On Vacation

I am away for the week so posting will be slow. Enjoy

Street signs.

I hate seeing all sorts of signs advertising stuff on the corners these days. After the hail storm there were tons of roof repair signs up. They drive me nuts. Well these signs popped up on the corner of Highway 74 & Sandy Creek, argghhhh. I thought about stopping and taking them down but I have been busy this week. Well on Wednesday I was on my way to Christian City (a local nursing home) and saw that these guys had put there sign on the corner of a small local cemetery...I could not let this stand. So I stopped and uprooted them, after that I called the company to complain. I took them home and made my own sign., which you can see below. I went out today to put my sign out and to uproot their two signs on my street. I now have another sign to put up...what should I put on the sign?

Call to complain if you like: The offending corner was the cemetery on the corner of Milam Rd and Lees Lake Rd.

My street corner with my new sign. You can see it as you drive. Have a suggestion on what else I should put up?

Just in case you wanted to know

Now you do, enjoy! Click for a better view.

Lets try that again...

...this time with some emotion! Drew really could have shown some more excitement don't you think. You be the judge.

This should be good news to most people

You know DEET, well it has some nasty stuff in it and I generally don't like to use it, but I will when I must. Well here is some good news, hopefully something better...and soon!

This is an incredible story

I get plenty of emails. People like to send me all sorts of notes and emails with this kind of stories. I thought this one was touching so I am posting it here. Enjoy!

In 1986, Peter Davies was on holiday in Kenya after graduating from Northwestern University .

On a hike through the bush, he came across a young bull elephant standing with one leg raised in the air. The elephant seemed distressed, so Peter approached it very carefully.

He got down on one knee and inspected the elephant's foot and found a large piece of wood deeply embedded in it. As carefully and as gently as he could, Peter worked the wood out with his hunting knife, after which the elephant gingerly put down its foot. The elephant turned to face the man, and with a rather curious look on its face, stared at him for several tense mom ents. Peter stood frozen, thinking of nothing else but being trampled. Eventually the elephant trumpeted loudly, turned, and walked away. Peter never forgot that elephant or the events of that day.

Twenty years later, Peter was walking through the Chicago Zoo with his teenaged son. As they approached the elephant enclosure, one of the creatures turned and walked over to near where Peter and his son Cameron were standing. The large bull elephant stared at Peter, lifted its front foot off the ground, then put it down. The elephant did that several times then trumpeted loudly, all the while staring at the man.

Remembering the encounter in 1986, Peter couldn't help wondering if this was the same elephant. Peter summoned up his courage, climbed over the railing and made his way into the enclosure. He walked right up to the elephant and stared back in wonder. The elephant trumpeted again, wrapped its trunk around one of Peter legs and slammed him against the railing, killing him instantly.

Probably wasn't the same elephant.

This is for all of my friends who send me those heart-warming stories.

Sung stuck in my head...

Just take a listen to this group, more after the video...

The group is called Libera (here and here) and they are a boy choir from London. I cannot seem to get their music out of my head, so I thought I would share their music with you, then I won't be the only one with their songs on repeat within my noggin. Enjoy

Cold water?

People think water in the baptismal font is too cold, what if we did something like this? Eeeeekkk!

This is just sad...

I read this article and thought how sad for these people. Well I am sure there is someone somewhere thinking this is sad, no sympathy here. It just seems to me the standard operating procedure for big business, even one going down the tube. It is just sad...

Bagel and ???

So after the CSMG I flew out of DCA. I got there earlier than I needed in hopes of getting on an earlier flight, but none where had, no worries. I went to the Crown Room and relaxed. I also used their massage chair for a while and my back thanked me for the time in the massage chair. Anyway I needed lunch so I went to a bagel company named after a famous scientist called "Famous scientist last name, bro.'s" (notice how I am not saying their name???) Anyway I am a bit miffed so I would like to start a new meme for this blog titled : Stuff that bugs me.

Stuff that bugs me: #1: Not getting what you ordered...or better..."here is what you paid us for but we did not go through all the steps of putting it together like you wanted, so here go do it yourself."

Let me explain. I went to that bagel place and ordered a Peanut butter & Jelly Bagel, toasted. Well it was a bagel, with peanut butter, toasted. I only realized that it did not have the jelly when I sat back down in the Crown Room to eat it. So I packed up all my stuff and went to find out why no jelly. When I got back down to that bagel store and asked about my jelly the young lady working said: "Oh", as she handed me three packets of jelly, "sorry about that. Have a good day." What??? No I paid you for a PB&J bagel, now that is what I want; I thought silently. But wha... But how... Didn I pay you for your labor to put it all together for me. The look on my face must have tipped her off that I was confused/upset so she said: "Oh, the knifes are at the end of the bar you can spread it on down there...Next customer please." I am sure I looked the part of a spoiled brat as I mumbled to myself and spread my jelly on my bagel. I thought, and not too unfounded I believe, that the PB&J bagel would have all parts already included, guess not...That just bugs me.

