Our country would be so much better off if we ripped the script from this commercial and applied it directly to every single person, entity, business, and gov’t agency immediately.
…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net
Archive for the ‘Links ‘n Stuff’ Category
The cleverly done animated vignette below is a couple of years old but I had never seen it. The lessons it imparts are important for the potential shift in education — a shift that might already be happening seeing as we are educating a batch of kindergartners who will be graduating in 2025. And while a business and economic shift might already be underway…..well, let’s just admit it — it IS already underway….. the educational side of things hasn’t budged yet.
Where is that going to leave our kids?
…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net
On our way back from our nice hike we passed by a crashed airplane in the middle of the island. It turns out that Johnathon Livingston Seagull author Richard Bach was involved in a plane crash on Friday. He was attempting to land his small amphibian plane on a grass airstrip in the middle of San Juan Island and caught his landing gear on some power lines. Those power lines essentially acted as they do in carrier landings and immediately arrested his flight bringing the small plane crashing down landing on its back.
While the accident scene was taped off and the plane is obviously severely damaged, the wreckage did not look as bad as I would expect. There was no fire, the fuselage and wings were mostly intact, and there were no little pieces strewn all over.
Please keep him and his family in your prayers. You can read local coverage on it here.
…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net
In San Diego last night, the whole 17 minute firework show went up in less than a minute due to some kind of error. In the pyro industry, this is called “sky puke”.
Let’s hope this doesn’t happen tomorrow night during our “Thunder Over Finchville”.
…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net
As promised, here are more pictures from our trip down to Texas.
As we entered the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex (a good friend of mine calls it the “mess-troplex” which I can support), we swung by the house I grew up in as a kid. My oldest daughter called me a creeper as I parked the car across the street and rolled the window down snapping pictures with my iPhone.
I texted the picture to my sister who couldn’t identify it without first figuring out that we were in Texas. I would agree with her because so many things have changed. And while the house has changes, most of those changes have been in me and my perspective. The house may be a different color and the tree in the front yard has grown a bit, but my perspective from a child to adult is what has made it so that I could not identify this house any other day you put the picture in front of me. When I was 7 years old the front lawn was the size of a football field. The driveway was massive for riding my bike down. The front porch was big enough for all my childhood friends. The sidewalk went forever and ever. It is interesting how things can change in the world but most importantly how WE can change.
If you ever get to Ft Worth, make sure you stick around at 11am or 4pm when they drive a small herd of Texas longhorns right down the middle of the street at the stockyards. It is a total tourist trap but a lot of fun to see.
I love Texas bluebonnets but they come out in April and we were about 2 months too late for them. However, this Indian Blanket flower is just as pretty.
We stopped by Cowboy Stadium on our way from our friends in Glen Rose to Frisco. It would have been nice to go through the place and check it out. However, greedy bastard Jerry Jones charges $17.50 a person for the SELF guided tour. You mean I need to pay almost a hundred bucks for my family for us to lead OURSELVES around your egomaniac behemouth? No thank you, Jerry.
Although I guess it makes sense you are charging people because your team sure isn’t making you money by winning!
Thankfully, my character hero Tom Landry is memorialized outside the stadium by a 9 foot tall statue and plaque. My wife took my picture next to him and I snapped this photo of his plaque. Tom Landry was a TRUE Dallas Cowboy.
And finally, when we returned home, my baking sensation daughter K made my favorite cookie with a souvenir we bought in Ft. Worth. Yummy and nice to look at.
…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net
While visiting some great family friends last week during our vacation to Texas, they took us to a very nice downtown Ft. Worth park — the Water Gardens. This park is a collection of fountains and walkways that forms a “water garden”. Below are some pictures as well as a snapshot of one of the descriptive information signs that give some of the history of the place.
I have a special interest in water fountains and this place was very unique and wonderful. It allowed for exploration, playfulness, creativity, and opportunities for the kids to be free. The only downside is that, depending on the Texas heat, you might want to jump into the pools to cool off which is strictly prohibited.
If you make your way into or through Ft. Worth, I highly recommend stopping by to check the Water Gardens out.
…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net
It is imperative that all of us STOP the modern day Hitler equivalent — Joseph Kony!
…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net
The video below is exploding virally across the net. And for good reason — it aims to make a change that we can all agree upon — eradicating the cruel, evil and hideous violence of abducting innocent African children from their homes and using them, mutilating them, and destroying them as sex slaves or youth soldiers.
