would make #8 across North America, and 58 in Australia.

And my top song this week?

1- The Carpenters, Yesterday Once More.  Making the 11 notch jump to 20 this week, it would hit the top across North America and #9 in Australia.

That's close to agreeing... 

Yep, not a bad way to finish that look-see!  You got the rest of the M10?  I know 9 songs is more than you're used to handling...

Oh, hardy-har-har!  Get back, Jack, an' let a professional do this...

10- and 10 weeks on, fer Real Estate an' Somebody New, fallin' from 5.

9- Another dropper, Wings an' Juniors Farm down 6...

8- Up 2 fer the Decemberists an' Oh, No....

6- Back up 3 fer Lake Street Dive an' Better Not Tell You...

5- an' 3 fer the Man In Black an' Well, Allright...

4- an' up 2 fer Lucius and friend with Go Home...

3- an' up one- and a classic line up with them an' Lucius in the countdown- Geowulf an' Dolly...

2- an' holdin', Lorde an' Take Me To The River...still leadin' the Songs of Summer...

An' a second week at the top fer...

...Rainbow Kitten Surprise with Meticulous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not bad, Mr Professional... I only counted 19 mispronounced words or words with the ends chopped off...

HEY!  You type my lines right!

If I did that, people would think you were Wayne Newton....

Pastor fail

 

I'm going to say something about a pair of recent falls by Pastors I listened to on the radio and had/have respect for.  No, I'm not going to tell the stories, and I'm not going to identify them.  But I am going to address what we all need to learn, whatever the circumstances.

To we, the people:

First of all- We worship the God, not the man.  To the non-Christian, it is oh so easy to say, "This just goes to prove..."  But all it proves is the lesson every good preacher drills into you from day one:  We are fallen.  We are human.  We mess it up.  God is not tainted by our failings; faith is not rendered impotent when a pastor falls.  If you have a relationship with Jesus Christ, that relationship goes on.  So does the pastor's, if he had one in truth.

Second- The victim is not damned for being the victim, for being the one who 'brought him down.'  The victim is the victim, and needs our prayer first and foremost, whether we are praying for, mourning, or damning the pastor.  And the pastor doesn't need damning, mourning, or defending.  He needs help- and for most of us, that means he needs our prayer.

For the pastors out there:

This NEEDS to be a wake up call.  One man at least ended up this way by using the logic Satan used in the Garden.  Confession- but only to the point he could get back on the horse after a time and ride on.   He forgot there are three parts to the testimony:  the truth, the WHOLE truth, and nothing but the truth.

What that means for you, not that pastor, is you'd better examine YOUR closet.  Time grows short, and God is going to allow Satan to expose what we hide.  If you have had to come clean about something, good.  Make sure you tell the whole story.  If you don't, Satan will make sure someone else will.

For the Church elders-

This one group of elders did an investigation when the pastor was hired.  They investigated until they found what they wanted to find, were satisfied, and whipped out the 'approved' stamp.  That doesn't cut it, and now they are having to do a NEW investigation, due to several-decades old "new" information.

Lesson:  Investigate until you hit the TRUTH, whether you want it to be the truth or not.  This group took a man at his somewhat ambiguous word, and now every person who is haunted by having listened to this pastor- every one who bought one of his books- everyone who is doubting their salvation because they were led to it by this man- that is all on THEIR ledger.  And even though it is a different group of men by now on that board, the current board, and the church they run, all bear the taint in the eyes of the world.  Their witness will never be the same.

For that pastor:

I ask you now- you fudged the line between fact and fantasy, because instead of asking GOD whether you should return to ministry, you wanted so bad to get back to "your calling" that you would lie (because that's what it was) to do it.  Look around you at all the people you hurt because not what you did, but what you did ABOUT it.  You've preached David and Bathsheba, you knew it wasn't worth it.  I just hope you have a Nathan to make you see the sin from the outside and make you angry at it, because until you are, your repentance and your "rehab" just isn't worth on of your books in the 'free to good home' bin.

Wednesday Bible Study: The fourth seal

 

Rev 6:8  And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider's name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth. 