FAIL

I am guessing the calendars are 50% off because they are wrong? Notice January 1st on this calendar is on Sunday...FAIL

Cake Problems

Here is a link to snopes regarding a cake mishap...since they blame mega-lo-mart all the better. enjoy

Why I dis-like Mega-lo-mart

Ok I know Mega-lo-mart is not real but I do not want to say the other company name here, so...
Next time you think the other mart is so great, remember Deborah Shank, and the people behind the mart. What ever happened to TG&Y, and the halcyon days of my youth.

The cycle begins...

Well, here we go again...
Today began the round for penance services. Usually these happen in Advent but mercifully Fr. Jimmy at OLM scheduled their penance service outside of the season of Advent, when priest are generally quite busy going from parish to parish for penance services. There were two other priest also at the service today but I did not take photos then, only at lunch. You see Fr. Michael Kingery and Mr. Danny Dorsel here reclining a bit after a wonderful meal.



And here you have yours truly and Fr. Jimmy Adams, Chaplin at OLM. It was a wonderful time for the students to receive the Sacrament of reconciliation. Just in case you did not know I really enjoy the Sacrament of reconciliation and the unique opportunities it provides me with penitents. So why the HMPH above...well

As you see it appears that Christmas is blooming at OLM, which is their choice...but it frustrates me. I hear people year after year tell me that Christmas gets here earlier and earlier (last time I checked we begin celebrating Christmas with the Vigil Mass on Christmas Eve {or EPI}). They say things like, "I went to the store and they already have Christmas up, and it's only October!?!" I could not agree more. The problem is once you move the beginning of Christmas from any time before the beginning of the anticipatory Mass for Christmas begins that day, and any time is before Christmas actually begins (and therefore not Christmas yet) which is as good as any other date. It also adds to the Christmas fatigue many people experience, really how many Christmas decorations do you know that go up before Advent and come down by the 26th of December. I liken all this to a big surprise birthday party:

The people all gather and get ready for the arrival of the guest of honor. Then the guest of honor arrives with the obligatory surprise!!! Then the party really gets going. A great time is had by all...

What we see happening in our country today is more like this:

The people all gather and get ready for the arrival of the guest of honor...by eating and drinking and enjoying the party. Then the guest of honor arrives with the obligatory surprise!!! Then the people leave the party right after the "obligatory surprise!!!" because they are tired of celebrating because they have been going for a while now and don't have any energy to carry on..."but happy birthday, anyway...got to run, K thx bye bye merry x-mas.?..."

So what could be the answer...glad you asked. We have the new Liturgical year beginning this week as we being Advent. Advent is a time for us to anticipate the Coming of the Lord at the end of time and also being born to us anew at Christmas. What if we made a conscious effort to wait, celebrate, enjoy and anticipate Christmas this Advent. Lets leave Christmas to The Christmas Season (Dec. 24 at the beginning of the Vigil of the solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord through January 13, 2008 after Evening Prayer II).
You know sometimes the Lord just puts you in the right place at the right time. Remember my earlier post on a the great Sunday I had in Berlin? Well when we went to Mass I saw these stickers and thought: THANK YOU LORD! I have been looking for something like this for a long time, how perfect...
This is a campaign to save Christmas, I mean really save Christmas (not like that phony baloney stuff Bill O'Reilly goes on about) YES lets keep Christ in Christmas but while we are at it lets keep Christmas in Christmas. ((as an aside it is sometimes like those old Reese's commercials, hey you got Christmas in my Advent etc...)) Anyway in the campaign to save Christmas and turn away from Consumerist Christmas, I think the Germans at Bonifatius Werk are doing a great job! You can see their main page here, their specific weihnachtsmannfreie zone page here and a nice game where St. Nicholas has to avoid the nefarious Santa Claus here. (All those pages are translated thanks to google, although not the best translations, if you speak German you can always turn off the translation.) So if you see that sticker of Santa around you know what it is about (hey if you rearrange the letters SANTA spells SATAN??!!! hehehehe). Anyway, now you somewhat know where I am coming from on all this, and now you know why I said I feel like that LOLcat...HMPH!

Peace!