It is a hard video to watch. But we cannot just sit by the sidelines and turn the channel or go back to our lattes. As our world becomes more connected, we must shine the bright light of truth into the cold, dark places where evil hides and reveal it as what it is. If you are not yet moved let’s put it another way — if your own child was abducted and put through this tortuous ordeal, would you do anything other than everything in your power to stop it and pursue justice?
“Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.” — Ephesians 5:11
Stop Joseph Kony in 2012!!!!!
— www.kony2012.com
…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net
Today my normal Friday morning pre-work routine of serving breakfast at Wayside Christian Mission and praying at 40 Days For Life had a few anomalies that made it stand out from a normal Friday.
The first was a reunion with Freeda (who I posted about back in April). I had only seen her once but she was a stand out ray of Jesus sunshine. She made an impression on me and my son — he frequently asked if we would see her last summer when he would join me. Unfortunately, we went the rest of 2011 without seeing her. However, I assisted a very sweet lady with donuts and a napkin. She warmed my heart and, while I did not immediately recognize her, my heart went to her. So when she came back for something I introduced myself to her and asked her name. When she said “Freeda” my eyes widened and I reacquainted her with me. She remembered that day long ago and she gave me a quick summary of what had been going on. We gathered together at the end of the food line and said a quick prayer with one another. She is such a blessed, Spirit-led sister in Christ whose prayer was heartfelt and Scriptural. It made my day to see her and, as I said in my previous post, it wasn’t 8am yet.
The next event was quite humorous. I was at the head of the line serving up ‘taters and handing the plate down range to my mentor friend who has been joining me at Wayside for the last several months. I was handing him a plate while trying to efficiently manage a new plate — which happens to be this big monstrosity plate like they hold up at Wimbledon. It is unwieldy and not terribly practical for food kitchen use because its large size dwarfs even the large portions of food that are put on it — which is a rare thing seeing as how we try to stretch all the meals in an effort to feed everyone that comes through. So, like some of the professional NFL running backs, I fumbled said plate. It only dropped a foot and a half but once it hit that linoleum tile floor it not only busted into pieces, but made the loudest breaking/clanging/smashing sound that filled the dining hall. I held up my hand in embarrassed acknowledgement and received an applause from the heckling homeless. However, I did receive appreciation from others on the food line knowing that the plate was out of place in its use there, and they were glad it was not headed out in a Hefty bag.
The last observation was while praying at 40 Days For Life. There was an older Nissan Maxima that was squealing loudly but not moving parked right in front of the abortion clinic. A tow truck was called and after some lengthy maneuvering with traffic and such, hooked up to the broken vehicle and proceeded to take it away. I commented to my friend Donna (a true saint and disciple of Jesus) that it was a metaphor for that place that kills babies and leaves mothers and fathers broken and carts them away. She agreed and it reminded me of another similar observation on that same sidewalk (see post here).
…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net
Today I started a new volunteer opportunity — a 7 week stint with the Louisville Junior Achievement organization. Every week for the next 7 weeks, I am in a high school class for 45 minutes to teach the JA’s Success Skills module. There were actually 13 business/community volunteers and we all spent time in class today teaching our different classes. It was very different than my normal day and it provided me a unique view into today’s public school teenagers that I don’t normally have.
What it also gave me was a reflection opportunity — if I could convey to those students what I know now, what would be the most important salient points?
- Learning never stops – it is a lifelong process. School does not define learning and learning does not define school.
- If you continue an open learning attitude, that alone will catapult you towards success.
- Attitude determines your altitude.
- Your youthful outlook, hopefulness and energy can compensate for lack of experience and naivety.
- Your hair, your clothes, your trends and your accessories don’t matter at all and don’t make you cool.
- Cool is fleeting. Knowledge is not.
- Look around at the folks around you. If they aren’t family, you probably won’t see them in 10 years.
- Trust the wisdom of those older than you but also don’t let them tell you it can’t be done (these are parts of the same coin like heads is to tails).
- Cherish the time you have — with youth, with family, with friends, with events. It might seem like time is creeping by, but it continues to accelerate until you can’t remember what’s going on.
- Don’t hang on to anything negative too long (emotions, grudges, friends, thoughts, the past).
- Nothing, absolutely nothing, beats the combination of a good attitude and hard work.
- Start your true relationship with Jesus sooner rather than later. Parents dragging you to church doesn’t count. You are now old enough to own it yourself.
I’m sure there are more but those are what came to mind. It made for an interesting exercise. I wonder if I would share this with them next week.
…..Dan at aslowerpace dot net