Rom 8:1  There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 

I have to put these two verses together, to give you the full picture of the conclusion of the first four seal judgments.  Romans 8:1 in light of Revelation 6:8 is the greatest proof for the rapture- There is to be no condemnation of those who trust in Jesus.  I want to give you this, if you get nothing else from this, in very elemental terms.  Hades- Greek Hell- follows the deaths that come from these four horsemen.  EVERYONE WHO DIES THIS DEATH GOES TO HELL.  

Now, as the Tribulation- the "week of years" before the end- goes on, some will be given chances.  There will be 144,000 Jewish evangelists.  There will be the miraculous two witnesses who many believe are Elijah and Moses.  And there will be a mighty angel that proclaims one last chance.  But not for this judgment.

A quarter of mankind.  We don't know how many that will be, what with the believers removed, how much larger the population will be at the time, etc.  If we went by what the population of the earth is right now, it would make for 2 BILLION deaths.  To get a grasp on that, consider:  All the wars of the 20th century combined killed an estimated 187 million.  That is 9 percent of 2 billion.  All the famines of the 20th century took another 70 million- another 3.5 percent.   At the current rate of all deaths per year, this would be about 35 years worth of deaths all crammed into one spot in time.

There are four causes of these deaths- war, famine, sickness, and wild beasts.  500 million each?  Brian Martin in 1983 estimated 500 million could die from radiation in a nuclear war, so maybe.  Think on this:  What kind of world is it when animals can kill 500 million people?  You can only get over a million deaths by animal per year if you count mosquitoes passing on malaria.

This horseman is called by the Living Creature with the face "like an eagle flying".  Eagles soar to the highest parts of the sky; Isaiah explains to us that Hell is in the opposite direction:

Isa 14:9  Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. 

Isa 14:10  All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us? 

Isa 14:11  Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. 

Isa 14:12  How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! 

And weaken the nations he has- through his Anti-Christ, his wars, his human-created famine... and it only gets worse.   Unless of course, Romans 8:1 lives in you.

Yearly Hockey post

 This was a pretty good year for the Family Hockey League, the subject of this post, mainly for my records.  I won't be hurt (much) if you bail on it now.  

We had a lot of Champions this year.  League championships were won in the UK (My Sheffield, who also took the regular season and the Challenge Cup), Norway (Shenan's Storhamar, also the Reg season champ), France (My Rouen, who also took the reg season title), Austria (Misty's Salzburg), the KHL (Again, Misty with Magnitogorsk, the conference champ), Denmark (My Sonderjyske, who also took the Danish Cup), Czechia (Again, me with Trinec), Latvia (Misty's Mogo, a funny story coming up here), and Belarus (Laurie's Zhlobin).  In addition, we had regular season winners- besides those mentioned- in Czechia (Laurie's Pardubice), Slovakia (KC's Poprad), Poland (Laurie's Katowice), Latvia (Laurie's Zemgale), Sweden (my Farjestad), and another conference championship with Shenan's Dallas Stars.  Add to that a few miscellaneous championships: Laurie's Pardubice wins the Dolmitan Cup; my Cortina taking the Serie A and Italy Super Cups; Misty's Brasov- a team that competes in the Hungarian (which we follow) and Romanian leagues (which we don't)- wins the  Hungarian championship AND the Romanian Cup AND the Romanian championship; Shenan's Tychy with the Polish Cup, and the Polish Super Cup; and KC's Grenoble taking the French Cup.

The funny stories along the way:  Last year in Latvia, Misty's Mogo was unbeatable in the reg season, but loses in the finals to Laurie's Zemgale.  This year, it was Laurie invincible in the reg season, with Mogo pulling the upset in the finals.

Another: Katowice and Pardubice- both Laurie's teams- lost double OT game sevens in the finals of their leagues.

A third: Shenan's Punk Vilnius in Latvia went into the fourth to last game of the season 0-28, averaging a 7-2 loss every night.  Fourth to last game of the year, they rise up for a 4-3 win at last, only to lose the last 3 by a combined 26-2.

Shenan again, the second straight year her Belarussian team Vitebsk got off to a tremendous start, struggles at the end, and gets dumped early in the playoffs.  It took a lot longer for the collapse this year, and it wasn't the bottom dropping out like it was in 2022-23, but the end result was sadly the same.

OH, and almost forgot.  My Swiss team, Geneve Servette, who won it all last year, struggled all season, bounced in a play-in round- and still stunned the world by becoming the first team to win the Champions League Title!  Go figure.

I like to divide the stats into Euro and North American leagues, what with the disparity in games and style played.  The Euro scoring champ was Peter Quennville of Shenan's Storhamar with 72 points; Anthony Romani of KC's North Bay in the Ontario League took the NA title with 115.  Auston Matthews of Toronto was the goal champ in NA with his 70 (with the 1 playoff goal).  Matthias From of Laurie's Herning from Denmark edges out Quennville for the Euro Goal title 44-43.

The Goalie champs: Save %, William Rosseau of Rouyn-Noranda (Quebec League) .924 and Maxim Malyutin of Shenan's Vitebsk in Belarus, .935.  Wins go to Matthew Greenfield of Sheffield with 38 and (reg season) Juusi Saros of Laurie's Nashville with 35.  GA Ave it was Rosseau at 2.24 and Malyutin at 1.69.  The shutout race was Rousseau and Tristan Jarry of KC's Pittsburgh Penguins with 7 in NA, the Euro by Greenfield with 10.

This years top 25:

1 Sheffield, UK, Chris.  59-9, Won the British trifecta of reg season, playoffs and Challenge cup.

2 Storhamar, Norway, Shenan. 53-5, rolled to re season and playoff titles.

3- Pardubice, Czech, Laurie.  62-20, a reg season title, a 2-1 2OT loss to my Trinec in finals game 7.  Also won the Domlitan Cup.

4- Vitebsk, Belarus, Shenan. 51-18, lost in 1st round to KC's Brest. 10-0 in winning Belarussian Cup.

5- Rouen, France, Chris.  52-16, swept the Reg season and playoff titles- lost the first two games in the finals before winning 4 straight.

6- Mogo, Latvia, Misty. 35-6.  Lost the reg season title to Laurie's Zemgale on head-to-head, but took her 4-1 in the finals.

7- Magnitogorsk, KHL, Misty.  60-31, swept my Lokomotiv 4-0 in finals.

8- Katowice, Poland, Laurie. 47-19, lost a double overtime 1-0 game seven in finals.

9- Sparta Prague, Czech, KC. 45-18.  Lost a 3-2 OT game seven to my Trinec in semis.

10- Rouyn-Noranda, QMJHL, Misty.  52-26, suffice it to say all our junior teams struggled in the playoffs.  First year we had nobody in the Canada Cup.

11- Sonderjyske, Denmark, Chris.  46-20, won the Danish Cup, beat KC's Esbjerg 4-2 in finals.

12- Soo, OHL, Misty. 52-27.

13- Brasov, Hungary, Misty.  44-20.  Champs of 2 leagues, didn't count the Romanian record which was 24-6).

14- Trinec, Czech, Chris.  52-29, turned a 3rd place season into a championship by beating #2 in the semis and #1 in the finals.

15- Lokomotiv, KHL, Chris.  56-32. Capped one of their best ever seasons off by not even showing up in the finals against Magnitogorsk.

16- Angers, France, Misty.  38-15, stunned in the first round.

17- Carolina, NHL, Laurie. 58-35, put out in 2nd round.

18- Dallas, NHL, Shenan.  62-39, lost in conference finals to Edmonton.

19- Zemgale, Latvia, Laurie. 35-12, won the league title, but was running out of steam with a couple of Euro tourneys under their belts by the finals with Mogo.

20- Victoriaville, QMJHL, Shenan.  52-30, about the most successful of our Junior teams, made it to the semis.

21- Tychy, Poland, Shenan.  37-17. Beat Laurie's Katowice in both the Polish Cup and Polish Super Cups, but never made it to them in the playoffs.

22- Valerenga, Norway, Misty.  40-20, last to fall before the Storhamar rampage.

23- Grenoble, France, KC.  40-21, won the French Cup, but got slammed in the semis.

24- Farjestad, Sweden, Chris.  41-23, Won the reg season title, swept in first round.

25- Stavanger, Norway, Chris. 40-22, perennial champs but no match for Storhamar this year.

M10 show week #123

 

Well, it was a week of motion on the M10- only one song holds in place!

That's unusual!

Not as much as it seems- now, one with no holds, that would be really unusual!

Not as much as ya think- it happened three weeks ago!

Gee, this line of discussion hit a dead end fairly rapidly!  Anyway, it leads to a three- debut week, and up first is a single from the upcoming lp, As It Ever Was, So It Will Be Again...

Ah shure hope the song ain't that long winded!

You get your wish!  At #10, the Decemberists and Oh, No....

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And I really got a surprise for you next!  But first...

Wait, whut surprise?

Don't you always say, build up the suspense?  Anyhow, our target year is 1974, and this week in Australia, Paper Lace was at the top with Billy Don't Be A Hero.  The song was #5 here, on it's way to the top- but by Canadians Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods!  That version was at #5 this week, and it is one of a handful of big hits for me NOW... that I just wasn't hearing on the radio THEN... I think mainly because I listened to WOWO, and songs like, say, Mac Davis doing One Hell Of A Woman, were beyond their pale.  Billy, as well, since it had that Vietnam theme.  Paper Lace's version got to #68 here, but zip zing in Canada.

On the other hand, Canada's #1 this week was #3 on it's way to #1 here- another favorite son, Gordon Lightfoot with Sundown.  It would make 4 in Australia, and thus wins this week's "song we all agree on" award.

Is that gonna be a new feature?

Knowing me, it'll be forgotten by next week.  Right now, Band On The Run was our #1, with Paul and the Wings to hit #1 in Canada... but apparently not released in Australia...

Before I give my top 5 for the week...

I know, I got it!  Debut #2 comes in at #8- it's from a just released lp that this guy's son found among his unreleased stuff, stripped it down to his voice and acoustic, added new backing tracks, and released it under the title, Songwriter.  Here's that Man In Black, Johnny Cash!

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Now, that there's music!  

No argument there, so good to have new stuff from one of my late, great heroes!  And now, my top 5 from this week in 1974...

5- Waterloo, ABBA.  Moving from 50 to 37 this week, it would stop at 10 on Cashbox (6 on Billboard), 7 in Canada, and #4 in ABBA-crazed Australia.

4- Rock And Roll Heaven, the Righteous Brothers.  Leaping from 35 to 16 this week, it would peak 4 on CB and in Canada, and 25 in Australia. Kind of a good week to mention that song!

3- Rikki Don't Lose That Number, Steely Dan.  Up from 28 to 23 this week, in Canada and on CB it would hit #3, and keeping with the theme, 30 in Australia.

2- Band On The Run, Wings.  We already hit the highlights here.  So let's get that high debut, and then I'll let you in on my top song.

Yepper!  This is another of those "anniversary remixes" that are so popular right now.  It was their first lp, ten years ago, called Wildwomen, and on this remix they get joined by the main man from Mumford and Sons, Marcus Mumford.  All the way up at 6, here's Lucius....

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That one's been on the shuffle for a while, doing the 'grow on me' bit.  Anyway, my top song from this week in 1974...

...Gordon Lightfoot's sundown!  Here's a story for you:  The first time Dad gave me money to pick out my own 45, I was so excited- but (once again, that WOWO thing)  I didn't recognize a whole lot of records that I liked;  It came down to Sundown, which was on it's way out nationally, but still top twenty here- and Bo Donaldson and The Heywoods, not with Billy, but the follow up, Who Do You Think You Are, which was just on it's way up.  I went with Bo.

That's just rivitin'.  Mind if'n I do the rest of the top ten while ya still have an audience?

Don't be cruel....

Hardy-har-har!  Anyways...

9- Lake Street Dive got shuffled down 2 with Better Not Tell You...

7- Dexy's up 3 with I'm Going To Get Free...

5- Down one in week # 9 fer Real Estate an' Somebody New...

4- Geowulf's Dolly bobs up 5 ta #4....

3- an' holdin', another anniversary remake, Wings an' Junior's Farm...

2- Outta the top spot, Lorde, an' Take Me To The River...

An' the new numero uno...

...Rainbow Kitten Surprise an' Meticulous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

An' now they've hit the top, I can start just sayin' "RKS"!

How very nice for you!  See you next time!

Wednesday Bible Study: The third seal

 

Rev 6:5  When he opened the third seal, I heard the third living creature say, "Come!" And I looked, and behold, a black horse! And its rider had a pair of scales in his hand. 

Rev 6:6  And I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures, saying, "A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and wine!" 

The third horseman heralds a famine on the land.  And after the war we talked about last time, this isn't a big surprise.  But there are a lot of facts and levels to this, so follow me on my journey of discovery.

Last time we talked about the Lord "raining fire on those who live in safety in the coastlands".  And I speculated whether this was a miraculous event or a nuclear war.  As it turns, it doesn't really matter.  I did some looking into 'nuclear winter'- what happens after such a war.  There have been two waves, decades apart, of scientific modelling on the subject; and without giving you a lot of footnotes, the gist was pretty much the same.  They decided to base their model on a "limited" nuclear war- using India and Pakistan for their subjects, figuring about 50 nukes set off.

What surprised me was that the models didn't talk so much about destruction by radiation, but from the firestorms unleashed by the explosions.  This is why I said it doesn't matter whether the disaster is man-made or miraculous- a firestorm is a firestorm.  They estimated 3 effects from the amount of ash and material pushed into the upper atmosphere.  One was the drop in average temperatures, somewhere between 3-7 degrees F.  Second was a hole ripped in the ozone later- remember the "aerosol threat"?  This would be much worse; Third would be a shortening of the growing season by at least 40 days.  Now, I just looked at some stats from the UK's NIH; taking 40 growing days from the year worldwide would cut our margin of being able to feed the whole world to zero.  Okay, so with some overcoats, greenhouses, and a whole lot of sunscreen, this SEEMS doable.  But...

Going back to the passage, we have to deal with that voice.  It was from the midst of the four Living Creatures- hence from close to God... but it doesn't seem to be God's voice, as John doesn't add the superlatives that he does for heavenly voices (for example, "a voice that sounded like thunder").  I think God is letting us hear something- from the WORLD.  Here I need to give you some of my learning process.

The commentators, whom I've told you earlier were stuck in, "It already happened" and were less than helpful, were very divided on the CAUSE of the famine.  Not that famines weren't common; in fact, there was one shortly after the writing of Revelation.  But WHAT the voice said-  "A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and wine!" - caused a variety of challenges for them.  One thing they did point out was, back in those days, disasters cause Rome to raise taxes on goods; owners of olive groves and vinyards would sometimes attempt to get out of those taxes by destroying some of their orchards- "Do not harm the oil and wine" thus makes some sense.  But I think it missed the point.

Remember last time, we drew the connection between the Living Creature who announced the catastrophe and the catastrophe itself.  This time, it is the One with the face 'like a man'.  What did that symbolize?  I tried to make this much harder than it was.  Another question revolved around a statement I found somewhere along the line:  We are always taught that "oil and wine" are luxury items, and thus this means the well-to-do.  Many of the commentators pointed out this was NOT the case, that they were essential items in THOSE days.  But, this wasn't going to be those days, it was a FUTURE day.  So I started digging into oil and wine, and found this.  It's a little later in the Revelation story, when physical Babylon is destroyed...

Rev 18:9  And the kings of the earth, who committed sexual immorality and lived in luxury with her, will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning. 

Rev 18:10  They will stand far off, in fear of her torment, and say, "Alas! Alas! You great city, you mighty city, Babylon! For in a single hour your judgment has come." 

Rev 18:11  And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo anymore, 

Rev 18:12  cargo of gold, silver, jewels, pearls, fine linen, purple cloth, silk, scarlet cloth, all kinds of scented wood, all kinds of articles of ivory, all kinds of articles of costly wood, bronze, iron and marble, 

Rev 18:13  cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and slaves, that is, human souls. 

Oil and wine- luxury items.  And Physical Babylon STILL had them at the end.  Now, I'll tie it all together.

So we have a famine- the poor will have to work a full day to get enough wheat to keep one person alive, or the 'cheap stuff' to keep 3 alive.  And no, you get no oil, you get no wine!  The Anti-Christ, the Ultimate Idol, is going to USE the war and the SURVIVABLE famine to concentrate control within his elite.  Thus you see why the Living Creature had the face like a man- it is a completely man-made, man-caused famine.  It is the lever he'll use to control the world...

Rev 13:16  Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, 

Rev 13:17  so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. 

Rev 13:18  This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666. 

Am I now going to go down the bunny trail of the number?  Not on your life!  Chuck Swindoll suggests that this number will only become apparent at that time, so that those who refuse the mark will have a way around the ban.  That will suffice for me.  But we have one more Living Creature left, and one more rider.  And as that Living Creature has the face of the eagle, I can't help thinking on the words of Jesus:  

Mat 24:28  For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered. 

A funny thing happened...

 And they kept on happening!  Let me start at the beginning.

This morning around 0540 AM I was headed for work.  I was on Coliseum (the east/west road) approaching the Goshen Road intersection (North/South, with me turning south).  About a 1/8th mile from the turn lane, there was a guy (I assume) in an SUV of some sort.  He was across a couple of the far lanes, angled away from me;  it looked like he was going to shoot across and go into one of the parking lots on the other side (this stretch, with turn lanes, medians, etc is I think 8 lanes total.)  I wasn't quite awake enough to realize at first he wasn't moving at all when I first saw him; after I'd covered about half the distance, he lurched forward, crossing all the lanes on my side, the median, and turning right onto the other lanes- directly into oncoming traffic.  He must have finally figured out he was making a boo-boo, and hung tight to the median (which was now a concrete barrier), cut in front of my turn lane, and with our light still red, proceeded right through the red light and the intersection.  Trust me, even at this point in the morning, this is NOT repeat NOT a light you wanna blow through.  Fortunately for Evel Kneivel, I think the light was just changing on the other direction (And when I say, "not a light to blow off", I mean, "Traffic on Goshen routinely runs the red at high speed to 'beat' the light"), and there was no "Earth shattering ka-boom" as they say in the comics.  Where he went from there, I don't know- but the absence of "Drunk driver" on the 5:30- 6 AM Police blotter tells me he made it... somewhere... in relative safety.

Second story, less extensive- more, scratch my head.  WOWO was giving the 4:30 PM weather forecast (conveniently given by TV meteorologist and taped around 4:30 AM as per usual).  Direct quote:  "We may we some occasional clouds pass through, but otherwise, it will be partly cloudy..."  So, does this mean that when it's partly cloudy, the clouds don't go anywhere?

Okay, that fun done, let's go with Misty and Daddy on an after work walk...

Another bright blue day

Misty decided we HAD to go up the hill... here's why

Once again, taking a long cut that gets us in the woods right behind Big Guy

Dark squirrel, white tail...

Going up river, as there is a fisher at the landing

"Ahhh... so much better..."

It's getting drier... might have a hard time with the frog hunting, baby

Raspberries!  Tiny, but delicious!

And this is where the third thing happened.  Misty smelled something, and went down the bank- and I think it was a fox she scared up!  It was too big for a bunny, too small for a deer, too fast for a groundhog, and all I saw was what looked to be a brushy tail with a white tip....

Pictures and stuff

 First of all, a story I've kept off the blog (for fear of jinxing)....

My Oklahoma Softball girls won their fourth straight National Championship Thursday night!  I have followed the core group about 90% of the way, and it's seriously hard to celebrate and not think about it's over- not just that there will never be a team like this again, but I won't be cheering for THESE girls ever again!  I could bombard you with stats, but let me keep it to this one:  For the first time, we came into the finals #2- it was a rough year (if you can possibly call 56-7 rough)- and we beat #1 8-3 and 8-4 (The only runs they gave up the entire World Series bracket!) to win it all.  Best thing is, these girls give all the glory to Jesus, their Lord and Savior!

Now, on to pictures...

All I have this week is Saturday and Sunday, so Saturday...

Up before the dawn- someone thinks first light= walk time...

Way off, deer #1

Raspberries about a week away...

Misty Frog Hunter, part one

Ducks at the river...

Misty's not interested- a friend of hers passed this way maybe five minutes before

Deer #2

Misty trying new trails to get off the Ravine path

Next, I have to show you something I just noticed.  Misty's side-splotches are a map of the world!

This side, North and South America...

This side, Europe, Asia, and Africa...

See that boat cover?  I cut that!

Our BA portrait for the night...

And now, Sunday...

Had to wait for big barky dog to go by...

That's okay, beautiful day

Big Guy

This squirrel can't decide if he's black or gray...

"Come to the dark side, Luke..."

At the Alumni Pond, Misty dragged me to the water so she could catch this...

I only wish the first pic I tried to take had worked, when she was right on this monster!  Not surprisingly, I pulled her back...

Somebody left dead chairs at the container...

Round two of Misty, Frog Hunter

'Skrat swimming off with lunch